Frederick Earl "Fred" Exley (March 28, 1929 – June 17, 1992) was a distinguished American writer, best known for his fictional memoir A Fan's Notes, which received critical acclaim and numerous awards.

Exley was nominated for a National Book Award for A Fan's Notes and received the William Faulkner Award for the best first novel, as well as the Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He served as a guest lecturer at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1972 and won a Playboy Silver Medal Award in 1974 for the best non-fiction piece for "Saint Gloria & The Troll," an excerpt from his book Pages From Cold Island. His later work earned him a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, a Harper-Saxton Fellowship, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

Frederick Exley passed away due to a stroke at the age of 62 in 1992.