Southern Authors

[Dark Star]

In the spirit of the other threads on similar subjects....

I wish to start a thread where I can compile a list, get some recommendations on, and have a discussion about some of the great authors coming out of the good old southern US.

Off the top of my head, I can think of Tennessee Williams, Mark Twain, and Faulkner.

Give me some help here...:)

[StayGolden]

Caroline Gordon, Katherine Anne Porter, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Margaret Mitchell, Reynolds Price, James Dickey, Walker Percy, Harper Lee. James Lee Burke and John Grisham are more recent Southern novelists.

Plenty more, I'm sure, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment. Still, a nice edition to your list. ;)

[Cassiel240]

I have to second Walker Percy - "Love in the Ruins" was great.
And add Flannery O'Connor. The value of her work is hotly debated, but I love it. I particularly recommend "Wise Blood," especially if you like having your worldview rearranged creatively. Kate Chopin, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker...

[BlueSkyGB]

Fairly new author....here's his wiki entry....:thumbs_up to Kentucky Straight.

Chris Offutt (born August 24, 1958) is an American author of fiction and memoirs.
Offutt was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and is the son of author Andrew J. Offutt. He grew up in Haldeman, Kentucky, a former mining community of 200 people in the Appalachian Mountains. Offutt quit high school to join the army, but failed the physical. He then attended Morehead State University and graduated with a degree in theater and a minor in art. He later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 1992, he published his debut short story collection, Kentucky Straight. His second book was the 1993 memoir The Same River Twice, and in 1997 he published his first novel, The Good Brother. In 1999, he published his second book of stories, Out of the Woods, followed in 2002 by No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home, about a visit he made back to Haldeman.
His work has received awards from the Lannan Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Whiting Foundation. Offutt was also named one of the twenty best young American fiction writers by Granta. His books are widely translated. In 1999, the French version of The Same River Twice (translated under the title Le Fleuve et l'Enfant) brought the translator, Ann Wicke, the Prix Maurice Edgar Coindreau, awarded annually by La Société des Gens de Lettres de France for the best translation from a work in English. The governor of Kentucky commissioned him in 1998 as an honorary Kentucky Colonel.
Offutt's non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Men's Journal, and Oxford American, and on National Public Radio.
In 2005, Offutt made his comic-writing debut with "Another Man's Escape" in Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist No. 6. He has also written three comics-related essays: "NoMan was My Man" was included in Give our Regards to the Atomsmashers!: Writers on Comics (2004), "Why I Love Comics" appeared in RoadStrips: A Graphic Journey Across America (2005), and "The Silver Age" in Tin House Magazine. He has also written screenplays.

Offutt has two sons and lives in Iowa City, Iowa, where he is a frequent visiting faculty member at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.


Kentucky Straight (1992)
The Same River Twice (1993)
The Good Brother (1997)
Out of the Woods (1999)
No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home (2002)

[Virgil]

My favorite contemporary American writer is Cormac McCarthy and I believe he's from Texas. Other names not mentioned: Zora Neal Hurston, James Dickey, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, and Margret Mitchell.


By the way, here's my favorite poem by Robert Penn Warren:


Mortal Limit
by Robert Penn Warren

I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming.
It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags
Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming
Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags.

There--west--were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be
In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height
Hangs now the black speck? Beyond what range will gold eyes see
New ranges rise to mark a last scrawl of light?

Or, having tasted that atmosphere's thinness, does it
Hang motionless in dying vision before
It knows it will accept the mortal limit,
And swing into the great circular downwardness that will restore

The breath of earth? Of rock? Of rot? Of other such
Items, and the darkness of whatever dream we clutch?

[Dark Star]

BAH! How could I have forgot McCarthy? And I just read Blood Meridian recently. I'll compile a list in a later post, then update it. Just remember people, I'm looking for some of their stand-out novels/plays/poems/essays other work too so I can get a list together of stuff to look up.

[earthboar]

When you said Harper Lee, I immediately thought of Truman Capote. He and Harper Lee were childhood friends.

Caroline Gordon, Katherine Anne Porter, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Margaret Mitchell, Reynolds Price, James Dickey, Walker Percy, Harper Lee. James Lee Burke and John Grisham are more recent Southern novelists.

Plenty more, I'm sure, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment. Still, a nice edition to your list. ;)

[rgdmalaysia]

Thomas Wolfe, Thomas Wolfe, Thomas Wolfe....I think he transcends the label "Southern Literature"....He is like a healthier earthier Proust and I've never been as physically tired reading a writer as I have been reading Wolfe.

I would also say The Moviegoer by Walker Percy is one of the greatest books I've ever read....What is our purpose in life?

[nebish]

William Gay.....Provinces of Night
Dorothy Allison...Bastard out of Carolina
Barry Hannah...Yonder Stands Your Orphan
Cormac McCarthy..Suttree

[Wyoecho]

Larry McMurtry-Born in Wichita Falls, TX. Books include: Horseman, pass By-Terms of Endearment- The last Picture Show- Lonesome Dove- Cadilac Jack- and Desert Rose to name only a few.

[chasestalling]

don't know if i'm spelling this correct, so with grave hesitation, andrew chedruskew

[rmd]

There are lots of good southern women writers . . .

Kaye Gibbons
Lee Smith
Bobby Ann Mason
Ellen Gilchrist
Gail Godwin
Louise Shivers
Alice Walker
Eudora Welty

. . . and the list could go on and on.

[rgdmalaysia]

There are lots of good southern women writers . . .

Kaye Gibbons
Lee Smith
Bobby Ann Mason
Ellen Gilchrist
Gail Godwin
Louise Shivers
Alice Walker
Eudora Welty

. . . and the list could go on and on.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers is a classic fer sure!

[bibliophile190]

I think Harper Lee was said already, but I'll say it again because "To Kill A Mockingbird" was so good.

[jlb4tlb]

My favorite contemporary American writer is Cormac McCarthy and I believe he's from Texas. Other names not mentioned: Zora Neal Hurston, James Dickey, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, and Margret Mitchell.


By the way, here's my favorite poem by Robert Penn Warren:

Warren, wrote one of my favorite novels entitled "The Cave" The fictional account of the Floyd Collins tragedy. Having explored and mapped my share of caves over the years this novel hits close to home.

Jeff

[JBI]

No one mentioned Flannery O'Connor? If you like short fiction, she's probably the master of the south.

[Old Crow]

No one mentioned Flannery O'Connor? If you like short fiction, she's probably the master of the south.

^Seconded! I suppose, if it came down to it, I'd say Faulkner is superior, but only slightly. Wise Blood is easily one of the best books I've ever read.

[JBI]

Faulkner would be the novel master, but not the short story.

[Old Crow]

Ahh. In that case I agree. It was the "short fiction"/"short story" distinction that was catching me there.