The South Carolina Academy of Authors Inducts Four New Writers into the SC Literary Hall of Fame

On Saturday, March 21st, The Board of Governors of the SC Academy of Authors, in partnership with USC Aiken, presented the 2026 Induction Ceremony honoring the newest members of the SC Literary Hall of Fame at USCA’s Etherredge Center in Aiken.

The event included a lovely, sold-out dinner for the attendees, followed by an intimate induction ceremony at which individual members of the SCAA Board of Governors had the honor of speaking about the new members before the inductees warmly addressed the audience themselves.

The newest members of the SCAA’s SC Literary Hall of Fame are Claudia Smith Brinson, Dr. Dianne Johnson-Feelings, Augustus Jenkins Farmer, and J. Drew Lanham.

SCAA Board of Governor’s member Betsy Teter inducts J. Drew Lanham into the Academy’s SC Literary Hall of Fame

A native of Edgefield, SC, J. Drew Lanham is a poet, memoirist, naturalist, playwright, professor, and a recipient of the 2022 MacArthur Fellowship “genius” grant. He is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature (2016), Sparrow Envy: A Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts (2021), and Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves (2024). He is the Poet Laureate of Edgefield County and a Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University.

SCAA Board of Governors member Tom Mack Inducts Jenks Farmer into the Academy’s SC Literary Hall of Fame

Augustus “Jenks” Farmer has created two of the largest botanical gardens in SC, building and elevating the Riverbanks Botanical Gardens in Columbia to national acclaim. He is the author of Deep-Rooted Wisdom: Skills and Stories from Generations of Gardeners (2014), Funky Little Flower Farm  (2019), Crinum: Unearthing the History and Culture of the Biggest Bulbs in the World (2022), Garden Disrupters: The Rebel Misfits Who Turned Southern Horticulture on Its Head (2023), and Secrets of Southern Gardening (2025).

SCAA Board of Governors member Aida Rogers (right) inducts Dianne Johnson-Feelings into the Academy’s SC Literary Hall of Fame

Dr. Dianne Johnson-Feelings (Dinah Johnson) is a professor of English at the University of SC and has written ten books for children, all celebrating African American culture and community. She earned her undergraduate degree in English and creative writing from Princeton University and master's and doctoral degrees from Yale University, in Afro-American Studies and American Studies, respectively. Johnson's first published book was called Telling Tales: The Pedagogy and Promise of African American Literature for Youth (1990) was deemed “a much needed resource for children's literature" and was considered for several years as "the only book-length critical study of early black children's literature." She also edited The Best of The Brownies' Book, an anthology published in 1996 with texts from The Brownies Book a 1920s magazine aimed at African-American children which is considered "a major contribution to the field of children's literature."

SCAA Board of Governors member Cindi Boiter (left) inducts Claudia Smith Brinson into the Academy’s SC Literary Hall of Fame

Claudia Smith Brinson worked as a journalist for more than 30 years and was a national columnist for Knight-Ridder. Her reporting at The State newspaper won more than three dozen awards and she was the first person to win Knight-Ridder’s Award of Excellence in Journalism twice. She was a member of the newspaper team whose Hurricane Hugo coverage was a Pulitzer finalist and her short story “Einstein’s Daughter” received the O. Henry Award. She is the author of Stories of Struggle: The Clash Over Civil Rights in South Carolina (2020) and Injustice in Focus: The Civil Rights Photography of Cecil Williams (2024).

The SCAA selects new inductees whose works have been judged culturally important. Each inductee, whether living or deceased, has added to South Carolina’s literary legacy by illuminating some aspect of South Carolina culture and gaining a reputation that transcends the borders of our state. Including this year’s induction, the SCAA, founded in 1986, will have officially inducted more than 100 authors into its literary hall of fame.

The SCAA Board of Governors “believes in the extraordinary creativity of the human spirit and the value of multicultural diversity displayed in the work of all South Carolina writers. It is deeply committed to creating and sustaining practices that promote equity, diversity, and inclusion and strives to support these beliefs and holds itself accountable to these intentions.”

In addition to hosting this literary hall of fame, the SCAA also sponsors annual fellowships and student prizes in poetry and prose through support from the Penelope Coker Hall/Eliza Wilson Ingle Fund of Central Carolina Community Foundation. The SCAA is also grateful to the South Carolina Arts Commission for their sponsorship and support.

For more information about the South Carolina Academy of Authors visit the website.

New SC Literary Hall of Fame Inductees Drew Lanham and Dinah Johnson relax during a closing brunch at the home of Tom Mack and Michael Budd

(Full Disclosure: Cindi Boiter is a member of the Jasper Project’s board of directors and the author of this piece)

(Photo Credit - Tom Mack and event attendees)

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TONIGHT! Claudia Smith Brinson Talks about New Book - Stories of Struggle

Jasper will be sharing a review with you later, but today we’re excited about tonight’s interview with Claudia Smith Brinson as she discusses her new book, Stories of Struggle: The Clash over Civil Rights in South Carolina, just published by USC Press.

Hosted by Lexington County Library and beginning at 6:30 pm — register for this exciting conversation at

https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1442893917728807951

Supper Table Spotlight: Claudia Smith Brinson Honors Charleston's Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina

We’re featuring the artists from the Supper Table project throughout the summer. This is the 9th in our series on Supper Table Artists

The word “honor” comes up so often for me these days as the Supper Table enters its last month of preparation and, in light of the political climate we are living in, it is such a wave of relief, such a respite for the soul, to find myself surrounded by so many honorable women who want to honor others.

Claudia Smith Brinson is a perfect example of the breath-of-fresh-air kind of person I’m talking about. Claudia Smith Brinson was a senior lecturer and program coordinator of the Writing for Print and Digital Media major at Columbia College in Columbia, S.C. She worked as a journalist for 30 years, mostly for Knight Ridder, and was honored with more than three dozen state and regional awards. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist as a member of the team covering Hurricane Hugo. She also writes short stories and has won an O.Henry. Claudia is at work on a book on the untold stories of civil rights activists in South Carolina.

Claudia was charged with writing a third-person, creative non-fiction essay about the Grimke Sisters—Sarah and Angelina—from Charleston who became abolitionists and human rights activists for most of the 19th century. Claudia writes with painful candor about the world of slavery the sisters bore witness to and their early decision to leave their churches, join with the Quakers in Philadelphia, and eventually, be disappointed with Quakers and organized religion in general.

What must arise in the heart and head that allows you to see all about you are morally and ethically wrong? What does it take to act? And to continue despite condemnation and abuse? What is in you that allows you to think and act hundreds of years ahead of your time? The brilliance of sisters Sarah Moore Grimke and Angelina Emily Grimke force these questions on us, as well as the frustrating realization that we have yet to meet their standards of equality and goodness.

Brinson continues:

The prisons of gender and color were asphyxiating: Only white men could vote. The enslaved were owned but owned nothing, including their own bodies. Enslaved women were vulnerable to rape; any children born to them, no matter whom the father, were born enslaved and could be sold. Free white women lived under the control of their fathers, and, once married, had no legal identity. Free married women were considered one with the husband; any property, inheritance, income, or ensuing children fell the man under the law of coverture. Poor free women might work as cooks, domestics, seamstresses, and assistants to tradesmen and shopkeepers, but income they made belonged to their husbands. During the sisters’ adulthood, fewer than fifteen percent of women worked outside a household. Not only the law but Christianity confined them: Slaveholders used the Bible to justify white male control of sisters, daughters, wives, and the enslaved.

How does a person, then, gain a sense of her own humanity and her right to have rights? How does a woman find her own self and her life’s meaning when selfhood is denied? And how does she then apply that not only to herself but to others in extremis? The Grimke sisters developed young a repugnance and resistance to cruelty and abuse, to repression and denial while all around them people of their race acclimated. The sisters seem, perhaps through their quests for education and a nondiscriminatory religious community, to have fostered their awareness against odds and opposition into an individuality that knew right from wrong – despite the rules of their times, religion, and country – and also into an individuality that fought for what was right – despite the countering messages of gender, society, and law. To say they were geniuses is exclusionary; they eventually found a like-minded community in women such as Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. To call them prophets is depressing; much of what they called for has yet to come to pass.

Claudia Smith Brinson’s full essay on the Grimke Sisters will appear in our book, Setting the Supper Table, which launches on Friday, September 6th at Trustus Theatre as part of the premiere of the Supper Table installation, performance, and film premieres, then moves to Harbison theatre at MTC for on Sunday September 8th for a performance and installation. Setting the Supper Table will be available via a limited edition printing for $25, but you can secure your copy now by contributing to the Supper Table Kickstarter campaign — which closes in less than two days—at the $50 and above levels.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejasperproject/the-supper-table?ref=user_menu