Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award

About the Award

Originated by the Louis Lipinsky family, the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award has been presented annually for printed works that focus special attention on Western North Carolina since 1955 when Wilma Dykeman won for The French Broad.

Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award

About the Award

2022: George Masa’s Wild Vision by Brent Martin

2021: Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle

2020: Eastern Cherokee Stories by Sandra Muse Isaacs

2019: Back of Beyond by George Ellison and Janet McCue

2018: Varina by Charles Frazier

2017: Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks

2016: That Bright Land by Terry Roberts

2015: Wayfaring Strangers by Fiona Ritchie and Doug Orr

2014: The Road from Gap Creek by Robert Morgan

2013: a land more kind than home by Wiley Cash

2012: Blue Ridge Commons by Kathryn Newfont

2011: Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton

2010: Requiem by Fire by Wayne Caldwell

2009: Grove Park Inn by Bruce E. Johnson

2008: Chemistry and Other Stories by Ron Rash

2007: On Agate Hill by Lee Smith

2006: Shinemaster by Michael McFee

2005: High Mountains Rising edited by Richard A. Straw and H. Tyler Blethen

2004: No Award Given

2003: The Maya of Morganton by Leon Fink

2002: Sodom Laurel Album by Rob Amberg

2001: May We All Remember Well: Volume II edited by Robert S. Brunk

2000: Carolina Ghost Woods: Poems by Judy Jordan

1999: In the Family Way by Tommy Hays

1998: Living Stories of the Cherokee, collected and edited by Barbara R. Duncan

1997: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

1996: The Last Chivaree: The Hicks Family of Beech Mountain by Robert Isbell

1995: Hillbillyland: What the Movies Did to the Mountains & What the Mountains Did to the Movies by J.W. Williamson

1994: Warren Wilson College: A Centennial Portrait by Reuben A. Holden and Mark T. Banker

1993: The Airwaves of Zion: Radio and Religion in Appalachia by Howard Dorgan

1992: Wildwood Flower: Poems by Kathryn Stripling Byer

1991: No Award Given

1990: No Award Given

1989: Mountain Masters: Slavery and the Sectional Crisis in WNC by John C. Inscoe

1988: Cades Cove: The Life and Death of a Southern Appalachian Community by Durwood Dunn

1987: A Southern Family by Gail Godwin

1986: Rural Community in the Appalachian South by Patricia D. Beaver

1985: Minstrel of the Appalachians: The Story of Bascom Lamar Lunsford by Loyal Jones

1984: Last One Home by John Ehle

1983: Strangers No More by Lucy S. Herring

1982: Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South by Ron D. Eller

1981: Cabins and Castles: The History & Architecture of Buncombe County, North Carolina by Douglas Swaim, Talmage Powell, and John Ager

1980: The Mountains Have Come Closer: Poems by Jim Wayne Miller

1979: Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 1540-1866 by Theda Perdue

1978: Day of Miracles by Charlotte Young

1977: From the Banks of The Oklawaha, Vol. I by Frank L. Fitzsimons

1976: Mountain Measure: A Southern Appalachian Verse Notebook by Francis Pledger Hulme

1975: The Appalachian Consortium Press

1974: Blanford Barnard Dougherty, mountain educator by Ruby J. Lanier

1973: Western North Carolina Since the Civil War By Ina W. and John J. Van Noppen

1972: A Long, Long Day For November by Moffitt Sinclair Henderson

1971: Arts and Crafts of the Cherokee by Rodney L. Leftwich

1970: The Grandfather and the Globe by Dell B. Wilson

1969: The Blue Ridge Parkway by Harley E. Jolley

1968: A Biography of Thomas Wolfe by Neal F. Austin

1967: Strangers in High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains by Michael Frome

1966: Zeb Vance: Champion of Personal Freedom by Glenn Tucker

1965: No Award Given

1964: Thomas Wolfe by Bruce R. McElderry, Jr.

1963: No Award Given

1962: Stoneman’s Last Raid by Ina Woestemeyer Van Noppen

1961: Human Gold from Southern Hills by David English Camak

1960: We Made Peace with Polio by Luther Robinson

1959: The Spotted Hawk by Olive Tilford Dargan

1958: My Mountains, My People by John Parris

1957: Thomas Wolfe’s Characters by Floyd C. Watkins

1956: Tecumseh: Vision of Glory by Glenn Tucker

1955: The French Broad by Wilma Dykeman