The South Carolina Academy of Authors (SCAA) is pleased to announce the 2011 inductees, who will be celebrated on March 18, in Aiken, SC.
The Washington Post has called Percival Everett "one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists." To date, he has written 22 books, including 17 novels, 3 short story collections, and 2 volumes of poetry. Some critics have called Everett's fiction "genre-ambidextrous" because of its sheer variety in both subject matter and form, including his retelling of Greek myth (For Her Dark Skin, 1990), his exploring the limits of absurdist narrative (American Desert, 2004) and his reinventing the Western (God's Country, 1994 and Wounded, 2005).
Everett grew up in Columbia, but for years, he has made California his home. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of English at the "Other USC," the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
With the 2002 publication of her first novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd took up residence on the best seller lists. Although she had already carved for herself an enviable reputation as a memoirist with such books as When the Heart Waits (1990) and The Dance of the Dissident Daughter (1996), her venture into fiction firmly established her literary credentials. 
Following the success of The Secret Life of Bees, which is now widely taught in high school and college classrooms, Kidd published The Mermaid Chair (2005) and Traveling with Pomegranates (2009), a dual memoir with her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor.
A Georgia native, Kidd currently lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida, but Charleston serves as the backdrop of her next book, a historical novel set in the nineteenth century.
Gamel Woolsey (1895-1968) left her native South Carolina to pursue a career as an actress in New York City. A series of turbulent love affairs, however, brought her eventually to England and Spain, where she established herself as a poet, novelist, and memoirist. Her verse collection entitled Middle Earth (1931) was inspired, in part, by her 
long-standing extramarital relationship with British novelist Llewellyn Powys. Due to its candid treatment of sexuality, her novel One Way of Love was published posthumously in 1987. Malaga Burning, her memoir of the Spanish Civil War, written while she shared a life with journalist Gerald Brennan, was published in its first American edition by Pythia Press in 1998.
Woolsey's birthplace, Breeze Hill Plantation, just outside of Aiken, is still owned by members of the family.
The SCAA encourages academic and public libraries statewide to promote reading through highlighting the works of the 2011 SCAA Inductees: Percival Everett, Sue Monk Kidd, and Gamel Woolsey. The SCAA encourages libraries to display the works of these noted authors during the month of March to celebrate their achievements.
The SCAA will be hosting its annual induction ceremony in Aiken. During this gala ceremony, Sue Monk Kidd, Percival Everett, and the late Gamel Woolsey will be inducted in the state's literary hall of fame. Advance reservations for this event can be made by sending a check for $35 per person (payable to the SC Academy of Authors) to Dr. Tom Mack, English Department, USCA, Aiken, SC 29801. For more information, contact Dr. Mack at tomm@usca.edu or visit www.scacademyofauthors.org.
