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Susan Robinson
The newly formed board of directors of the Fellowship of Southern Writers is meeting in Chattanooga today with a goal of unifying efforts of their 49 Fellows to expand a writers-in-the-schools literacy program.
“The Fellowship needed a stronger continuity of its message and what it was doing,” said Susan Robinson, the Fellowship’s newly appointed executive director. “The Fellows needed a board to direct their business and bring them into a more active role as an organization.”
The Fellowship of Southern Writers was founded in 1987 by 26 preeminent Southern writers, according to records provided by Carolyn Mitchell, the Fellowship’s publicist.
Ms. Robinson said that the elite Fellowship limits its membership to 50. Those honorees must represent a balance of all literary styles from poets and novelists to playwrights and editors.
The Fellowship meets biennially during the Conference on Southern Literature, which is sponsored by the Arts & Education Council of Chattanooga. To build continuity and camaraderie between conference years, Fellows felt a need for a board to meet annually.
“The Fellowship is first of all involved in the work of honoring good writing and helping young Southern writers along,” said Richard Bausch, Fellowship chancellor, in a news release. “We also want to raise the visibility of the awards and widen the net of recognition for good writing.”
Ms. Robinson’s position as executive director of the AEC made her an obvious selection for the Fellowship’s director as she serves as the liaison between AEC and the Fellowship during conference planning.
Ms. Robinson said in her new role she will “handle all the Fellowship’s internal documents, represent them in meetings and help take care of their business.”
Ms. Robinson said the Fellowship also has a board representative, Allen Weir, working with the AEC conference. Mr. Weir also coordinates a conference planning committee within the Fellowship.
“We’ll all communicate and work together,” she said of conference preparations.
Ms. Robinson said the board was elected last summer and today’s gathering is its second meeting. She anticipates meeting sites will rotate among board members’ hometowns.
“Today, they will be discussing finances, personnel, awards for the next conference and nominations for fellowship membership,” she said.
At the top of the agenda will be discussion of a new Fellowship project, Benefit Readings, as well as planning for the 20th anniversary Conference on Southern Literature in 2009.
Benefit Reading is a proposed fundraiser for the fellowship that Ms. Robinson said will be offered to universities and arts councils across the South. For a donation to the Fellowship, three writers will attend (that university’s) event and provide readings and book signings, Ms. Robinson explained.
For more information about the Fellowship of Southern Writers, check the Web site at www.TheFSW.org. For more information about the 2009 Conference on Southern Literature, check AEC’s Web site at www.ArtsEdCouncil.org.
Susan Palmer Pierce is a reporter and columnist in the Life department. She began her journalism career as a summer employee 1972 for the News Free Press, typing bridal announcements and photo captions. She became a full-time employee in 1980, working her way up to feature writer, then special sections editor, then Lifestyle editor in 1995 until the merge of the NFP and Times in 1999. She was honored with the 2007 Chattanooga Woman of ...
