Nan Graham was born in Tallahassee, Florida, and
grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She
graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an
A.B. in English and received her M.A.T. in English from the Citadel in
Charleston, South Carolina. Aside from her brief foray into the North
after graduation, when she worked in New York City, she has lived her
life in various parts of the South, and her books reflect her passion
for things Southern.
She began her teaching career in Manhattan and has
taught first grade, high school, and college; she currently teaches
honors courses in Southern literature at the University of North
Carolina at Wilmington. Graham has been a regular biweekly commentator
for WHQR Public Radio in Wilmington since 1995. Her on-air tag line, "a
lifelong Southerner," reveals the focus of her humorous commentaries on
growing up and growing old in the South. Her first collection of radio
essays, Turn South at the Next Magnolia, was on the SEBA
bestseller list and was praised as "relentlessly Southern" by author Pat
Conroy.
Graham has two grown children and a granddaughter.
She lives in Wilmington, North Carolina with her husband, Ernie and
Sumter, a semi-feral cat.
