Winston Groom to receive 'distinguished writer' award at Monroeville literary festival

FAIRHOPE, Ala. - Every spring for more than a decade, all literary roads in Alabama lead to Monroeville.

This year’s Alabama Writers Symposium celebrates its 14th anniversary in the hometown of Harper Lee, which she made famous as Maycomb, Ala., the fictional setting for “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The three-day conference starts tomorrow night and ends Saturday. Along the way, several local writers will take the stage for talks and to receive awards.

Winston Groom of Point Clear, author of “Forrest Gump” and several other novels and nonfiction books, is the recipient of this year’s Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer.

He will receive the honor at an awards luncheon Friday and his talk is from 2:30-3 p.m.

Later that day from 5-5:30 p.m., singer-songwriter Kathryn Scheldt of Fairhope will appear with Frye Gaillard, the writer in residence at the University of South Alabama.

The event will end Saturday with a concluding brunch from 10:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m. featuring Fairhope novelist and editor Sonny Brewer.

Wayne Greenhaw, who won first prize in the 2010 Hackney Literary Awards in short fiction for his story “A Fever of the Heart,” will appear on a Friday panel from 4:30-5 p.m. moderated by historian Wayne Flynt.

Greenhaw’s award-winning story is set in the Tennessee River valley of North Alabama, and the first-person narrator is a young reporter for The Decatur Daily.

Greenhaw, who lives in Montgomery, was in the area recently for a signing of his recent book, “Fighting the Devil in Dixie: How Civil Rights Activists Took on the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama.”

This year’s symposium explores the theme “Literary Gumbo,” showcasing a slate of writers, poets, artists, and musicians who produce songs, stories and characters that flavor Alabama literature, according to a news release for the event.

Other writers and scholars participating in the event, include Mark Childress, William Cobb, Beth Ann Fennelly, Tom Franklin, Frye Gaillard, Sena Jeter Naslund, Roy Hoffman, Jennifer Horne, Joshilyn Jackson, Watt Key, Michael Knight, David Sauer, Nancy Anderson, Alan Brown, Anita Miller Garner, John Hafner, Jay Lamar, Jim Murphy, Don Noble, Jeanie Thompson and Jacqueline Allen Trimble.

Registration begins Thursday, May 5 at 1 p.m. in the Nettles Auditorium on the campus of Alabama Southern.

New events on Thursday’s schedule include Golf with

President Sykes at the Vanity Fair Golf and Tennis Club and Historic Walking Tours in Downtown Monroeville.

Thursday evening’s opening reception at the Monroeville Community House features Monroeville native Mark Childress. Currently promoting his new book

“Georgia Bottoms,” Childress is the author of seven novels and the screenwriter for “Crazy in Alabama,” the Columbia Pictures’ film based on his best-seller novel.

Friday’s events include readings in Nettles Auditorium by Groom, Franklin, Jackson, Horne, Fennelly, Key, Cobb, Greenhaw, Gaillard and Scheldt.

Also on Friday, participants can attend a picnic on the Old Courthouse Museum lawn; a community theatre production of “To Kill A Mockingbird”; and an afternoon performance by Alabama singer/songwriter Kathryn Scheldt of Fairhope.

For more information, visit the event website at www.writerssymposium.org or call 251-575-8223 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              251-575-8223      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.