Shane Wilson is a story-teller. It doesn’t quite matter what format those stories come in. Short stories. Novels. Plays. Songs. Podcasts. Shane’s always looking for the story and figuring out how to share it. 

Shane moved to Fayetteville in 2014, “for love. But it didn’t work out.” he says. (Another story) By day, he teaches in the English Department at Fayetteville Technical Community College. By night, he works on his own creations. He’s released two novels to date: A Year Since the Rain and The Smoke in His Eyes. A third is with his editor while he’s writing the first draft of a fourth. There are numerous short stories, including “The Boy Who Kissed The Rain”, which he adapted into a stage play after it won the 2017 Rilla Askew Short Fiction Prize. 

Then there’s Sequoia Rising, Shane’s band with fellow musician Jerry Smith. “I decided to learn to play guitar when I wrote Smoke,” Shane explained, “and then the muse hit me with the song “Before We Fade Away”.” Again, they are most interested in telling their own stories through their music. That led Shane to a writer’s retreat over the summer at an isolated artists’ cabin in the NC mountains. “I came back with an entire album’s worth of songs,” Shane grinned. (yet more stories) 

When I asked whether he considers himself a “teaching artist” or a “teacher and artist”, he admitted he “tried to compartmentalize but it’s absurd to think parts don’t creep into the classroom.” He loves teaching and knew from an early age he wanted to be in the classroom, partially because he had formative educational experiences in school with his own English and Literature teachers. “They allowed me to think differently and acknowledged my capacity for weird or out of the box thinking.” He tries to do the same for his community college students. “These are the people who need me: they need an advocate in academia.” 

In addition to his own artistic work, Shane is interested in collaborating with other artists on interesting projects. Fayetteville has quite a few local authors and Shane helped pull many of them together in December 2018 to partake in a literary scavenger hunt, leaving copies of their books downtown and encouraging the finders to post pictures with the hashtag #freereadsfay. He can often be found at Java Expressions Live, the longest running open mic in Fayetteville (yet more stories), at The Coffee Scene on Sunday and Monday evenings, trying out new tunes or talking with founder/master of ceremonies Neil Ray about some new act or idea. 

When asked what he is most excited about about Fayetteville, Shane commented on how “there are different pockets, something to cohere to but everybody has their own identity.” He talked about downtown’s regrowth and how there is a growing sense of an artistic and cultural community here. Much like the general atmosphere at Java Expressions, Fayetteville itself has a “If I can dream it, I can do it” vibe going on right now. Artists, teachers, collaborators like Shane play a huge role in that.