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Daniel Woodrell’s Quill Award shows that Los Angeles is following southwest Missouri’s literary taste.

[UPDATE, SATURDAY, APRIL 28: See the end of this article to learn about Quill Award reservations.]

So now Los Angeles is looking to the Ozarks as a guide for literary taste. (Attention readers: The previous sentence is extremely scandalous, at least within the pallid confines of American literary criticism.)

The novelist who’s receiving this year’s Quill Award, given by the local chapter of Springfield-based Writers Hall of Fame of America to a distinguished writer with a southwest Missouri connection, has also attracted the national spotlight, shining out from no less than the Los Angeles Times and Hollywood’s filmmaking machine.

Daniel Woodrell lives in West Plains with his wife, author Katie Estill. He is the author of eight novels, including Winter’s Bone, which the Los Angeles Times has shortlisted for its fiction prize, to be announced April 27

[UPDATE, SATURDAY, APRIL 28:  The Los Angeles Times reports that Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua's A Woman in Jerusalem is the fiction winner in the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. —G.H.]

Winter’s Bone is also being made into a film by Anjelica Huston.

Woodrell’s best-kept-secret status means you may not have heard that he is among the very small group of literary novelists living and working in Missouri and that his work focuses on the sometimes-dark, always-vivid life of the Ozarks backwoods. And you might not know that his book Woe to Live On, a dark story of an African-American serving in the Confederate army, was made into a film by Ang Lee (the fellow who made The Ice Storm and Brokeback Mountain).

On May 3 at 6 p.m., Daniel Woodrell will be at the Missouri Ozarks Writers Hall of Fame annual Quill Award celebration. (For the record, the writer of this article sits on the chapter board and is helping to organize the event.) Writers Hall of Fame, based at Missouri State University, exists to honor major writers such as Woodrell, but more significantly, its local chapters support young student writers by offering college scholarships and celebrating their work.

You can join in the celebration (media-sponsored by 417 Magazine) by joining Writers Hall of Fame at Drury University. The two entities will host a dinner and present student writing scholarships and dramatic readings of work by Daniel Woodrell, as well as the award-winning students. Actors with the Skinny Improv will lend their talents to the event, as will local thespians Dr. Sandra House and Dr. L.J. Summers.

Drury University’s English Department Writing Center is sponsoring the Quill Award dinner with unprecedented generosity. (Last year’s tickets cost $28; this year’s tickets have been reduced to $15. The DU writing center is also giving free dinners to every student honoree and one family member.) Springfieldian Nancy Miller Tucker has organized the dinner and says everything will be top-notch. “I have been to some dinners like this where it was the worst meal of my life,” she remarks. “This will be first-class.”
Also worth noting: Actress and Missouri State graduate Tess Harper will be on hand to give a speech in appreciation of Woodrell. Reached in Los Angeles recently, Harper told us she had never met Woodrell but is a “huge fan.” “I’m surprised he’s not touted more in bookstores,” she remarked. “He’s among the top writers today for fiction.” 

—Staff Writer Chris DeRosier contributed reporting

The Quill Award

[UPDATED SATURDAY, APRIL 28 —G.H.]
 WHEN: May 3, doors open 6 p.m., dinner, 6:15 p.m.
WHERE: Findlay Student Center Ballroom, Drury University (Drury Lane, just north of Central Street, two blocks north of Chestnut Expressway. Park in Lot 7 off of Summit Avenue.)
TICKETS: $15
RESERVATIONS: Reservations through this website are closed. E-mail Missouri Ozarks Writers Hall of Fame to learn about remaining tickets for the banquet May 3.
MORE: ozarkswriters.blogspot.com

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