25 Writers from Columbia, South Carolina

Elizabeth Nelson Adams was a visual artist, poet, writer, arts commissioner, and film casting director, born in Columbia, South Carolina.

Julian Adams is a producer, writer, actor, and architect.

Clarissa Minnie Thompson Allen was an American educator and author. She wrote fictional stories about wealthy African-American families in the American South.

Jack Bass is an American author and journalist. He was born in Columbia, South Carolina to Nathan and Esther (Cohen) Bass in 1934 and grew up in the town of North as the youngest of seven children. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1956 with a degree in journalism.

Danny Buday is filmmaker who wrote, directed, and produced the feature film Five Star Day, starring Cam Gigandet and Jena Malone. Five Star Day won the Jury Award for 'Best Feature' at the 2010 Stony Brook Film Festival and was honored as the Opening Night Gala Film at the 2010 Newport Beach Film Festival.

J. Gordon Coogler, or John Brown Gordon Coogler, was a self-taught American poet who achieved notoriety during his lifetime as a prolific producer of bad verse. Essayist H.L. Mencken is credited with assuring Coogler's lasting fame as a poetaster by mocking him as an example of the supposedly poor state of arts and letters in the American South.

Edwin de Leon was a Confederate diplomat, writer, and journalist.

James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth United States Poet Laureate in 1966. He also received the Order of the South award.

Daniel Donche Jr. is an American author, screenwriter, actor, artist, and game designer. He sometimes works under the pseudonym Janden Hale. As a published writer he is responsible for two novels, numerous short stories, and a post-apocalyptic series called Everwind. He was also one of the cofounders of Manarchy Magazine.

Drew Droege is an American actor, comedian, writer, and director best known for his online impressions of Chloë Sevigny.

Terrance Hayes is an American poet and educator who has published seven poetry collections. His 2010 collection, Lighthead, won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010. In September 2014, he was one of 21 recipients of the prestigious MacArthur fellowships awarded to individuals who show outstanding creativity in their work.

Amy Hill Hearth is an American journalist and author who specializes in stories about women. She is the author or co-author of eight nonfiction books including the oral history Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, a New York Times bestseller for 113 weeks according to its archives.

Helen Wingard Hill was an American artist, filmmaker, writer, teacher, and social activist. When her final film, The Florestine Collection, was released in 2011, curators and critics praised her work and legacy, describing her, for example, as "one of the most well-regarded experimental animators of her generation."

Randall LeRoy Kennedy is an American law professor and author at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law and focuses his research on the intersection of racial conflict and legal institutions in American life. He specializes in the areas of contracts, freedom of expression, race relations law, civil rights legislation, and the Supreme Court.

Barton MacLane was an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. Although he appeared in many classic films from the 1930s through the 1960s, he became best-known for his role as General Martin Peterson on the 1960s NBC television comedy series I Dream of Jeannie, with Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman.

Carrie Allen McCray was an African-American writer.

Ray McManus is an American poet with three award-winning poetry collections. He is an associate professor of English at the University of South Carolina Sumter.

Walter Russell Mead is an American academic. He is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and taught American foreign policy at Yale University. He was also the editor-at-large of The American Interest magazine. Mead is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a scholar at the Hudson Institute.

Kary Banks Mullis was an American biochemist. In recognition of his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, he shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Michael Smith and was awarded the Japan Prize in the same year. His invention became a central technique in biochemistry and molecular biology, described by The New York Times as "highly original and significant, virtually dividing biology into the two epochs of before PCR and after PCR."

Benjamin Morgan Palmer, an orator and Presbyterian theologian, was the first moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America. As pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans, his Thanksgiving sermon in 1860 had a great influence in leading Louisiana to join the Confederate States of America. After 1865 he was minister in the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

Mary-Louise Parker is an American actress and writer. After making her stage debut as Rita in a Broadway production of Craig Lucas' Prelude to a Kiss in 1990, Parker came to prominence for film roles in Grand Canyon (1991), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), The Client (1994), Bullets over Broadway (1994), Boys on the Side (1995), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), and The Maker (1997). Among stage and independent film appearances thereafter, Parker received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Catherine Llewellyn in David Auburn's Proof in 2001, among other accolades. Between 2001 and 2006, she recurred as Amy Gardner on the NBC television series The West Wing, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2002. She received both a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Harper Pitt on the acclaimed HBO television miniseries Angels in America in 2003.

Tom Poland, as Thomas Mitchell Poland to John Mitchell Poland and Ruth Walker Poland. Known as a writer of things southern. He graduated from Lincoln High School in Lincolnton, Georgia. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and a master's degree in education from the University of Georgia. A frequent contributor to magazines, he has written approximately 1,200 features.

Ennis Samuel Rees, Jr. was an American poet and professor. He was named by Governor Richard Wilson Riley as the third South Carolina Poet Laureate from 1984 to 1985.

Stephen Taber III. was an American apiologist, noted authority and author in the field of artificial insemination of queen bees for the purpose of developing disease resistant and gentle bee colonies.

William Douglas Workman Jr., known as W. D. Workman Jr., was a journalist, author, and a pioneer in the development of the 20th century South Carolina Republican Party. He carried his party's banner as a candidate for the United States Senate in 1962 and for the governorship in 1982. He lost to the Democrats, Olin D. Johnston and Richard Riley, respectively.