Doris Betts, born Doris June Waugh, was born in Statesville, North Carolina on June 4, 1932. Her childhood was one of the typical southern girl with parents who worked in local mills. 

     In high school, Doris worked as a reporter for her local paper, The Statesville Daily Record. In 1950, Doris entered the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina, now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. During her junior year, Doris left college to marry Lowry M. Betts. 

     In 1953, Betts won the Mademoiselle Magazine College Fiction Contest which she had entered a short story in before her departure from college. Other notable winners of this award are Sylvia Plath and Joyce Carol Oates. She also went on to win a Putnam award for her collection of short stories, The Gentle Insurrection, during this period.

    In 1966, Betts became a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She served as Assistant Dean of the Honors Program in the English Department while at the University. In 1980, she was named a UNC Alumni Distinguished Professor of English. When Betts retired from teaching, The Doris Betts Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing endowed chair was named in her honor. 

     Through her many short stories and novels, Betts won many awards, including three Sir Walter Raleigh awards, the Southern Book Award, the North Carolina Award for Literature, the John Dos Passos Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Medal.

     Betts’ most widely printed story, “The Ugliest Pilgrim,” was converted into Violet. As Violet, Betts’ work became a musical that won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and a short film that won an Academy Award.

     Other notable works from Betts include The Astronomer and Other Stories, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Other Stories, The Scarlet Thread and Souls Raised from the Dead which was on The New York Times’ 1994 top twenty book list.

     Betts passed away April 21, 2012 in her Pittsboro home; however, her words and writing will last forever. After her passing, The North Carolina Writers’ Network decided to honor Betts through the annual Doris Betts Fiction Prize.

     Betts is buried at the Pittsboro Presbyterian Church cemetery.