South Carolina Academy of Authors

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South Carolina Academy of Authors

The mission of the SCAA is to recognize the state's outstanding writers, living and deceased, and to promote the reading of their works.

Since 1986, the Academy has held induction ceremonies in different parts of South Carolina. Public recognition of our state's literary hall of fame not only serves to increase the general readership of authors working today but also leads to the rediscovery of works from the past. The Academy board selects new inductees annually whose works have been judged culturally important. Each inductee, whe

ther living or deceased, has added to South Carolina's literary legacy by earning notable scholarly attention or achieving historical prominence. The Academy also maintains two annual fellowship competitions for emerging writers. The Carrie McCray Nickens Fellowship for poets and the Fiction Fellowship award $1,000.00 each to eligible state residents who have not yet published a book. The fellowship competitions are open with judges selected from out of state. Although not a state agency, the South Carolina Academy of Authors benefits from close affiliations with the South Carolina State Library, the South Carolina Arts Commission, and many of the state's colleges, universities, and corporations. A more complete list of our Partners, past and present, is above.

09/04/2026

News about a new book forthcoming from 2014 SCAA inductee Gilbert Allen.

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Gilbert Allen is the author of eight volumes of poems and two collections of short stories: The Final Days of Great American Shopping and The Beasts of Belladonna. His work has received the Robert Penn Warren Prize from The Southern Review and Special Mention for a Pushcart Prize. He is the Bennette E. Geer Professor of Literature Emeritus at Furman University and a member of the South Carolina Academy of Authors, the state’s literary hall of fame. His new short story collection, The Beauties of Belladonna, is forthcoming from Slant in November. Pre-order now: https://slantbooks.org/books/the-beauties-of-belladonna/

07/27/2026

2013 SCAA inductee Terrance Hayes is in the news.

The American Poetry Review is happy to announce that the 2027 APR/Honickman First Book Prize will be judged by Terrance Hayes.

Terrance Hayes’s newest books include a collection of poems, So To Speak (Penguin, 2023), a collection of essays, Watch Your Language (Penguin, 2023), American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin (Penguin, 2018) and To Float In The Space Between: Drawings and Essays in Conversation with Etheridge Knight (Wave, 2018). To Float In The Space Between was winner of the Poetry Foundation’s 2019 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism; American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin won the Hurston/Wright 2019 Award for Poetry. Hayes is a Silver Professor of English at New York University.

The prize of $3,000, with an introduction by the judge and distribution of the winning book by Copper Canyon Press through Consortium, will be awarded in 2027 with publication of the book in the same year. The author will receive a standard book publishing contract, with royalties paid in addition to the $3,000 prize.

Learn more & submit your work here: americanpoetryreview.submittable.com/submit

07/26/2026

2026 SCAA inductee and noted horticulturist Jenks Farmer held his annual MOTH BALL at his flower farm in Beech Island yesterday.

07/24/2026

Some news about 2010 SCAA inductee Ron Rash--

Ron Rash is the author of the PEN/Faulkner finalist and New York Times bestselling novel SERENA, in addition to the critically acclaimed novels THE CARETAKER, THE RISEN, ABOVE THE WATERFALL, THE COVE, ONE FOOT IN EDEN, SAINTS AT THE RIVER, and THE WORLD MADE STRAIGHT; five collections of poems; and seven collections of stories, among them BURNING BRIGHT, which won the 2010 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY, a New York Times bestseller, CHEMISTRY AND OTHER STORIES, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award, and IN THE VALLEY. Three times the recipient of the O. Henry Prize, his books have been translated into seventeen languages. He teaches at Western Carolina University.

Last week, we shared that Ron’s story “The Cottage” was selected for the forthcoming NEW STORIES FROM THE SOUTH. To read “The Cottage” before the anthology is released this fall by Blair Publishing, subscribe to PORCHLIGHT and check out our inaugural edition.

07/16/2026

2020 SCAA inductee Andrew Geyer and SCAA board member Tom Mack are featured in an upcoming publication by the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta.

07/13/2026

2024 SCAA inductee Marcus Amaker is featured in an upcoming event in Charleston.

07/10/2026

A special book discussion series and field trip devoted to the life and work of 1988 SCAA inductee Pat Conroy

The Pat Conroy Connoisseur Series: A Special Edition of Let’s Talk About It -- Including a DAY TRIP Chaperoned by Dr. Tom Mack to Beaufort, SC and St. Helena Island!

Conroy's sister, Kathy Conroy Harvey, will give us a tour of the Pat Conroy Center. Afterwards we will lunch at Gilligan’s Seafood Restaurant, followed by a visit to the Pat Conroy grave site on St. Helena Island.

With discussions led by USC Aiken Humanities scholars, Let’s Talk About It is more than your average book club. Participants read, watch, and compare novels to the movie.

Book Sign out starts August 11th.

MOVIE - The Water is Wide - Tuesday, September 1, 6:00pm

BOOK DISCUSSION - The Water is Wide - Tuesday, September 8, 6:30 pm with Dr. Tom Mack.

MOVIE - The Great Santini - Saturday, September 12, 12:00pm & Tuesday, September 15, 6:00pm

BOOK DISCUSSION - The Great Santini - Tuesday, September 22, 6:30pm with Dr. Andrew Geyer

MOVIE - The Prince of Tides - Saturday, October 10, 12:00pm & Tuesday, October 13, 6:00pm

BOOK DISCUSSION - The Prince of Tides - Tuesday, October 20, 6:30pm with Dr. Matt Miller

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27 – DAY TRIP to Beaufort - $25 fee required for trip attendance

07/08/2026

The class featured in THE WATER IS WIDE by 1988 SCAA inductee Pat Conroy included one particular student who has gone on to national acclaim.

Congratulations to Sallie Ann Robinson, winner of the 2026 James Beard Hall of Fame book award!

Sallie Ann was a student of Pat's when he taught elementary school on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, in 1969-70. The two became lifelong friends, and Pat wrote the foreword for her first book, Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way:

"Here is the great glory of this book — it will teach you how to eat much better than you did before you read it. My year on Daufuskie was one of the best-fed years of my overfed life. Daufuskie Islanders make the best deviled crab and deviled eggs — they are terrific with all dishes with the word "devil" in them. Sallie Ann could make biscuits that were light and feathery and teacher-pleasing when she was eleven years old. The island teems with deer and boar, rabbit and quail. The waters around it are tide-swollen, bringing the billion-footed incursion of shrimp into the rivers and marshes where Daufuskie nets await them for transportation to the kitchen tables of the island. I ate like a king in my one year on the island, and you will eat like me because Sallie Ann Robinson, one of the children I loved and taught, and wrote about in The Water Is Wide, grew up and got herself smart and ambitious and wonderful — and decided to write herself a book. I think I may be the proudest man on earth."

- Pat Conroy, from his foreword to Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way by Sallie Ann Robinson

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Full article 🔗: https://tr.ee/DLB5u3
by Mindy Lucas, photos by Tony Kukulich
The Post and Courier

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http://www.scacademyofauthors.com/

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