Author Profile

Graham Hillard

Graham Hillard joined the Martin Center in the spring of 2022 after fifteen years at Trevecca Nazarene University, where he taught creative writing, literature, and composition. He holds a bachelor’s degree in communication arts from Union University and an MFA in creative writing from New York University.

Hillard’s opinion pieces and articles have appeared widely, in such venues as the Los Angeles Review of Books, Memphis: The City Magazine, The Oxford American, and The Weekly Standard. He has written on many occasions for National Review and is a contributing writer for the Washington Examiner, where he writes about film and television. On two occasions, his work has been listed among the year’s “notables” in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Best American Essays anthology. He was a finalist for the 2012 Livingston Award for Young Journalists in the “local reporting” category and the recipient of a 2017 individual artist fellowship for poetry from the Tennessee Arts Commission.

In addition to his duties at the Martin Center, Hillard is the founding editor of the Cumberland River Review, a digital literary quarterly. His first book of poems, Wolf Intervals, was published in the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade Books) in 2022. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and children.

Articles by Graham Hillard


Chapel Hill Should Make a Political Hire

What strange things people say. Shortly before accepting the presidency of Michigan State University earlier this month, UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz made clear that he would not tolerate “undue…


In Praise of Whistleblowers

What is racism’s limiting principle? At times, the answer has to do with practicalities: Xi Jinping would presumably enslave every last Uyghur if geopolitical and administrative circumstances allowed it. Or…





The State of AI-Chatbot Detection

On April 4 of this year, the academic-services firm Turnitin activated a software designed to catch a certain kind of student plagiarist. As has been widely discussed on the Martin…


Wage Discrimination at App State

Shortly after our February report on DEI activity at Appalachian State University, the Martin Center received a tip from a concerned App State employee. According to this faculty member (who…



The University as Life Coach

What do you call an employee who is emotionally unprepared to work? Why, a recent college graduate, of course. So says a new report by the Mary Christie Institute, a…