 As an author he won the 1989 Gustavus Myers Award for "The Dream Long Deferred", and in 2007 the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year for "Cradle of Freedom".Gaillard's 2018 book "A Hard Rain" was inspired by David Halberstam's "The Fifties", and documents the 1960s in part through Gaillard's experiences of the time.Gailllard has been author-in-residence at the University of South Alabama since 2007.