In 1983 Tennessee Williams, American playwright and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, left the residual portion of his estate to the University of the South as a memorial to his grandfather, the Reverend Walter E. Dakin, who studied at Sewanee's School of Theology in 1895. Mr. Williams directed in his will that a memorial fund be established to encourage "creative writing." That fund supports the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and other enterprises, including Tennessee Williams Fellows residencies, the Sewanee Writers' Series, and the recent construction of the Tennessee Williams Performing Arts Center, an adaptable 150-seat multiform theater with state-of-the-art sound and lighting equipment.

Enjoying what one contemporary poet has called Sewanee's "remoteness without cultural dislocation," many writers have come here to live and work. These include William Alexander Percy, Allen Tate, Andrew Lytle, Robert Penn Warren, Peter Taylor, Eleanor Ross Taylor, Monroe Spears, Katherine Anne Porter, Walker Percy, James Agee, Caroline Gordon, Jean Stafford, Randall Jarrell, Ford Madox Ford, Robert Lowell, and, more recently, Richard Tillinghast and Wyatt Prunty. The University is delighted to see new generations of writers drawn to Sewanee by the Writers' Conference.

The Sewanee Young Writers' Conference moves into its fifteenth season in 2009. This program is geared toward high-school writers. Send inquiries to director Elizabeth Grammer at 735 University Avenue, Sewanee TN 37383-1000.

The Sewanee School of Letters now enters its fourth year in 2009. It offers the M.A. in English and American Literature and the M.F.A. in Creative Writing. The degrees can be completed in five summers, or four if you write your thesis elsewhere. Send inquiries to Meg Binnicker at 735 University Avenue, Sewanee TN 37383-1000.