Ed McClanahan

Edward Poage McClanahan (October 5, 1932 – November 27, 2021) was an American novelist, essayist, and professor.

Biography McClanahan was born in Brooksville, Kentucky on October 5, 1932, to Edward Leroy and Jessie (Poage) McClanahan.

In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.

McClanahan served as a Jones Lecturer until 1972. He later taught at the University of Kentucky (deputizing for Wendell Berry during the 1972–1973 academic year), the University of Montana (1973–1976) and Northern Kentucky University (1979–1980) in a visiting lectureship that was to segue into a tenure-track position.

Writing McClanahan was a writer since the mid-1950s with short stories, essays, and reviews in such magazines as Esquire, Playboy, and Rolling Stone. In 1972 and 1974, he received Playboy'''s award for nonfiction. He was known for his rollicking, good-naturedly crude humor and a creatively extensive vocabulary.

Along with contemporary authors Wendell Berry, James Baker Hall, Bobbie Ann Mason and fellow Prankster Gurney Norman, McClanahan was considered a member of the "Fab Five" group of Kentucky writers.

Initially conceived in 1961, The Natural Man was finally published in 1983 to great acclaim.

Publications One Lord, One Faith, One Cornbread, Fred Nelson & Ed McClanahan (eds.) (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books), 1975. The Natural Man (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux), 1983. Famous People I Have Known (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux), 1985. A Congress of Wonders (Washington, DC: Counterpoint), 1996. My Vita, If You Will: The Uncollected Ed McClanahan (Washington, DC: Counterpoint), 1998. Fondelle, or, The Whore with a Heart of Gold: A Report from the Field (Monterey, KY: Larkspur Press), 2002. A Foreign Correspondence (Tucson: Sylph Publications), 2002. Spit in the Ocean #7: All About Ken Kesey (New York: Penguin Books), 2003. O The Clear Moment (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint), 2008. Not Even Immortality Lasts Forever: Mostly True Stories (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint), 2020.