Fellowship of Southern Writers

The Fellowship of Southern Writers is an American literary organization that celebrates the creative vitality of Southern writing as the mirror of a distinctive and cherished regional culture. Its fellowships and awards draw attention to outstanding literary achievement and help to nurture new talent.

U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey introduces a 2013 event celebrating the Fellowship of Southern Writers at the Library of Congress.

The fellowship was founded in 1987 in Chattanooga, Tennessee by 21 Southern writers and other literary luminaries. ^[1] The group meets in every odd-numbered year, usually during the SouthWord Literature Festival hosted by the Southern Lit Alliance in Chattanooga, TN.^{[ citation needed ]}

Charter members

• A.R. Ammons
• Cleanth Brooks
• Fred Chappell
• George Core
• James Dickey
• Ralph Ellison
• Horton Foote
• Shelby Foote
• John Hope Franklin
• Ernest J. Gaines
• George Garrett
• Blyden Jackson
• Madison Jones
• Andrew Nelson Lytle
• Walker Percy
• Reynolds Price
• Louis D. Rubin, Jr.
• Mary Lee Settle
• Lewis P. Simpson
• Elizabeth Spencer
• William Styron
• Walter Sullivan
• Peter Taylor
• Robert Penn Warren
• Eudora Welty
• C. Vann Woodward

Elected members

• Wendell Berry (1990)
• Ellen Douglas (Josephine Haxton) (1990)
• C. Eric Lincoln (1990)
• Romulus Linney (1990)
• Lee Smith (1993)
• Monroe Spears (1993)
• Charles Wright (1993)
• Doris Betts (1995)
• Marsha Norman (1995)
• James Applewhite (1997)
• Richard Bausch (1997)
• Clyde Edgerton (1997)
• Gail Godwin (1997)
• William Hoffman (1997)
• Donald Justice (1997)
• Dave Smith (1997)
• Joseph Blotner (2001)
• Allan Gurganus (2001)
• Beth Henley (2001)
• Josephine Humphreys (2001)
• Bobbie Ann Mason (2001)
• Henry Taylor (2001)
• Madison Smartt Bell (2003)
• Kaye Gibbons (2003)
• Barry Hannah (2003)
• Yusef Komunyakaa (2003)
• Jill McCorkle (2003)
• John Shelton Reed (2003)
• Ellen Bryant Voigt (2003)
• Allen Wier (2003)
• Larry Brown (2005) ^[2]
• Percival Everett (2005)
• Robert Morgan (2005)
• Lewis Nordan (2005)
• Sam Pickering (2005)
• Wyatt Prunty (2005)
• Dorothy Allison (2007)
• Roy Blount, Jr. (2007)
• Andrew Hudgins (2007)
• Randall Kenan (2007)
• Shannon Ravenel (2007)
• Alfred Uhry (2007)
• Will D. Campbell (2009)
• Rita Dove (2009)
• Percival Everett (2009)
• Jim Grimsley (2009)
• Edward P. Jones (2009)
• Fred Hobson (2009)
• Rodney Jones (2009)
• Eleanor Ross Taylor (2009)
• Natasha Trethewey (2009)
• Al Young (2009)
• Tony Earley (2010)
• Claudia Emerson (2011)
• George Singleton (2013)
• Maurice Manning (2013)
• Tayari Jones (2014)
• Steve Yarbrough (2015) ^[3]

• Silas House (2017)

Awards and honors

• The Hillsdale Prize for Fiction
• The Hanes Prize for Poetry
• The Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction
• The Bryan Family Foundation Award for Drama
• The Cecil Woods, Jr. Prize for Non-Fiction
• The Fellowship's New Writing Award for Fiction
• The C. Vann Woodward-John Hope Franklin Prize for the Writing of Southern History
• The James Still Award for Writing About the Appalachian South
• The Fellowship's New Award for Poetry
• The Cleanth Brooks Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Southern Letters

See also

• American Literature
• Southern literature
• Southern United States

References

1. newsobserver.com | Extending the lines ^{[ permanent dead link ]}
2. Posthumous, Brown died before he was able to take his seat
3. "A Literary Reunion". chapter16.org.

External links

• The Fellowship of Southern Writers Archived 2012-07-07 at the Wayback Machine official website
• Arts & Education Council website
• Oral History Interview with Blyden Jackson from Oral Histories of the American South