The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Shay Younblood is pictured at a Yaddo artist residency in Saratoga Springs, New York. A graduate of Clark College (later Clark Atlanta University), Youngblood has received numerous honors, including a Pushcart Prize, a Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, and several NAACP Theater Awards.
Courtesy of Shay Youngblood, Photograph by Carol Bullard.
Shay Youngblood, from Columbus, writes novels, plays, and shorts stories that center on the lives of Black women. Her plays have been staged in theaters across the country, including numerous productions in Atlanta.
Courtesy of Shay Youngblood, Photograph by Miriam Phields.
Lauren Gunderson, from Decatur, is one of the most produced playwrights in the United States. Atlanta's Essential Theatre produced her first play when she was still in high school.
Carlotta O'Neill, the wife of playwright Eugene O'Neill, stands outside Casa Genotta, their home on Sea Island. The O'Neills built the house in 1932 and lived there until 1936.
Courtesy of National Park Service
Eugene O'Neill, a prominent playwright, and his wife, Carlotta, are pictured in a portrait by Carl Van Vechten in September 1933. In 1932 the O'Neills built a new home, Casa Genotta, on Sea Island and lived there until 1936. O'Neill wrote several plays during their residence, including his only comedy, Ah Wilderness!, and the first draft of A Touch of the Poet.
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Photograph by Carl Van Vechten.
Alfred Uhry, a native of Atlanta, is the author of several successful plays, including Driving Miss Daisy (1987), The Last Night of Ballyhoo (1997), and Parade (1998). Uhry has received a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, and several Tony Awards over the course of his career.
Photograph by Carol Rosseg
Margaret Edson, a kindergarten teacher in Atlanta, began writing her Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit, in 1991. The play focuses on Vivian Bearing, a literature professor who is struggling with cancer.
Photograph by Dave Smiley
Poet, dramatist, and novelist Frank Manley received two Georgia Author of the Year awards (one for fiction and one for short stories/anthologies), a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and first prize at the 1985 Humana Festival of New American Plays.
Courtesy of Emory University
