Buckner Lecture to Feature Author David Joy

UNCW's Department of English will host award-winning author David Joy for the 2026 Buckner Lecture on Feb. 25.

A twelfth generation North Carolinian, Joy grew up in the Piedmont along the Catawba River, moved away at eighteen, and has spent the last 22 years a hundred miles west in the mountains of Jackson County. His work is place-driven and deeply rooted to Appalachia, and has been translated into six languages. In 2023, his debut novel "Where All Light Tends to Go" was adapted to film starring Billy Bob Thornton and Robin Wright.

Joy is the author of five novels: "Those We Thought We Knew," winner of the 2023 Willie Morris Award and the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Prize; "When These Mountains Burn," winner of the 2020 Dashiell Hammett Award; "The Line That Held Us," winner of the 2018 Southern Book Prize; "The Weight of This World;" and "Where All Light Tends to Go," Edgar finalist for Best First Novel. His stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in a number of publications, most recently Garden & Gun, The New York Times Magazine, and TIME.

He is also the author of the memoir "Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman’s Journey" and a co-editor of "Gather at the River: Twenty-Five Authors on Fishing," a book he spearheaded to raise money for the CAST For Kids Foundation.

The Buckner Lecture is an endowed annual event that features discussion from notable authors. It will take place at 6 p.m. Feb. 25, and is free and open to the public.