Dr. Bill Grattan has been awarded the 2021 Jefferson-Pilot Professorship, the highest honor North Carolina Wesleyan University bestows upon a faculty member to recognize their scholarship, teaching and, community service. Dr. Grattan will share his creative work at his upcoming Jefferson-Pilot presentation on October 19, 2021 on the Wesleyan campus.

Now in his 18th year at the college, Dr. Grattan will collaborate with seven friends in performing a table reading of scenes from Cousin Audrey, his new novel manuscript. Set during the fall of 1983, the novel focuses on five cousins from a working-class neighborhood of Pittsburgh at a time when the city’s major industry, steel, was in decline. While the two youngest cousins, Will and Jake, attend an out-of-state college, the next two oldest, Nick and Frank, struggle to find steady employment, with few prospects in a depressed economy. Audrey, the oldest of the five, and the cohesive force in the group, has been employed for 15 years as an administrative assistant at a downtown Pittsburgh law firm that, among other clients, represents U.S. Steel and Mellon Bank. Very close as children, the five cousins find themselves drifting apart and headed in different trajectories.

Please join us for the table read of Dr. Grattan’s new novel at 7:00 P.M. in the Powers Recital Hall, Dunn Center on Tuesday, October 19, 2021.