Daphne Athas (November 19, 1923 – July 28, 2020) was an American author, best known for the 1971 novel Entering Ephesus, which was included on Time magazine's Ten Best Fiction List of 1971.
She was born into affluence, but her family's financial situation was altered by the Great Depression, and they were forced to move to Carrboro, North Carolina, in 1938.
[6] During her time as a writing student at UNC she worked with Phillips Russell and Betty Smith, the author of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.
[9] In her book, Chapel Hill in Plain Sight she tells the story: One day the phone rang and the voice said: "Hello, this is Betty Smith."
"[10] In 1971 Athas's book Entering Ephesus was featured on Time's Ten Best Fiction List and was a Cosmopolitan Book-Club selection.
[11] Although fiction, the book features characters inspired by Athas's life, as it tells the story of a New England family who moves south after their fortune is lost.
[14] In 1991 Athas published Crumbs for the Bogeyman, a collection of poems, and in 2010 she wrote her most recent novel, Chapel Hill in Plain Sight: Notes from the Other Side of the Tracks.
[15] She goes into depth on how the town has changed over the course of the century, and shares her experiences with great artists who traveled to Chapel Hill over the years including Richard Wright, Paul Green, Gertrude Stein, and Clifford Odets.