"The Ugliest Pilgrim" is a southern gothic short story by American writer Doris Betts.
It was first published in the Red Clay Reader, an annual magazine focusing on the work of southern authors and artists.
[1] The story follows Violet Karl a disfigured woman in her late twenties who travels by bus from her home in Spruce Pine, North Carolina to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the hopes of being healed by a televangelist.
The short film was directed by Shelley Levinson and starring Didi Conn.
It won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film in 1982.