Harper Lee, Rick Bragg among Alabama Writers Hall of Fame inaugural class
Al.com – Dec. 11
Pulitzer Prize winners Harper Lee and Rick Bragg are among 12 of the state’s most celebrated writers selected for a June induction into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. Sponsored by the Alabama Center for the Book and the Alabama Writers’ Forum, the Hall of Fame’s goal is to share the state’s deep literary history. Organizers “have a proactive plan to keep the state’s authors vibrant and relevant to the digital age,” with the inaugural class as a building block to the future. “In a state where great writers seem born from the red clay, I am deeply honored and humbled to be included among them in this fine honor,” said Bragg, professor of writing in the University of Alabama’s College of Communication and Information Services. “My people have discovered many things in that dirt — from coal to iron ore to cotton. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they raised at least one writer from it.” In addition to Lee and Bragg, the first class for the hall of fame includes deceased authors Johnson Jones Hooper, Augusta Jane Evans Wilson, Helen Keller, Zora Neal Hurston, William March, Albert Murray and Helen Norris Bell, along with additional 20th century authors Andrew Glaze, Sonia Sanchez and Sena Jeter Naslund.