Jon Wongrey

Jon Wongrey began his writing career in 1967 as The State newspaper’s first full-time outdoors writer. His work earned the Best Newspaper Column Award from the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association and the Conservation Communications Award from the South Carolina Wildlife Federation and the Sears-Roebuck Foundation for his outstanding contributions to the wise use and management of America’s natural resources. He has also received numerous other regional and state writing awards.

After beginning his freelance career in 1980, Jon produced more than 1,500 fiction and nonfiction articles for 66 different magazines. He is the author of sixteen books: Southern Fish and Seafood Cookbook, Southern Cooking with Fish and Game, Southern Vegetable Cooking, Southern Wildfowl and Wild Game Cookbook, Lowcountry Scenes, The Last Rice Planter, A Time Past, The Guest, A Covey of Tales, “LORD, Just One More Time!": A Flock of Tales, Moments of Glory, Volume I, Moments of Glory, Volume II, Hilton Head Island, Bluffton: A Remembrance, A Waterfowler’s Trek, A Herd of White Tales, and Remembering the Palmetto Sportsman, Volume I. The four cookbooks and Lowcountry Scenes were published by Sandlapper Press.

A lifelong outdoorsman as well as a writer, Jon is also the founder of the South Carolina Duck Calling Championship.