Past speakers have included prominent authors and playwrights such as Edward Albee, Robert Olen Butler, Richard Ford, Michael Cunningham, Phillip Caputo, Rick Bragg, and Yusef Komunyakaa. Other speakers have included writers Anne Rice, Cokie Roberts, Michael Cunningham, John Waters, Nora Roberts, Stephen E. Ambrose, Douglas Brinkley, James Carville, Andrei Codrescu, Sue Grafton, Margaret Atwood, Larry Brown, Margaret Walker, Fannie Flagg, Allen Gilchrist, Kaye Gibbons, Dorothy Allison, Barry Gifford, Rex Reed, Peggy Scott Labrode, and Errol Laborde, as well as actors Patricia Clarkson, Stephanie Zimbalist, Alec Baldwin, John Goodman, Tab Hunter, Dixie Carter, Gerald McRaney, Elizabeth Ashley, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, and Kim Hunter. Tennessee Williams's brother, Dakin Williams, was a frequent guest at the Festival until his death in 2008.