N. Anne Creed

Anne Creed (Nellie Anne Creed) died on July 31, 2026 in Columbia, South Carolina from complications of urothelial cancer. She was fortunate to be surrounded by family and friends. Anne was born May 9, 1955 in Columbia, the daughter of Nellie Watts Creed and Smyrl Alvin Creed.

Anne was a 1977 graduate of Queens College (Charlotte, N.C.) and received an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in 1979 and an MFA in Creative Writing-Prose from Vermont College in Montpelier, Vermont in 1997. She valued the friends she made at Queens College as one of her life’s greatest treasures.

She briefly worked at the family construction business before starting her career as a writer at Chernoff/Silver and Associates where she worked as a copywriter, senior writer, account executive and director of public relations. She remembers her time there as a significant writing apprenticeship--writing daily to high standards and under pressure--that brought her control of the language and a desire to be better. It was a joyful time of being creative and working with some of the finest creatives anyone could have the privilege of knowing. Chernoff/Silver was a crazy, supportive and always entertaining place. She treasured the friends she made there and was honored to work alongside them.

She also worked at the University of South Carolina in marketing and communications for the Darla Moore School of Business and then as program manager for the Center for Teaching Excellence, which was a great job working for a wonderful boss.

Anne also wrote creatively, starting out with plays (all comedies) because she didn’t think she knew grammar well enough to write prose. With plays, all you have to do is write like people talk. She won some minor awards and had plays produced in both Carolinas and Off-off Broadway. The greatest outcome of her playwriting was that Marvin Chernoff hired her to be a writer because he said that advertising is writing the way that people talk, and based on her plays, he knew that she had that down.

She began writing short stories while at Chernoff/Silver. Her stories were published in a few literary magazines, she was a four-time winner of the South Carolina Fiction Project, and a recipient of the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Fiction Fellowship, which carried a $7,500 award. She was on the South Carolina Humanities’ Council Reader’s Circuit and was a member of the board of governors, South Carolina Academy of Authors. She also was admitted to and attended Yale University’s Summer Writing Program.

Anne started horseback riding as a child and spent most afternoons after school on the back of a horse. She continued riding as an adult where she switched from foxhunting and hunt-seat riding to dressage and eventing (dressage, stadium jumping and cross-country jumping). She worked very hard to be competitive, practicing every day after work and riding in the cold and rain to keep her horse, Jack, in shape. She recalled that this was a wonderful time in life and, to plagiarize Faulkner, that there were few things on the inside of a woman that the outside of a horse couldn’t fix.

She shared her love of horses with her daughter, Madeleine. Some of her happiest memories were of watching Madeleine ride and hauling Madeleine and her horse to riding lessons or to competitions, sometimes with a sneaky orange cat stowed away in the truck. She is sorry to miss out on Madeleine riding again when the time is right.

She is sorry to miss out on so many things, and has asked that her friends step in to be Madeleine’s mom, even though Madeleine is a doctor and doesn’t need a mother, because we never outgrow our need for a mother.

Madeleine was the greatest joy and love in her life.

Anne was a member of Forest Lake Presbyterian Church (PCUSA). In previous PCUSA churches, Anne served as deacon and Stephen Minister. She never could understand how God was so hard to find when God is everywhere. Her search was lifelong. She gave up on trying to figure it out and looked forward to whatever God has planned next, trusting that she will be healed in body and reunited with those she loves. She said that none of us know what we are getting into when we are born into this world. No telling what great and wonderful thing awaits when we die into the next world. She hopes she will be greeted by Pavarotti singing.

After Anne was diagnosed with stage 4, metastatic cancer in January 2019 and entered treatment shortly after that, she found herself feeling too bad to do much of anything. But she had a camera and a window, and there were birds in the yard. That’s where her last great pastime was born—bird photography. She said it wasn’t about birdwatching and it wasn’t about photography: it was closer to hunting birds, but with a camera. It brought her great joy and distraction.

She and her family thank Theodore Gourdin, M.D., and his team at MUSC in Charleston for the excellent care she received that extended her life by many years while continuing to give her a great quality of life. He is an extraordinary doctor who understood how to manage her disease and to give her the support she needed to live well. She knew she was fortunate to find him. She also thanks the many friends who drove her and went with her to treatment. She would also not have lived so long or so well without them.

She is survived by her daughter, Madeleine Anne Smith (Clay); grandson Erik Hagan Smith, granddaughter Lilija Elise Smith; brother, Robert Alvin Creed (Susan); nephew, Daniel Alvin Creed (Donna); niece, Ellen Creed Branham (Forrest); niece, Marie Creed Ingle (Mark); and numerous great nephews.

There will be a Service of Celebration of Witness to the Resurrection at Forest Lake Presbyterian Church on Tuesday, August 4, 2026 at 2:00pm, followed by a reception in the church parlor. The service will be livestreamed, and may be accessed at the following link: Live Streaming Services - Forest Lake Presbyterian Church

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in Anne’s memory be made to the MUSC Foundation for Dr. Gourdin’s research, Hollings Cancer Center at giving.musc.edu or by check to the MUSC Foundation, 18 Bee Street, MSC 450, Charleston, SC 29425 or to the FLPC Endowment Fund, Forest Lake Presbyterian Church (Memorial for Anne Creed), 6500 North Trenholm Rd, Columbia, SC 29206 or at https://flpc.org/give.