“Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself” with Joe Mills

The working title for Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was “First Impressions.” How we meet characters can tell us about them, but it can also mislead us, depending on the framing of our perspectives. Are we seeing them through someone else’s eyes? Through theirs? In this workshop, we’ll consider ways characters can be introduced and how the context shapes our reactions.

A professor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills holds an endowed chair, the Susan Burress Wall Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities, and has been honored with a UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching. In April 2025, he published his ninth volume of poetry – The Holiday Cycle – with Press 53. His collection This Miraculous Turning was awarded the North Carolina Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry for its exploration of race and family. His other work includes the collection Bleachers: Fifty-Four Linked Fictions and numerous pieces of…