- 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.
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.
For more information contact:
Nacole Adams, Chair
SELA Outstanding Author Award Committee
Email: nadams@holmescc.edu
Phone: (601) 605-3304
- 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)
- 2018 - Donna Everhart, The Road to Bittersweet (Fiction) and Douglas Higbee, James Garvey, and Hebert Van Tuyll, In Their Own Words: Augusta and Aiken Area Veterans Remember World War II (Non-Fiction)
- 2020 - Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give (Fiction) and Kiese Laymon, Heavy: An American Memoir (Non-Fiction)
Deadline for submission of nomination: August 20,2022
Click here! (PDF)
Click here! (Word)