1981

• Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment, by Richard H. Immerman and Stephen E. Ambrose (Doubleday).
• The Winged Lion, a romance novel by Anne Carsley.
• The Pocket Guide to Wine, by Barbara Ensrud (Putnam).
• Helen: A Courtship and Mississippi Poems, poems by William Faulkner, edited by Carvel Collins and Joseph Blotner (Yoknapatawpha Press).
• Sanctuary: The Original Text, by William Faulkner, edited with an afterword and notes by Noel Polk (Random House).
• In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, by Ellen Gilchrist (U of Arkansas P).
• The Ultimate Good Luck, a novel by Richard Ford (Houghton-Miflin).
• Call It Living: Three Stories, by Martha Lacy Hall (Press of the Nightowl).
• Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris
• Sherman’s Other War: The General and the Civil War Press, by John F. Marszalek (Memphis State University Press).
• Terrains of the Heart and Other Essays on Home, by Willie Morris (Yoknapatawpha Press).
• Allison’s Grandfather, by Linda Peavy (Scribner).
• Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun: A Critical Study, by Noel Polk (Indiana University Press).
• Our Women, poems by Paul Ruffin (Abbott House)
• Let the Circle Be Unbroken, by Mildred D. Taylor (Dial).
• It Happened the Day the Sun Rose, a play by Tennessee Williams (Sylvester and Orphanos).

November 4: Beth Henley's play Crimes of the Heart premieres on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre. That same year, the play wins the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best new American play and the Pulitzer Prize for drama and is nominated for a Tony Award for best play.

Walker Percy receives American Book Award nomination, Notable Book citation from American Library Association, and PEN/Faulkner Award nomination, all for The Second Coming.

Eudora Welty receives an American Book Award for The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty.