While growing up in Decatur, Roy Blount Jr. always hoped to be in a hall of fame. Only it wasn’t the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, into which he was inducted
Nov. 7, but instead the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
“But now that I’m here, I realized that I would much rather be in a hall of fame with Flannery O’Connor than Ty Cobb,” he said during a Nov. 6 lecture before his induction. The talk was part of the 2016 fall Signature Lecture series and the Spotlight on the Arts.
Blount is a renowned writer, author, humorist and journalist. He began his long career at the Decatur-DeKalb News, before receiving his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University and his master’s degree from Harvard University.
In his lecture, “Where I’m Coming From,” Blount discussed his upbringing in Georgia as well as his many influences over the years including his parents, Flannery O’Connor and one of his high school teachers.
This is the 15th year of the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, where a panel of judges appointed by the UGA librarian nominates a group of writers who are either natives of the state or have produced a significant work while in the state. In addition to Blount, author Brainard Cheney, novelist Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin, short-story writer and critic James Alan McPherson, and journalist Bill Shipp are members of the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame’s Class of 2016.
