A little bit of history about our story. Clarksville, Tennessee, was a pivotal center of the Southern Renaissance of the 1920s and ’30s. Writers of the era living in Clarksville included Robert Penn Warren, Evelyn Scott, Caroline Gordon and Allen Tate. Additional writers, including Thomas Mabry, Cleanth Brooks, Ford Madox Ford, Donald Davidson, Katherine Ann Porter, Robert Lowell, Andrew Lytle, Malcolm Cowley, Frances and Brainard Cheney and others gathered to write and discuss their work at “Benfolly,” Tate and Gordon’s home overlooking the banks of the Cumberland River. Their Clarksville home became a Mecca for writers of the Southern Renaissance, and from that site poured literature which enriched the American scene. In that great tradition, we offer you the Nineteenth Annual Clarksville Writers Conference.

Our founder. Patricia Winn