- Scholar:
- E. Parker Woltz
- High School:
- Episcopal High School
- Home Town:
- Mt. Airy, North Carolina
- Area of Study:
- Business Administration, Creative Writing
- Summer 1:
- AID Atlanta
Web site
Atlanta, Georgia - Summer 2:
- South Africa
The Big Issue Magazine
Cape Town - Summer 3:
- Journalism Internship
China Business Focus magazine
Shanghai, China
Parker Woltz graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in May 2008 with honors in creative writing and an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from the Kenan-Flagler Business School. Parker is proud of both of her degrees, but is particularly passionate about her accomplishments as a writer. During her time in Chapel Hill, she won several writing awards, including second place in the annual Mini-Max writing competition and second place in the Robert Ruark contest for creative nonfiction, completed a minor in creative writing, and wrote a novella for her senior honors thesis.
Parker honed her writing skills her first three years in Chapel Hill, taking introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses in fiction writing. She was accepted into the senior honors thesis course for fiction writing; a year-long, twelve person course that culminates in an honors thesis in fiction. With the guidance of her classmates and Professor Bland Simpson, Parker wrote a novella titled Low Life. The story is based on real-life events that occurred in her hometown of Mount Airy, North Carolina. Her manuscript was bound and is now archived in UNC's Wilson Library.
The Robertson Scholars Program played an integral role in Parker's development as a writer. As a Robertson Scholar, Parker left her home campus in Chapel Hill to live and study at Duke for a semester, where she had the chance to study the art of language with esteemed Duke University faculty. She also had the opportunity to live in Cape Town, South Africa during her second Robertson Summer, where she wrote for The Big Issue magazine, a non-profit publication that focuses on social issues. The Robertson Program also enabled Parker to work for China Business Focus magazine in Shanghai, China, reporting on topics such as China's political economy. These experiences were often challenging, sometimes daunting, and always exhilarating; connecting them all was Parker's passion for the people she met and the stories she heard along the way. A personal essay based on her experience living in Shanghai was recently published on the website hitotoki.org.
Parker's degree from Kenan-Flagler prepared her to enter the business world after graduation; she is currently working for Deloitte Consulting in Atlanta in the Strategy and Operations practice.
Parker continues to write and hopes to publish her work.
