Outstanding Southeastern Author Award
Criteria
- Authors must be native or bona fide residents of a SELA state at the time the work was written or published.
- Works must be chosen based on literary merit.
- Two awards may be made: one in fiction and one in non-fiction.
- In each category, works must have been published within five years prior to December 31 of the year preceding the biennial conference.
- The person making the nomination must be a member of SELA.
Process
Submit nominations on this form along with any accompanying material (not to exceed four pages for each entry. Include reason(s) for nomination, book reviews, biography, and the like to the committee chair. Copies of the nominations will be distributed to all committee members.
Click below to nominate an author for this award (Deadline June 30, 2018):Submit Online Form | Print and mail Word or PDF form
For more information contact:
Joi Phillips, Chair
SELA Outstanding Author Committee
c/o Delta State University
Library
1003 W. Sunflower Road
Cleveland, MS 38733
Previous Outstanding Southeastern Author Award Winners List
| 1978 | Eudora Welty |
| 1980 | Richard Beale Davis |
| 1982 | Dumas Malone |
| 1984 | Gail Godwin |
| 1986 | No Award Given |
| 1988 | Ernest J. Gaines |
| 1990 | Lee Smith, Fair and Tender Ladies |
| 1992 | Terry Kay (Fiction) and Louis D. Rubin, Jr. (Non-Fiction) |
| 1994 | John Grisham (Fiction) and Willie Morris (Non-Fiction) |
| 1996 | Doris Betts (Fiction) and John Edgerton (Non-Fiction) |
| 1998 | Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain (Fiction) and John F. Marszalek, The Petticoat Affair (Non-Fiction) |
| 2000 | E.L. Konigburg, The View from Saturday (Fiction) and Rick Bragg, All Over But the Shoutin' (Non-Fiction) |
| 2002 | Ann Patchett, Bel Canto (Fiction) and Jimmy Carter, An Hour Before Daylight (Non-Fiction) |
| 2004 | Sena Jeter Naslaund (Fiction) and Louis D. Rubin, Jr. (Non-Fiction) |
| 2006 | Sue Monk Kidd, Secret Life of Bees (Fiction) and Pat Conroy, Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life (Non-Fiction) |
| 2008 | Ravi Howard (Fiction) and Robert Morgan (Non-Fiction) |
| 2010 | Ron Rash, Burning Bright (Fiction) and Neil White, In The Sanctuary of Outcasts (NonFiction) |
| 2012 | No Award Given |
| 2014 | No Award Given |
| 2016 | Greg Iles for Natchez Burning (Fiction) and Rick Bragg for My Southern Journey: True Stories from the Heart of the South (Non-Fiction) |