Everly Brothers, Brandon Gibson and other East Tennessee writers named to the hall of fame

Catherine Landis cannot ever remember a time when she did not write, including when she was in elementary school on Signal Mountain by Chattanooga more than 50 years ago.

“For some reason, some kids like to draw, some like to do sports. I started writing and I never quit,” she said with a laugh.

That included writing for the high school paper and literary journal at Girls Preparatory School in Chattanooga, and being a pioneering female student newspaper editor at Davidson College and an award-winning investigative reporter in New Bern, North Carolina. She continued to work on the craft after she moved to Knoxville and raised a family and wrote two published novels and later some Knoxville Mercury columns and short stories and nonfiction pieces.

But the Bearden area resident was − albeit briefly − almost at a loss for words or thoughts when she learned she had been voted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame.

“I was so shocked when Teresa Brittain (executive director of the coordinating Friends of Literacy) contacted me,” she said. “I had no inkling something like this would ever happen.”

Ceremony is March 24

She will be recognized along with 11 other inductees and one special award recipient at the Hall of Fame ceremonies March 24 at The Foundry in a fundraising event for Friends of Literacy.

Also being inducted and scheduled to attend are longtime former News Sentinel music and entertainment writer Betsy Pickle, former Knoxville Journal and retired News Sentinel editorial cartoonist Charlie Daniel, Oak Ridge essay and poetry writer Robert Cumming, fellow poet Donna Doyle of Knoxville, Maryville Daily Times columnist and social media poster Steve Wildsmith, and songwriter and WUOT-FM music director Todd Steed.

Inducted posthumously will be the noted musical group the Everly Brothers, singer and “I Can’t Breathe” opera writer Brandon Gibson, former Knoxville Associated Press correspondent and TVA staffer Duncan Mansfield, longtime Knoxville Journal columnist and local history book author Vic Weals, and Blaine native L.E. White, who wrote such country music hits as the 1971 Grammy Award-winning “After the Fire Is Gone.”

The Emerging Writer Award, which is now in its third year of existence, is being presented to Ashlee Latimer, who in 2022 wrote the children’s picture book “Francis Discovers Possible.” The Bearden High and University of Tennessee graduate has also been a producer and director and in 2018 won a Tony Award as co-producer of “Once on This Island.”

Landis – whose two novels include “Some Days There’s Pie,” published by St. Martin’s Press in 2002, and the 2004 book “Harvest” – said the aspect of writing she enjoys the most is when she gets to be her own editor.

“I love to rewrite,” she said. “I really don’t like the first draft. Once I get something down on paper, I love rewriting.”

She said that if she could give any advice to writers, it would be to read as much as possible. “It’s very difficult to teach writing,” she said. “The best teacher is to just write, write and rewrite. Really dissect whatever you write. It can always be better.”

Among the other aspects of being a writer, some can be kind of challenging, she admitted. She does not like the publicity part of pushing her books or career. She said that with fewer publishing houses, getting published the traditional way seems even more difficult today, and she would hate to be a younger writer trying to get a first book published.

But for simply the craft of writing, she is still one of its biggest fans. “Read and write,” she said in slipping in some more advice for would-be writers. “There are no shortcuts.”

Friends of Literacy director Brittain sounded over the phone as if she could write her own nonfiction book of ways that the nonprofit tries to help improve literacy in the Knoxville area. As she mentioned in detail, that includes everything from an adult literacy program to a tutor program for struggling young readers.

And the director believes the Hall of Fame induction, which has been taking place every year since 2004 except for the pandemic year of 2020, helps in both proceeds raised and the inspiration the various writers can invoke within the community.

She said the selections are made from nominations from the public and voting by a diverse group of people knowledgeable about the local writing community in various genres.

“It really is based on their body of work,” Brittain said. “Most of the writers inducted into the Hall have been writing for quite a while.”

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Everly Brothers, others named to East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame