Padgett Powell

Padgett Powell (born April 25, 1952, in Gainesville, Florida) is an American novelist in the Southern literary tradition. His debut novel, Edisto (1984), was nominated for the National Book Award and was excerpted in The New Yorker.

Powell has written five more novels — including A Woman Named Drown (1987); Edisto Revisited (1996), a sequel to his debut; Mrs. Hollingsworth's Men (2000); The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? (2009); and You & Me (2012), his most recent — and three collections of short stories. In addition to The New Yorker, Powell's work has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper's, Grand Street, Oxford American, The New York Times Book Review, and other publications.

Powell is an emeritus professor at the University of Florida, where he began teaching writing in 1976.

Awards and honors

1984 National Book Award, nomination, Edisto

1986 Whiting Award

1987 Rome Fellowship in Literature from The American Academy of Arts and Letters.

2011 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, You & Me

Works

Novels

Edisto (1984)

A Woman Named Drown (1987)

Edisto Revisited (1996)

Mrs. Hollingsworth's Men (2000; reissued in 2014 as Hologram)

The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? (2009)

You & Me (2012)

Novella

The New Book (2024; from the anthology Blasphemy and Other Ancestors)

Story collections

Typical (1991)

Aliens of Affection (1998)

Cries for Help, Various (2015)

Essay collection

Indigo (2021)

Essays

"Tangled Up in Indigo," Garden & Gun, April/May 2015

"Tin House" (blog), October 15, 2015