Coming out of high school, Christopher Paul Curtis, ’00, enrolled in UM-Flint and got a job at the General Motors Fisher Body Plant No. 1. Though he would eventually leave U-M to work full time, this did not dampen his passion for the written word. Curtis and his co-worker alternated their work every 30 minutes, and it was during his breaks that Curtis catalyzed his craft. He published his first novel, “The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963” in 1995, which earned both a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Honor. Curtis would go on to pen works including “Bud, Not Buddy,” which won the 2000 Newbery Medal for excellence in American children’s literature.