Max Steele

Max Steele, 83, distinguished author and professor of English, emeritus, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died August 1, 2005 in Chapel Hill.

Max Steele's books include "Debbie, The Cat and the Coffee Drinkers," and the short story collections "Where She Brushed Her Hair" and "The Hat of My Mother". His fiction brought him such honors as the Harper Prize, the Saxton Memorial Trust Award, the Mayflower Cup Award, and the O. Henry Prize, and he received grants for his work from the National Edowment for the Arts. A much admired and beloved teacher and mentor to generations of writers, Steele directed the UNC Creative Writing Program from 1967 to 1986, many of his former students later becoming acclaimed authors, including Randall Kenan, Jill McCorkle and Lawrence Naumoff.

Born in Greenville, South Carolina in 1922, Max Steele attended Vanderbilt University, served in the United States Army during World War II, first published in Harper's in 1944, and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1946. He then lived in Paris, where he was a friend and colleague of George Plimpton and a founding editor of The Paris Review. Steele returned to Chapel Hill to teach in the Creative Writing Program under Jessie Rehder, succeeding her as director upon her death in 1967 and, with such fellow teachers as Daphne Athas and Doris Betts, built it into a highly prized, nationally recognized undergraduate writing curriculum.

Max Steele is survived by two sons, Oliver Steele of Amherst, Mass., and Kevin Steele of Seattle, Wash.; and two grandchildren, Miles and Charlotte.

A graveside service will be held in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery on Satuday, August 6, 2005 at 7 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Max Steele Scholarship Fund, in care of the Arts & Sciences Foundation at UNC.

Walker's Funeral Home of Chapel Hill.