1980

• The Inaugural Papers of Governor William F. Winter, edited by Charlotte Capers (Mississippi Department of Archives and History).
• This Ravished Rose, a romance novel by Anne Carsley (Pocket Books).
• The Pocket Guide to Wine, by Barbara Ensrud (Putnam).
• Ray, a novel by Barry Hannah (Knopf).
• Sweet and Deadly, by Charlaine Harris (Houghton).
• Grow Healthy Kids!: A Parents’ Guide to Sound Nutrition, by Linda Peavy and Andrea Pagenkopf (Grosset & Dunlap).
• The Second Coming, a novel by Walker Percy (Farrar, Straus).
• Lighting the Furnace Pilot, poems by Paul Ruffin (Spoon River Poetry Press)
• In All This Rain, poems by John Stone (Louisiana State University Press).
• The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (Harcourt).
• A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, a play by Tennessee Williams (New Directions).
• Steps Must Be Gentle, a play by Tennessee Williams (Targ).
• Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1868-1920, by Charles Reagan Wilson (University of Georgia Press).

Beth Henley's play The Miss Firecracker Contest premieres in Los Angeles at the Victory Theater. Later that year it is produced off-Broadway in New York at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

Tennessee Williams's plays A House Not Meant to Stand and Something Cloudy, Something Clear are produced in Chicago and off-Broadway, respectively.

Eudora Welty receives a National Medal for Literature and a Presidential Medal for Freedom.

1981

• Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment, by Richard H. Immerman and Stephen E. Ambrose (Doubleday).
• The Winged Lion, a romance novel by Anne Carsley.
• The Pocket Guide to Wine, by Barbara Ensrud (Putnam).
• Helen: A Courtship and Mississippi Poems, poems by William Faulkner, edited by Carvel Collins and Joseph Blotner (Yoknapatawpha Press).
• Sanctuary: The Original Text, by William Faulkner, edited with an afterword and notes by Noel Polk (Random House).
• In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, by Ellen Gilchrist (U of Arkansas P).
• The Ultimate Good Luck, a novel by Richard Ford (Houghton-Miflin).
• Call It Living: Three Stories, by Martha Lacy Hall (Press of the Nightowl).
• Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris
• Sherman’s Other War: The General and the Civil War Press, by John F. Marszalek (Memphis State University Press).
• Terrains of the Heart and Other Essays on Home, by Willie Morris (Yoknapatawpha Press).
• Allison’s Grandfather, by Linda Peavy (Scribner).
• Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun: A Critical Study, by Noel Polk (Indiana University Press).
• Our Women, poems by Paul Ruffin (Abbott House)
• Let the Circle Be Unbroken, by Mildred D. Taylor (Dial).
• It Happened the Day the Sun Rose, a play by Tennessee Williams (Sylvester and Orphanos).

November 4: Beth Henley's play Crimes of the Heart premieres on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre. That same year, the play wins the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best new American play and the Pulitzer Prize for drama and is nominated for a Tony Award for best play.

Walker Percy receives American Book Award nomination, Notable Book citation from American Library Association, and PEN/Faulkner Award nomination, all for The Second Coming.

Eudora Welty receives an American Book Award for The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty.

The Junior Bachelor Society, by John Alfred Williams, was adapted for television by National Broadcasting Corp. (NBC) as Sophisticated Gents.

1982

• The Glad River, by Will D. Campbell (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston).
• The Capers Papers, by Charlotte Capers, foreword by Eudora Welty (University Press of Mississippi).
• Defiant Desire, a romance novel by Anne Carsley (Dell).
• This Triumphant Fire, a romance novel by Anne Carsley (Avon).
• A Lifetime Burning, by Ellen Douglas (Random House).
• Faulkner's MGM Screenplays, by William Faulkner, edited with an introduction and commentaries by Bruce F. Kawin (University of Tennessee Press).
• Faulkner: A Comprehensive Guide to the Brodsky Collection, Volume I: The Bio-Bibliography, edited by Robert W. Hamblin and Louis Daniel Brodsky (University Press of Mississippi).
• Am I Blue, a play by Beth Henley (Dramatists Play Service).
• Crimes of the Heart, a play by Beth Henley (Dramatists Play Service).
• Food, Nutrition, and You, by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith (Scribner).

   

   

• County Woman, by Joan Williams (Little, Brown)
• !Click Song, a novel by John Alfred Williams (Houghton).
• Confessions of a Happy Christian, by Zig Ziglar.

Beth Henley's play The Wake of Jamey Foster first produced at Hartford, Connecticut's, Stage Theatre. It appears later that year on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

Eudora Welty's The Ponder Heart produced as an opera bouffe with musical score by Alice Parker in Jackson, Mississippi.

1983

• Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-elect, 1890-1952, by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon & Schuster).
• Milton S. Eisenhower: Educational Statesman, by Richard H. Immerman and Stephen E. Ambrose (Johns Hopkins University Press).
• Nights Under a Tin Roof: Recollections of a Southern Boyhood, poems by James A. Autry (Yoknapatawpha Press).
• Moon Deluxe, short stories by Frederick Barthelme (Simon & Schuster).
• Cecelia's Sin, by Will D. Campbell (Mercer University Press).
• God on Earth: The Lord's Prayer in Our Time, by Will D. Campbell (Crossroad).
• Father Abraham, fiction by William Faulkner, edited by James B. Meriwether (Random House).
• The Annunciation, by Ellen Gilchrist (Little, Brown).
• Captain Maximus, a novel by Barry Hannah (Knopf).
• The Tennis Handsome, a novel by Barry Hannah (Knopf).
• The Wake of Jamey Foster, a play by Beth Henley (Dramatists Play Service).
• Fast Train Russia, by Jay Higginbotham (Dodd, Mead).
• Always Stand in Against the Curve and Other Sports Stories, by Willie Morris (Yoknapatawpha Press).
• Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Fair, stories by Lewis Nordan (Louisiana State University Press).
• Women Who Changed Things, by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith (Scribner).
• Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, nonfiction by Walker Percy (Farrar, Straus).
• Football Powers of the South, edited by Lawrence Wells (Sports Yearbook Co.).
• Pariah and Other Stories, by Joan Williams (Little, Brown)
• Clothes for a Summer Hotel: A Ghost Play, by Tennessee Williams (New Directions).
• The Courting of Marcus Dupree, by Willie Morris (Doubleday).

1984

• Eisenhower: The President, by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon & Schuster).
• Pegasus Bridge: 6 June, 1944, by Stephen E. Ambrose (Allen & Unwin).
• Bittersweet, a novel by Nevada Barr (St. Martin's).
• Second Marriage, a novel by Frederick Barthelme (Simon & Schuster).
• The Golden Savage, a romance novel by Anne Carsley (Pinnacle Books).
• Wine with Food: A Guide to Entertaining through the Seasons, by Barbara Ensrud (Congdon & Weed).
• Faulkner: A Comprehensive Guide to the Brodsky Collection, Volume II: The Letters, and Volume III, The De Gaulle Story, by William Faulkner, edited by Robert W. Hamblin and Louis Daniel Brodsky (University Press of Mississippi).
• Faulkner and Hollywood: A Retrospective from the Brodsky Collection, by Robert W. Hamblin and Louis Daniel Brodsky (Southeast Missouri State University).
• Vision in Springs, poems by William Faulkner, edited by Judith Sensibar (University of Texas Press).
• Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories, by Ellen Gilchrist (Little, Brown).
• Music Lesson: Stories, by Martha Lacy Hall (University of Illinois Press).
• A Secret Rage, by Charlaine Harris (Houghton).
• A Land Remembered, by Patrick D. Smith (Penguin).
• One Writer's Beginnings, by Eudora Welty (Harvard University Press).
• The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. LeMonde, a play by Tennessee Williams (Albondocani Press).
• Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays, by Tennessee Williams (New Directions).
• Dear Family, by Zig Ziglar.
• See You at the Top, by Zig Ziglar.

Television broadcast premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire, based on the play by Tennessee Williams.

Steve Barthelme receives the Transatlantic Review Award for Fiction.

Eudora Welty receives an American Book Award for One Writer's Beginnings and a Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature from the Modern Language Association of America; she is also nominated for National Book Critics Circle Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominations for One Writer's Beginnings.

1985

• Pegasus Bridge: 6 June, 1944, by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon & Schuster).
• Tracer, a novel by Frederick Barthelme (Simon & Schuster).
• The Deer Pasture, nonfiction by Rick Bass (Texas A & M University Press).
• Second Marriage, screenplay by Frederick Barthelme based on his novel.
• The Natchez Trace, photographs by Harold Young, text by Patti Carr Black (University Press of Mississippi).
• Tempest, a romance novel by Anne Carsley (Pinnacle).
• There Were Also Strangers: A Novel, by Borden Deal (New Horizon Press).
• Faulkner: A Comprehensive Guide to the Brodsky Collection, Volume IV: Battle Cry, by William Faulkner, edited by Robert W. Hamblin and Louis Daniel Brodsky (University Press of Mississippi).
• Novels, 1930-1935: As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, Pylon, by William Faulkner, edited by Joseph Blotner (Library of America).
• The Miss Firecracker Contest, a play by Beth Henley (Dramatists Play Service).
• A Black Physician’s Story: Bringing Hope in Mississippi, by John F. Marszalek and Douglas L. Conner (University Press of Mississippi).
• Looking for Bobby, a novel by Gloria Norris (Knopf).
• Dreams into Deeds: Nine Women Who Dared, by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith (Scribner).
• Conversations with Walker Percy, edited by Lewis A. Lawson and Victor A. Kramer (University Press of Mississippi).
• An Editorial Handbook for William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, by Noel Polk (Garland).
• Said There Was Somebody Talking to Him through the Air Conditioner, by James Seay (Palaemon Press Limited).
• Renaming the Streets, poems by John Stone (Louisiana State University Press).
• Called to Preach, Condemned to Survive: The Education of Clayton Sullivan, by Clayton Sullivan (Mercer University Press).
• The Berhama Account, a novel by John Alfred Williams (New Horizons Press).
• Religion in the South: Essays, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson (University Press of Mississippi).
• Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World, by Zig Ziglar.
• Steps to the Top, by Zig Ziglar.
• Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale, by Zig Ziglar.

Beth Henley's play The Debutante Ball first produced in Costa Mesa, California, at South Coast Repertory.

Steve Barthelme receives a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project award.

Richard Ford receives a second National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for 1985-86.

January 22: Borden Deal dies of a heart attack in Sarasota, Florida..

1986

• For Farish Street Green, February 27, 1986, poem by Margaret Walker Alexander.
• Music in the History of Tougaloo College, by Ben E. Bailey (Tougaloo College).
• Tracer, screenplay by Frederick Barthelme based on his novel.
• Fort Acres and a Goat: A Memoir, by Will D. Campbell (Peachtree).
• The Platinum Man: A Novel, by Borden Deal (New Horizon Press).
• Across the Creek: Faulkner Family Stories, by Jimmy Faulkner (University Press of Mississippi)
• The Sportswriter, a novel by Richard Ford (Vintage).
• Drunk With Love, by Ellen Gilchrist (Little, Brown).
• Riding Out the Tropical Depression: Selected Poems, 1975-1985, by Ellen Gilchrist (Faust).
• Perpendicular Rain, a chapbook of poetry by Robert W. Hamblin and Louis Daniel Brodsky (Southeast Missouri State University).
• The All-Girl Football Team, stories by Lewis Nordan (Louisiana State University Press).
• New American Short Stories: Writers Select Their Own Favorites, edited by Gloria Norris (New American Library,).
• Novel-Writing in an Apocalyptic Time, nonfiction by Walker Percy (Faust).
• Turning Points, by John Ray Skates and Noel Polk (Mississippi Committee for the Humanities).
• Three Stories, by Gloria Norris (Turnipseed Press).
• Rommel and the Rebel, by Lawrence Wells (Doubleday).
• Short Stories, by Tennessee Williams (Ballentine).

Beth Henley's play The Lucky Spot produced in Williamstown, Massachusetts, as part of the Williamstown Theater Festival.

Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon adapted for film as Manhunter by director Michael Mann (De Laurentiis Entertainment Group).

Premiere of Crimes of the Heart, directed by Bruce Beresford, with screenplay by Beth Henley based on her play. Henley receives an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay.

Premiere of Nobody's Fool, directed by Evelyn Purcell, screenplay by Beth Henley.

Premiere of True Stories, directed by David Byrne, with screenplay by Byrne, David Tobolowsky, and Beth Henley.

Eudora Welty's short story "The Hitch-hikers" produced for television.

Richard Wright' novel Native Son adapted for film by director Jerrold Freedman (Cinecom Pictures and PBS's American Playhouse).

Steve Barthelme receives a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project award.

June 17: William Attaway dies of heart failure in Los Angeles, California.

1987

• Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913-1962, by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon & Schuster).
• Home for Christmas: A Story of the South, by Howard Bahr (St. Luke's Press).
• Chroma, short stories by Frederick Barthelme (Simon & Schuster).
• And He Tells the Little Horse the Whole Story, short stories by Steve Barthelme (Johns Hopkins UP).
• Wild to the Heart, nonfiction by Rick Bass (Norton).
• Life Everlaughter: The Heart and Humor of Jerry Clower, by Jerry Clower (Rutledge Hill Press).
• The Magic Carpet, by Ellen Douglas (University Press of Mississippi).
• Country Lawyer and Other Stories for the Screen, by William Faulkner; edited by Louis Daniel Brodsky and Robert W. Hamblin (University Press of Mississippi).
• Autumn in Petrishchevo, by Jay Higginbotham (Progress).
• A Piece of My Heart, a novel by Richard Ford (Collins Harvel).
• Rock Springs, stories by Richard Ford (Atlantic Monthly Press).
• Even Monkeys Fall from Trees, & Other Proverbs, compiled and translated by David Galef (C.E. Tuttle Co.).
• Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist, by Ellen Gilchrist (Little, Brown).
• Hey Jack!, a novel by Barry Hannah (E.P. Dutton/Seymour Lawrence).
• The Lucky Spot, a play by Beth Henley (Dramatists Play Service).
• The Thanatos Syndrome, a novel by Walker Percy (Farrar, Straus).
• Contemporary New England Poetry, volume 1, edited by Paul Ruffin, George P. Garrett, and X.J. Kennedy (Texas Review Press).
• The Storm Cellar, poems by Paul Ruffin.
• The Gold Cadillac, by Mildred D. Taylor (Dial).
• The Friendship, by Mildred D. Taylor (Dial).
• Let the Band Play Dixie, by Lawrence Wells (Doubleday).
• Jacob's Ladder, a novel by John Alfred Williams (Thunder's Mouth).

Beth Henley's play The Lucky Spot produced on Broadway in New York at City Centre Theatre.

Lewis Nordan receives the Porter Fund Prize.

Television broadcast premiere of The Glass Menagerie, based on the play by Tennessee Williams.

Steve Barthelme receives a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project award.

Richard Ford receives a PEN/Faulkner citation for fiction for The Sportswriter and a literature award from the Mississippi Academy of Arts and Letters.

Eudora Welty receives a National Medal of Arts.

1988

• Richard Wright, Daemonic Genius: A Portrait of the Man, A Critical Look at His Work, by Margaret Walker Alexander (Warner Books).
• Two Against One, a novel by Frederick Barthelme (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).
• Facing the Music, stories by Larry Brown (Algonquin).
• The Convention: A Parable, by Will D. Campbell (Peachtree).
• Lady Defiant, a romance novel by Anne Carsley (Random House).
• Can't Quit You, Baby, by Ellen Douglas (Atheneum).
• American Vineyards, by Barbara Ensrud, photographs by Charles E. Dorris (1988).
• Faulkner: A Comprehensive Guide to the Brodsky Collection, Volume V: Manuscripts and Documents, by William Faulkner, edited by Robert W. Hamblin and Louis Daniel Brodsky (University Press of Mississippi).
• My Mother in Memory, by Richard Ford (Raven Editions).
• The Little Red Bicycle, juvenile fiction by David Galef (Random House).
• The Anna Papers, by Ellen Gilchrist (Little, Brown).
• Two Stories: “Some Hills at Sundown” and “The Man Who Kicked Cancer’s Ass, by Ellen Gilchrist (Albondocani Press).
• A Deadly Breed, by Caroline Burnes (Carolyn Haines) (Harlequin).
• Measure of Deceit, by Caroline Burnes (Carolyn Haines) (Harlequin).
• Grover Cleveland, A Bibliography, by John F. Marszalek (Greenwood Press).
• State of the Novel: Dying Art or New Science, nonfiction by Walker Percy (Faust).
• Contemporary New England Poetry, volume 2, edited by Paul Ruffin, George P. Garrett, and X.J. Kennedy (Texas Review Press).
• Rethinking Realized Eschatology, by Clayton Sullivan (Peeters).
• Morgana: Two Stories from "The Golden Apples", by Eudora Welty (University Press of Mississippi).
• Pay the Piper, by Joan Williams (Little, Brown)
• The Red Devil Battery Sign, a play by Tennessee Williams (New Directions).
• The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris.

Steve Barthelme receives a Texas Institute of Letters Short Story Award for "Zorro."

1989

• This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems, by Margaret Walker Alexander (University of Georgia Press).
• Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972, by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon & Schuster).
• Life After Mississippi, poems by James A. Autry (Yoknapatawpha Press).
• Natural Selection, a novel by Frederick Barthelme (Viking).
• The Watch, stories by Rick Bass (Norton).
• Oil Notes, nonfiction by Rick Bass (Houghton Mifflin).
• Dirty Work, a novel by Larry Brown (Algonquin).
• Chester & Chun Ling, by Will D. Campbell (Abingdon Press).
• Stallion Road, a screenplay by William Faulkner, edited by Robert W. Hamblin and Louis Daniel Brodsky (University Press of Mississippi).
• Light Can Be Both Wave and Particle: A Book of Stories, by Ellen Gilchrist (Little, Brown).
• A Time to Kill, fiction by John Grisham (Wynwood Press).
• Phantom Filly, by Caroline Burnes (Carolyn Haines) (Harlequin).
• The Brodsky Faulkner Collection, 1959-1989: The Collector's 101 Favorites, by Robert W. Hamblin and Louis Daniel Brodsky (Center for Faulkner Studies).
• Boomerang, a novel by Barry Hannah (Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawrence).
• Discovering Russia: People and Places, by Jay Higginbotham (Progress).
• Homecomings, essays by Willie Morris; art by William Dunlap (University Press of Mississippi).
• To Come Up Grinning: A Tribute to George P. Garrett, edited by Paul Ruffin and Stuart Wright (Texas Review)
• Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, by Clifton L. Taulbert (Council Oak Books).
• Photographs, by Eudora Welty (University Press of Mississippi).
• Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, edited by Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris (University of North Carolina Press).

Beth Henley's play Crimes of the Heart produced in New Orleans at the Southern Repertory Theater.

Beth Henley's play Abundance first produced in Costa Mesa, California, at South Coast Repertory.

Premiere of Miss Firecracker, directed by Thomas Schlamme, screenplay by Beth Henley based on her play The Miss Firecracker Contest.

Television broadcast premiere of Sweet Bird of Youth, based on the play by Tennessee Williams.

Richard Ford receives a literary award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the Literary Lion Award from the New York Public library.