Ellen Gilchrist, the author known for fiction featuring independent Southern women, has died at 88, the Associated Press reports.
Gilchrist, a native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was educated at Millsaps College and the University of Arkansas; at Millsaps, she studied under legendary author Eudora Welty. She made her fiction debut in 1981 with the story collection In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, which was a bestseller for the newly formed University of Arkansas Press, and followed that up two years later with the novel The Annunciation.
In 1984, she published Victory Over Japan, a story collection that won the National Book Award. Her other books included the novels Net of Jewels, Sarah Conley, and A Dangerous Age, as well as the story collections Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle, Flights of Angels, and I, Rhoda Manning, Go Hunting With My Daddy.
In a 2016 interview with the Clarion-Ledger, Gilchrist talked about her early love of books.
“I read anything I could get my hands on, at the library, or at home,” she said. “We had so many books at home, and we had encyclopedias. It didn’t matter what it was. I loved reading stories the best. My father wouldn’t let us watch TV, but I was just always reading.”
Gilchrist’s admirers paid tribute to her on social media. On X, formerly known as Twitter, poet and television writer Tony Tost wrote, “Ellen Gilchrist was a National Book Award winner, a proudly untamed prof in the University of Arkansas MFA program, & the source of countless bewildered anecdotes that I’m sure will be told over drinks across the literary South for decades. I’m sorry to hear she’s left us.”
Ellen Gilchrist was a National Book Award winner, a proudly untamed prof in the University of Arkansas MFA program, & the source of countless bewildered anecdotes that I'm sure will be told over drinks across the literary South for decades. I'm sorry to hear she's left us. pic.twitter.com/jJDcWaGzCw
— Tony Tost (@tonytost) February 1, 2024
And lawyer Blake Rutherford wrote, “Ellen Gilchrist was an American treasure. I still return to her journals, including reflections on her time spent living in Fayetteville and teaching at the [University of Arkansas].”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.