Texas Literary Hall of Fame
Texas Literary Hall of Fame was established to celebrate and encourage the state’s rich literary heritage by honoring its foremost authors, whose original writing reflects enduring cultural relevance and artistic creativity
Guidelines
The Texas Literary Hall of Fame was established to honor authors past and present
whose body of work, fiction or non-fiction:
- Significantly contributes to Texas’ literary heritage
- Was first published in this country, and
- Has been previously recognized for its literary significance
TCU Library and AddRan College of Liberal Arts and TCU Press
Announces 2022 Texas Literary Hall of Fame Inductees
August 1, 2022 – The TCU Mary Couts Burnett Library, in partnership with the TCU AddRan College of Liberal Arts and TCU Press, announced their selection for induction into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. The authors will be honored at the official induction ceremony on October 19, 2022.
The Texas Literary Hall of Fame was established to celebrate and encourage the state’s rich literary heritage by honoring its foremost authors, whose original writing reflects enduring cultural relevance and artistic creativity. The Texas Literary Hall of Fame honors inductees every two years.
"We are excited to welcome this stellar group of writers into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame," says Tracy L. Hull, Dean of the TCU Library.
"The Texas Literary Hall of Fame showcases top literary writers across the nation. This group of inductees follows a long list of others who demonstrate how Texas has shaped the cultural landscape of their writings," said Sonja Watson, Ph.D., Dean of the AddRan College of Liberal Arts.
ReShonda Tate Billingsley
ReShonda Tate Billingsley is a journalist and author, publishing her first book in 2001 My Brother’s Keeper. Billingsley's #1 nationally bestselling novels include Let the Church Say Amen, I Know I’ve Been Changed, and Say Amen, Again, winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. Her collaboration with Victoria Christopher Murray has produced four hit novels, Sinners & Saints, Friends & Foes, A Blessing & a Curse, and Fortune & Fame. BET released a movie in 2013 based on ReShonda’s book Let the Church Say Amen in which she had a minor role. She also had a role in the made-for-TV movie The Secret She Kept based on her book of the same title.
Jerry Craven
Jerry Craven’s published books include creative non-fiction, short stories and books for children: Dancing on Barbed Wire; Women of Thunder; The Wild Part; Saving a Songbird, and Searching for Rama’s Spear. He currently serves as press director for Ink Brush Press and is active as founding editor for the international literary journal Amarillo Bay. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. His most recent book is a collection of ekphrastic stories and poetry written with Andrew Geyer and Terry Dalrymple: Magic, Mystery, Madness.
Patrick Dearen
Patrick Dearen is the author of novels and nonfiction books, focusing on the Pecos River region. His environmental study, Bitter Waters: The Struggles of the Pecos River, won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, while Devils River: Treacherous Twin to the Pecos, 1535-1900 received a San Antonio Conservation Society Publication Award and the Rupert Richardson Award of West Texas Historical Association. His novel, The Big Drift, received five awards, including the Spur Award of Western Writers of America and the Peacemaker Award of Western Fictioneers. Another novel, When Cowboys Die, was a Spur Award finalist.
Tim Madigan
Tim Madigan is an award-winning newspaper journalist, writing for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Politico, Reader’s Digest and for thirty years the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He is the author of three critically acclaimed books: I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers; See No Evil: Blind Devotion and Bloodshed in David Koresh’s Holy War; and The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, which became a New York Times bestseller in June 2021.
Jodi Thomas
Jodi Thomas is the New York Times and USA Today Best-Selling author of over 50 novels and 15 short story collections with millions of copies in print. In July 2006, she was the 11th woman to be inducted into the Romance Writers Association Hall of Fame. She also served over 15 years as Writer in Residence at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas. A fifth generation Texan with a Master's Degree in Family Studies who has taught family living and worked as a marriage and family counselor, Thomas is known for her nuanced writing of family dynamics and often chooses to set her novels in her home state of Texas, where her grandmother was born in a covered wagon. "The undisputed queen of Texas romance." — RT Book Reviews "Jodi draws the reader into her stories from the first page...She’s one of my favorites." — #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
Martha Wells
Martha Wells has been a science fiction and fantasy author since her first fantasy novel, The Element of Fire, published in 1993. Her work includes The Books of the Raksura series, The Death of the Necromancer, the Ile-Rien trilogy, The Murderbot Diaries series, media tie-ins for Star Wars, Stargate: Atlantis, and Magic: The Gathering, as well as short fiction, young adult novels and non-fiction. Her work has appeared on the USA Today Bestseller List and the New York Times Bestseller List, and has been translated into twenty-two languages.
Richard Bruce Winders
Dr. Bruce Winders is an internationally recognized authority on the conflicts over the American Southwest fought between the United States and Mexico in the nineteenth century. His training in Spanish Borderlands, combined with the fields of early U.S. and Mexican histories, have given him a perspective necessary to develop a comprehensive interpretation that has enabled him to tell history from both sides of the Rio Grande. Winders served as Historian and Curator for the Alamo for twenty-three years before leaving to become a historical consultant. He is credited by many with bringing a new level of professionalism and scholarship to the Alamo through his long tenure at the old mission and site of the world famous 1836 battle. Winders is a published author whose works have helped to reinterpret the Texas Revolution and the War with Mexico, such books include Panting for Glory: The Mississippi Volunteers in the Mexican War, Firearms of the Texas Frontier: Flintlock to Cartridge, Sacrificed at the Alamo: Tragedy and Triumph in the Texas Revolution, Davy Crockett: The Legend of the Wild Frontier, Mr. Polk’s Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War, and Queen of the West: A Documentary History of San Antonio, 1718-1900. Of particular note has been Winders' focus on the town of San Antonio de Béxar, insisting that had it not existed there would have been no famous battle as the fight was for control of Béxar, not the old mission fortress. He has also introduced Spanish and Mexican history into the story of Texas in a meaningful way, explaining these years are vital in understanding the region. Winders says that "all history is connected," contending that continuity is just as important as change when studying history. This notion served him especially well at the Alamo.
