Fellowship of Southern Writers

The Fellowship of Southern Writers is a literary organization founded in 1987 in Chattanooga, Tennessee by 21 Southern writers and other literary luminaries. The group meets in every odd-numbered year, usually during the Chattanooga Arts & Education Council Conference on Southern Literature.

In 2007, the fellowship formalized its own structure, electing its first board of directors and hiring its first executive director, Susan Robinson.

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)
• 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)

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 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

External links

• The Fellowship of Southern Writers official website
• Arts & Education Council website
• Oral History Interview with Blyden Jackson from Oral Histories of the American South