Interesting facts:

1. Faulkner declined a dinner invitation from First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, saying, “That’s a long
way to go just to eat.” ("What the Great Ate," Jacob and Jacob)

2. He supported himself as a postmaster at the University of Mississippi, but was fired for reading

on the job.

3. Faulkner never graduated from high school or earned a college degree, yet he won the Nobel
Prize for Literature, two Pulitzer prizes and the National Book Award, twice.

4. A notorious ladies' man, Faulkner’s affair with the young writer, Joan Williams, from 1949–53, is
the subject of her 1971 novel, The Wintering. ("One Matchless Time: A Life of William
Faulkner,"  Jay Parini)

5. He wrote two volumes of poetry: The Marble Faun (1924), which is named after a Nathanial
Hawthorne novel, and "A Green Bough" (1933), as well as a short story collection of crime-
fiction called "Knight's Gambit" (1949).

American novelist and short-story writer William Faulkner is widely regarded as one of the greatest
writers of the 20th century. He is remembered for his pioneering use of the stream-of-consciousness
technique as well as the range and depth of his characterization. In 1949 Faulkner won the Nobel Prize
for Literature.

William Faulkner (1897–1962) was reportedly inspired to become a writer by his great-grandfather,

Colonel William Falkner (1825–1889), who, aside from being a soldier, lawyer, and politician also
authored some novels, poems, a travelogue, and a play. As a child, Faulkner is thought to have said, “I
want to be a writer like my great-granddaddy.”

William Faulkner was rejected from joining the United States Army in 1914 because he was too short. 

William Faulkner generally is regarded as one of the most significant American writers of all time.
Faulkner wrote 13 novels and many short stories but started as a poet. With his breakthrough
novel, The Sound and the Fury, he began to use stream of consciousness to portray a character’s flow of
inner thoughts. His books often are told from the point of view of several characters and contain
accurately rendered colloquialisms combined with long sentences full of imagery and language that is
sometimes surreal.