Fellowship of Southern Writers

The Fellowship of Southern Writers is a group of writers from the southern states of America. In 1987 twenty-one writers (charter members) had a meeting in Chattanooga, Tennessee where they decided to honor good writing from their part of the country. They wanted to help young writers by giving them awards of money and chances to improve their writing skill.

Awards and prizes are given for very good writing of fiction, poetry, drama, criticism, and history.
Members
It is a small group. The Fellowship can only have 50 members at one time. New members of the group are chosen by election and invited to join. All members must be born or have lived for a long time in the American South. Other members have written works that say important things about southern life.

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)Posthumous, Brown died before he was able to take his seat
 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)

 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

References

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

Category:American writers' organizations
Category:Organizations based in Tennessee
Category:1987 establishments in the United States