World Literary Awards

← Back to Home

Mary Hood

メアリー・フッド

Mearī Huddo

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
1946-09-16 （Brunswick, Georgia, U.S.）
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Residence History
Brunswick, Georgia → White, Georgia → Douglasville / Douglas County, Georgia → Woodstock, Georgia (near Lake Allatoona) → Jackson County, Georgia

Career

Occupations
novelist, short story writer, writer
Active Years
1980-
Affiliations
University of Mississippi (Grisham Chair, visiting writer), Berry College (Writer-in-Residence), Reinhardt University (Writer-in-Residence), Oxford College of Emory University (visiting writer), Centre College (visiting writer), Mercer University (Ferrol Sams Distinguished Chair)
Influenced By
Erskine Caldwell, Carson McCullers, Eudora Welty

Education

Georgia State University
Spanish
Degree: 学士（スペイン語）
Country: United States
Commuted to campus; exact graduation year not specified.

Awards

Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
1984
Work: How Far She Went
Organization: University of Georgia Press / Flannery O'Connor Award
Result: 受賞
The Southern Review / Louisiana State University Short Fiction Award
1984
Work: How Far She Went
Organization: The Southern Review / Louisiana State University
Result: 受賞
National Magazine Award (fiction)
1986
Work: Something Good for Ginnie
Organization: National Magazine Awards
Result: 受賞
Lillian Smith Book Award
1987
Work: And Venus is Blue
Organization: Lillian Smith Award Committee
Result: 受賞
Dixie Council of Authors and Journalists Author-of-the-Year Award
1987
Work: And Venus is Blue
Organization: Dixie Council of Authors and Journalists
Result: 受賞
Townsend Prize for Fiction
1988
Work: And Venus is Blue
Organization: Townsend Prize organizers
Result: 受賞
Whiting Award
1994
Organization: The Whiting Foundation
Result: 受賞
Robert Penn Warren Award
2001
Organization: Awarding organization unspecified
Result: 受賞
Townsend Prize for Fiction
2016
Work: A Clear View of the Southern Sky
Organization: Townsend Prize organizers
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

How Far She Went

1984 Southern literature

A short-story collection set against Georgia's changing rural-to-suburban landscape, exploring family tensions, memory, and loss with lyrical, precise prose.

Southern identityfamily and intergenerational relationshipschange and suburbanization
Translations
  • Translated into Dutch, French, Japanese, and Swedish

And Venus is Blue

1986 Southern literature / novella & short stories

A collection containing the title novella and short stories that interweave local memory and complex human relationships, focusing on interior change.

memory and the pastsmall-town human dynamics

Familiar Heat

1995 Novel / Southern literature

A novel centered on Southern community life, addressing desire, loneliness, and social change among its characters.

desire and lonelinesscommunity transformation
Adaptations
  • [Film (screenplay/adaptation interest)] Familiar Heat

A Clear View of the Southern Sky

2015 Short story collection / Southern literature

A short-story collection summarizing a long writing career, grouping themes of Southern landscape, relationships, and passing time.

nostalgialand and memory

Seam Busters

2015 Novella

A novella depicting work, labor, and the relationships of people living in a local community.

work and communitylandscapes of labor

Bibliography

  • How Far She Went (1984)
  • And Venus is Blue (1986)
  • Familiar Heat (1995)
  • A Clear View of the Southern Sky: Stories (2015)
  • Seam Busters: A Novella (2015)

Adaptations

  • Familiar Heat has a screenplay registered (2003); there has been Hollywood interest in adaptations.

Translations of Works

  • Works translated into Dutch, French, Japanese, and Swedish

Style & Themes

Literary Style
lyrical with rich detailrooted in Southern realism
Recurring Motifs
small-town lifepast and memoryfamily bonds and ruptureslandscape (Southern land)

Legacy

Mary Hood is regarded as a significant contemporary Southern writer, praised for her portrayals of interior lives and changing local landscapes. She was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2014.

Academic Societies

  • Georgia Writers Hall of Fame

Archives

  • Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University (Mary Hood papers)

In Popular Culture

  • Hollywood interest in film adaptations (development/screenplay interest)

Quotes

  • “Suppose a man is walking across a field. To the question 'Who is that?' a Southerner would reply by saying something like 'Wasn't his granddaddy the one whose dog and him got struck by lightning on the steel bridge? Mama's third cousin – dead before my time – found his railroad watch in that eight-pound catfish's stomach the next summer just above the dam. I think it was eight pounds. Big as Eunice's arm. The way he married for that new blue Cadillac automobile, reckon how come he's walking like he has on Sunday shoes, if that's who it is, and for sure it is.' A Northerner would reply to the same question (only if directly asked, though, never volunteering), 'That's Joe Smith.'”
    Source: The New Georgia Guide (1996) - Mary Hood (1996)

Trivia

  • Kennesaw State University named her Writer of the Decade in honor of the Contemporary Literature and Writing Conference tenth anniversary.
  • Her work has been compared to Erskine Caldwell, Carson McCullers, and Eudora Welty.
  • Author Pat Conroy praised her: 'Mary Hood is not a good writer, she is a great writer.'