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Rio Grande Valley resident Jan Seale is among seven inductees to the 2024 Texas Literacy Hall of Fame, selected by the Texas Christian University Mary Couts Burnett Library, in partnership with the TCU AddRan College of Liberal Arts, TCU Press and the Center for Texas Studies. The authors will be honored at the official induction ceremony on Oct. 29.
The Texas Literary Hall of Fame was established to celebrate and encourage the state’s rich literary heritage by honoring its foremost authors, whose original writing reflects enduring cultural relevance and artistic creativity. The Texas Literary Hall of Fame honors inductees every two years. Seale will join Tracy Daugherty, the late Molly Ivans, Stephen Graham Jones, the late Cormac McCarthy, Cynthia Leitich Smith and Sergio Troncoso.
Seale, the 2012 Texas Poet Laureate, is the author of 10 volumes of poetry, two books of short fiction, six books of nonfiction, and several children’s books.
Her writing has appeared in magazines and newspapers such as The Yale Review, Texas Monthly, The Chicago Tribune, and Writer’s Digest. Some anthologies including her work are The Southern Poetry Anthology, Quotable Texas Women, Folklore in Motion, Both Sides of the Border, and Birds in the Hand.
In 1982, Seale received a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship in poetry. Seven of her short stories were chosen for P.E.N. Syndicated Fiction awards. Her poetry has received the Kathryn Morris Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of Texas and the Bill Burke Award and Dolly Sprunk Memorial Award from the New York Poetry Forum. Her stories and poems have been broadcast over National Public Radio.
She has taught English and creative writing at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, West Texas A&M University, and the University of North Texas. Workshops and readings by Seale have taken place in Washington, Oregon, Oklahoma, North Carolina, New Mexico, and in many Texas cities.
For 16 years she was the South Texas editor of Texas Books in Review. Other editorial work includes as a founding editor of RiverSedge literary journal and as an editor of The Valley Land Fund pictorial volumes.
Seale was born in Pilot Point, Texas, graduated from Waxahachie High School, attended Baylor University, and received a B.A. from the University of Louisville and an M.A. from North Texas State University.
She has served as a Scholar for Humanities Texas and as an Artist-in-Education for the Texas Commission on the Arts. Her organization memberships include the Texas Folklore Society, the Poetry Society of Texas, and the Texas Institute of Letters.
Seale lives in McAllen in South Texas. She has three sons and four grandsons.
“We are thrilled to honor these amazing authors whose induction into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame was inevitable,” said Tracy L. Hull, Dean of the TCU Library. “Their induction is a validation of their talent and expertise as an author.”
“The Texas Literary Hall of Fame showcases top literary writers across the nation. This group of inductees follows a long list of others who demonstrate how Texas has shaped the cultural landscape of their writings,” said Sonja Watson, Ph.D., Dean of the AddRan College of Liberal Arts.
