Editor’s Note: This article contains reference to substance use.

Christopher Nelson, an NC State Master of Fine Arts graduate, had a rocky path writing and publishing his first book. His story gives light to the power of determination in accomplishing a dream.

Nelson’s “Where You Are From” — a collection of short stories centered around his upbringing in Western North Carolina — is now available for purchase from the publisher, Redhawk Publications. 

“Where You Are From” creates vivid imagery in its depiction of common childhood experiences, allowing every reader to relate to the narrative and invoking complex emotions in the short story format. The book is flying off of shelves — Redhawk has already sold out of its original supply. But the path to authorship was not always so clear for Nelson.

“Growing up, I was not expected to go to college,” Nelson said. “I played the trumpet and that’s what got me in. And I just happened to fall into an English class and then I became an English major. … But after college, I decided I wanted to be a writer. I love to write and I had an obsession with things that had happened in childhood.”

In 2008, Nelson earned his MFA in creative writing at NC State. Following the completion of his graduate degree, he worked in Raleigh in a public service role as a paralegal with the NC Department of Corrections, assisting detained individuals with writing legal letters and memoranda.

“I had saved something like 11,000 days in custody,” Nelson said. “And that’s just time people would have served in jail or prison over what they were sentenced to.”

After serving the Raleigh community for half a decade, Nelson headed to Kansas State University where he taught in the English department for seven years. But over time, coupled with challenging family circumstances, his struggles with alcoholism worsened.

“I literally drank myself to death, ” Nelson said. “I ended up four days in a coma, five days intubated and I was revived in a bathtub. It’s nothing that I’m proud of, but that is part of my story and I think that’s good to admit because I’m still alive now.”

During such a challenging period of his life, Nelson found it difficult to make headway with his writing career.

“I wrote several failed novels during that time,” Nelson said. “And by failed novels, I mean novels that just fell apart. I wrote 100,000 words and deleted 110,000 words. But I learned a hell of a lot while I was doing it.”

Despite the roadblocks, Nelson’s ideas for the short story collection persisted and finally made it to the printing press after years spent being tailored and perfected.

Patricia Thompson, acquisitions editor at Redhawk who is tasked with deciding which ideas are worth pursuing, made her opinion of “Where You Are From” clear from the start.

“I always send a manuscript to different people to read, called beta readers,” Thompson said. “A lot of the time, the beta readers will come back and say it stinks. But with Chris’ book, it got all thumbs up. … It’s as if he has been writing for decades. I know he’s got his MFA from State, but man, he was born to write.”

Nelson first got in contact with Redhawk not for his own writing ambitions, but to create an anthology for students at his high school. After the episode in 2020, Nelson returned home to western North Carolina to teach English at the high school level. His devotion to his students led him to help students pursue their own dreams of getting published.

“He successfully navigated putting together an anthology for high school seniors and juniors,” Thompson said. “During that process of him putting together this book of writing, he inquired, ‘Hey, I’ve done some writing, how does this work.’ … He was working for other people and then he asked about himself.”

Nelson, a selfless man who overcame near death, has not let that incident shape him. Instead, he has brought life to his community and his works.