Roy Blount, Jr. Papers

Roy Blount, Jr., was born in 1941 in Indianapolis, Indiana, and grew up in Decatur, Georgia. He attended Ponce de Leon Elementary School and graduated from Decatur High School, where he was class president and editor of the school newspaper, The Scribbler. In 1959, he received the Grantland Rice Journalism Scholarship to study journalism at Vanderbilt University, where he distinguished himself, was Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated magna cum laude. He went on to Harvard University, where he received his M.A degree in 1964. He served in the U.S. Army from l964 to 1966, thereafter becoming a reporter and columnist for The Atlanta Journal and a part-time English instructor at Georgia State College until 1968. Since 1975, Blount has been a freelance writer.

Blount has authored 23 books. Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post named Blount's first book, About Three Bricks Shy...And the Load Filled Up, about the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the ten best sports books ever; and Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker called it “the best of all books about pro football.”

Blount is a panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me, ex-president of the Authors Guild, a member of PEN and the Fellowship of Southern Authors, a New York Public Library Literary Lion, a Boston Public Library Literary Light, a usage consultant to the American Heritage Dictionary, and an original member of the Rock Bottom Remainders. He lives in New Orleans and western Massachusetts. In 2009, he received the Thomas Wolfe Award from the University of North Carolina.

Blount covered the 1992 Democratic and Republican conventions and Presidential election night by commenting live on Comedy Central. Via various media, he has reported on the Civil Rights Movement, the Olympics, and several World Series and Super Bowls.