The Alabama Writers Hall of Fame will induct its 2023 class during a march 10th dinner in Tuscaloosa. Tickets start at $150 per plate if you’re eating. The occasion begins at 6 p.m. with cocktails and dinner at 7 p.m.
Founded in 2014, the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame is the highest honor an Alabama author can receive from the state. The 2023 inductees are Tom Franklin, Trudier Harris, Angela Johnson, Howell Raines, Michelle Richmond, and Daniel Wallace (Daniel Wallace has a very good book coming out in April that I mentioned in a previous post).
Authors Eugene Walter and Kathryn Tucker Windham will be inducted posthumously.
Billed as a ‘gala event,’ this year’s proceedings will be overseen by Harper Lee Award winner Carolyn Haines. The dinner features food and cocktails by Eugene Walter, who was famous for hosting parties with Truman Capote way back when.
This is the first in-person gathering held by the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame since before the pandemic.
During that event, they inducted seven Alabama authors. The 2020 class included Mark Childress, Faye Gibbons, Carolyn Haines, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, and Michael Knight, with authors Ralph Ellison and Zelda Fitzgerald being inducted posthumously.
Here is a list of all the past Alabama Writers Hall of Fame inductees:
The 2018 Inductee List
- Joseph Glover Baldwin
- William Bradford Huie
- Shirley Ann Grau
- Gay Talese
- Wayne Greenhaw
- Charles Gaines
- James Haskins
- Winston Groom
The 2016 Inductee List
- E. O. Wilson
- Fannie Flagg
- Rodney Jones
- Rebecca Gilman
- Truman Capote
- T.S. Stribling
- Margaret Walker
- Mary Ward Brown
- Sequoyah
The 2015 Inductee List
- Rick Bragg
- Andrew Glaze
- Johnson Jones Hooper
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Helen Keller
- Harper Lee
- William March
- Albert Murray
- Sena Jeter Naslund
- Helen Norris Bell
- Sonia Sanchez
- Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
I assume that no one was inducted in 2021 and 2022 due to the pandemic, which is perfectly understandable. I have looked and looked, and I can not find a mention of why there were no Alabama Writers Hall of Fame classes for the years 2017 and 2019. If you know why that is, chime in and let a curious book blogger know.
