Patricia L Childress (she/her)
Associate Professor College of Arts & Sciences Department of English Charlotte
Biography
With a background in literature, writing, teaching, cultural anthropology and public speaking, Patricia Childress has been a full-time faculty member at JWU since 2004, the inaugural year of the Charlotte Campus. She teaches Introduction to Food Writing, as well as other English classes including Ancient Greek History and Modern Greek Culture with the JWU Study Abroad program in Greece.
Childress has explored Egyptian mythology while living and teaching in Egypt, became enmeshed in Native American mythology while living and teaching in Oklahoma, and began a fascination with the Quiche Mayan and Incan cultures while climbing the pyramids in Chichen Itza, and in Macho Picchu. She has been a local food and wine writer since the early 1990s, and a guest at wineries in Australia, Portugal, Italy, France and the U.S. From September 1995 through May 2016, Childress wrote more than 1000 food-related articles for Creative Loafing, a Charlotte-based weekly. She has been a frequent guest speaker on the subject of food and wine on local radio shows, area universities, museums, churches and local organizations.
Education
MA, University of North Carolina Charlotte
English
College English Association, ““I Declare This Mine”: Visual Autobiography and the Graphic Memoir as Pedagogical Declaration,” Charlotte, NC, United States. (March 27, 2026).
College English Association, “Through the Prism of Science Fiction: Exploring Freedom, Autonomy, and Constraint,” Johnson & Wales University-Charlotte, Philadelphia, PA, United States. (March 29, 2025).
College English Association, “Wings of the Fantastic: The Convergent and Divergent Nature of Dragons in Fantasy Literature from the ancient Argonautica to House of the Dragon,” San Antonio, TX, United States. (March 31, 2023).
The Meaning of Food: Interdisciplinary Conference on Representations of Food in the Arts & Humanities, ““The Death of the Restaurant Critic: How Pay-for-Play has Undermined Food Journalism”,” Greensboro, NC, United States. (March 26, 2020).
The World of Food: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on What We Eat and Grow, ““Fantastic Food: Food as Magic or Reality’s Touchstone in Fantasy Literature”,” Winthrop University, Rockhill, SC. (February 22, 2019).
