John Grisham to receive the Peggy Helmerich Distinguished Author Award

Best selling author John Grisham will be in Tulsa next month to receive the Tulsa Library's Peggy -V- Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. He replaces Oklahoma native Tony Hillerman who's in

Monday, November 14th 2005, 6:42 am

By: News On 6

Best selling author John Grisham will be in Tulsa next month to receive the Tulsa Library's Peggy -V- Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. He replaces Oklahoma native Tony Hillerman who's in poor health and can't be there.

Grisham is currently working on a non-fiction book set in Oklahoma. It's a legal thriller about the life of Ron Williamson. He was a former high school baseball star who spent 12-years-on death row for a 1982 murder in Ada. DNA evidence eventually proved he didn't commit the crime. "It really didn't bother me. There was a little bit of animosity in my heart toward everybody on this earth for sending me to death row."

Ron Williamson died last year from liver problems. Grisham saw his obituary in the New York Times and says he found it impossible to forget.

He bought the rights to the story from Williamson's sisters and visited Ada to do research for the book. It's scheduled for release next year.