Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Ala. She is known for “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which won the Pulitzer Prize, and “Go Set a Watchman,” a book released not long before her death in 2016.
Mark Childress was born in 1957 in Monroeville, Ala., but later lived in Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi and Louisiana. He graduated from the University of Alabama and was a journalist and features editor of Southern Living. Selected works include: A World Made of Fire, V for Victor, Tender, Gone for Good, One Mississippi and Georgia Bottoms.
Truman Capote was born in 1924 in New Orleans but raised in Monroeville, Ala., by cousins. He died in 1984. Capote was a novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Selected works include: In Cold Blood, Other Voices, Other Rooms, The Innocents and The Grass Harp, which was made into a 1995 movie that was filmed in Wetumpka, Alabama.
Zelda Sayre, the daughter of an Alabama state supreme court justice, met Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald in 1918. She was a Montgomery, Alabama, belle, pretty, vivacious, and independent, and he was a former Princeton student from the Midwest with a burning ambition to make his name as an author. Their marriage in 1920 was followed almost immediately by Scott’s emergence as one of the most popular writers in America. With the substantial income from Fitzgerald’s short stories and novels Scott and Zelda lived a life of excitement and sophistication in Europe and America.
Zelda Fitzgerald’s only novel, Save Me The Waltz, is a semi-autobiographical account of her life and marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda Fitzgerald had already been in and out of psychiatric facilities, and as part of her recovery routine, she spent at least two hours a day writing. Meanwhile, Scott became worried that Zelda’s treatment would consume all his money, so he set aside his novels to work on short stories to fund the treatment. Zelda wrote to Scott from the Highland Hospital, in Asheville, North Carolina: “I am proud of my novel, but I can hardly restrain myself enough to get it written.”
Zelda remained for four years at Highland but saw her husband, daughter, and other family infrequently, and was often lonely at Highland, but she made progress there. There she stayed until 1940.
On December 21, 1940, Scott Fitzgerald dropped dead. A badly recovering alcoholic, Fitzgerald drank and smoked himself into a terminal spiral of cardiomyopathy, coronary artery disease, angina, dyspepsia, and syncopal spells. Zelda was unable to attend Scott’s funeral, but was released from Highland to live with her widowed mother in Montgomery. Over the next decade Zelda returned several times to Highland Hospital for brief periods of treatment, including a visit in the Spring of 1948.
On the night of March 10, 1948, a fire broke out in the hospital kitchen. Zelda was locked into a room, awaiting electroshock therapy. The fire moved through the dumbwaiter shaft, spreading onto every floor. The fire escapes were wooden, and they caught fire as well. Nine women, including Zelda, died. She was identified by her dental records and, according to other reports, one of her slippers.
Fannie Flagg was born Patricia Neal in Birmingham. She is an actress, comedian and author of nine novels, including Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, I Still Dream About You and The Whole Town’s Talking.
Winston Groom Jr. was born in Washington, D.C., in 1943. He attended the University of Alabama and writes both novels and non-fiction books. “Forrest Gump” was made into a 1995 movie that won six Academy Awards. Selected works include: Better Times Than These, As Summers Die, Gone the Sun, Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl, Shrouds of Glory: From Atlanta to Nashville: The Last Great Campaign of the Civil War, The Crimson Tide: An Illustrated History of Football at the University of Alabama and 1942: The Year that Tried Men’s Souls.
Rick Bragg was born in 1959 in Piedmont, Ala. He won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing while working for t New York Times. He writes non-fiction books. Selected works include: Ava’s Man, The Prince of Frogtown, I Am a Soldier Too: The Jessica Lynch Story, The Most They Ever Had, and Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story.
Karren Pell’s collection of essays, photographs, and songs captures the unique appeal of eleven sites throughout Alabama, presenting the cultural significance, history, and lore of such landmarks as the Boll Weevil Monument in Enterprise, Tuscaloosa’s Dreamland Barbecue and Catfish Cabin restaurants, and the Key Underwood Coon Dog Cemetery.
May Lamar landed her first newspaper job in 1980, when she was hired as a cub reporter for the Gastonia (North Carolina) Gazette. She later worked as a reporter for the Summit County (Colorado) Sentinel, the Fairhope (Alabama) Courier and the Montgomery Advertiser. She left journalism for advertising copywriting soon after the birth of her first child and ran a small agency for 20 years.
She and her husband, author/publisher Rich Donnell, live in Montgomery.
The Alabama Shakespeare Festival (ASF) is among the ten largest Shakespeare festivals in the world. The festival is permanently housed in the Carolyn Blount Theatre in Montgomery, Alabama.
ASF puts on 6-9 productions annually, typically including three works of William Shakespeare. Other plays sample various genres and playwrights, classical and modern, sometimes with an emphasis on Southern works. ASF’s Southern Writers Project nurtures the creation of new plays that reflect Southern themes.
Born in Alabama, Dr. Ladell Payne is a retired university president and literary scholar. He received his PhD in English from Stanford University, 1966. He was a Fulbright lecturer U. Vienna, Austria, 1971-1972 and a National consultant of the Center for Study Southern Culture, U. Mississippi, Oxford, since 1980.
Taken from the review of Ladell Payne’s work:
A native of Elba, Ala., Robert Inman, is a former journalist who became a novelist, screenwriter and playwright. He is the author of four novels in addition to “Home Fires:” The Governor’s Lady, Old Dogs and Children, Dairy Queen Days, and Captain Saturday.