No One Is Coming to Save Us (Watts) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—North Carolina
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; Ph.D., University of Missouri
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; Whiting Award; Ernest J. Gaines Award
• Currently—lives in Pennsylvania


Stephanie Powell Watts is an American author, who first novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, was published in 2017. Watts, born in the foothills of North Carolina, received her BA from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She now lives with her husband and son in Pennsylvania where she is an associate professor of English at Lehigh University.

atts won a Whiting Award in 2013 and an Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence in 2012] for her short story collection We are Taking Only what We Need, a book of 11 stories chronicling the lives of African-Americans in North Carolina. Her short fiction has been included in two volumes of the Best New Stories from the South anthology and honored with a Pushcart Prize.

Her debut novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, follows the return of a successful native son to his home in North Carolina and his attempt to join the only family he ever wanted but never had. As Ms. Watts describes it, “Imagine The Great Gatsby set in rural North Carolina, nine decades later, with desperate black people.” (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/12/2018.)