Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason, born in Mayfield in 1940, is a nationally-known novelist, literary critic, essayist, and short story writer. After graduating from the University of Kentucky in 1962, Mason started working in the magazine industry for a publication in New York City. Mason refers to these as her "fluff" writings. She became a full-time writer in her late 30s and had her first short story published in The New Yorker after finding inspiration in her roots in Western Kentucky. Mason has been credited as a great chronicler of the lives of the working-class people in Western Kentucky through a new literary style she helped create, "shopping mall realism." 

Her short story collection, Shiloh and Other Stories (1982), won the Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award for outstanding first work of fiction. Other works have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, and The Paris Review. Her first novel, In Country (1985), was made into a film starring Emily Lloyd and Bruce Willis. Mason is only the second living author to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. Bobbie Ann Mason has made many appearances on Murray State University's main campus for lectures, discussions, and signings of her different publications. Mason's work appears in collections such as The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. Her most recent publication Dear Ann (2020).