Anne Rivers Siddons, author of many best-selling novels, died of lung cancer Wednesday morning at her home in Charleston, South Carolina. Siddons got her start at Auburn University. She was 83.
Siddons was receiving treatment for lung cancer at the Medical University Hospital, according to the Post and Courier. She was born in 1936 in Fairburn, Georgia, where her family lived for six generations.
She joined the lot of post-civil-rights-era authors after publishing “Heartbreak Hotel" in 1976. The coming-of-age tale was based loosely on Siddon’s experience at Auburn University as a Delta Delta Delta sister and student columnist. During her time at Auburn between 1954-58, she wrote a column and an editorial for The Auburn Plainsman supporting integration. The piece received national attention and she dismissed from her columnist position at the paper by the administration.
She wrote, “We’re not going to have to worry about the definition of tolerance for a long time—not until we learn the definition of words like ‘justice,’ ‘equality,’ and ‘decency,'” in a column published by The Auburn Plainsman on October 18, 1957.
She went on to work for Atlanta Magazine as a senior editor and published 19 novels and a collection of short stories. “Heartbreak Hotel” was made into a movie and her work garnered praise from artists like Stephen King. She joined a cohort of writers that led to a movement toward the “New South." In 2007, she was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.
Siddons is survived by her four stepsons, Lee, Kemble, Rick and David. Her husband Heyward Siddons died in 2014.