James Southall Wilson (1925-1931)

A nationally known scholar, English professor James Southall Wilson launched the Virginia Quarterly Review in 1925 at the request of President E. A. Alderman and continued to edit it for six years. Before leaving VQR, Wilson organized the 1931 Southern Writers Conference inviting well-known authors to the grounds to discuss "The Relation of the Southern Author to His Public." Although Willa Cather and Thomas Wolfe regretfully declined, many noted authors attended including Sherwood Anderson, James Branch Cabell, Allen Tate and William Faulkner, who compared his presence at such an august gathering to a country hound dog afraid to leave the wagon that brought him to town. Ellen Glasgow and DuBose Heyward presided at the discussions. The latter's presence presented difficulties in a segregated town which Wilson quietly and graciously solved by inviting Heyward and his wife Dorothy to be guests in his own home during the conference.