This year, the Frederick Honors College has introduced their very first writer-in-residence, born and bred Pittsburgh writer, celebrity, and humorist, Damon Young. Damon’s first book, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Nonfiction and won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Over the years he has been a columnist for GQ, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and a columnist for the Washington Post Magazine. We sat down with Damon to learn more about how he got his start in writing and what he hopes to do here at the University of Pittsburgh. Damon’s interest in writing began in middle school, when his dad introduced him to creative language by helping him with his take-home essays from school.