Frye Gaillard, writer in residence at the University of South Alabama and former Southern Editor at the Charlotte Observer, is the author of more than 30 books, exploring themes of social justice and Southern music, religion, politics, and culture. His award-winning titles have ranged across the genres of history, memoir, journalism, and historical novels for young readers. Three of his books have been adapted as public television documentaries, and Gaillard has co-authored the script for two of those, including the Emmy-winning "In the Path of the Storms." His critically praised books have included A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, an NPR Great Read of 2018 and winner of the Fitzgerald Museum Literary Prize; Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award; The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina, for which Gaillard received the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Humanitarian of the Year Award; and Watermelon Wine: The Spirit of Country Music, featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. Gaillard has co-written songs that have made the U.S. folk and country music charts and appeared in nationally distributed music videos and documentary films, and his byline has appeared in such publications as The Bitter Southerner, The Oxford American, The Washington Post, Sojourners, Journal of American History, Outside Magazine, The Progressive, Parade, and Alabama Heritage.Gaillard has served as writer in residence for the Honors College at Johnson C. Smith University (HBCU), and Queens University in Charlotte, NC. His other recognitions have included the Clarence Cason Award, the Eugene Current-Garcia Award, and the Alabama Governor's Award for the Arts.
He has contributed to anthologies published by Oxford University Press, the University of North Carolina Press, the University of Alabama Press, and the University Press of Mississippi.
