“I
think as the world changes, we have to keep up. We have to note what is
happening, and I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence
and possibility. We have to write about what's good, and we also have to write
about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think
it takes a new eye.” – Lee Smith
Born on this date in 1944, Smith is
a native Virginian who grew up in Appalachia, “devoured” any books or stories
she could find, and was already writing—and selling, for a nickel apiece—stories
about the coal boomtown of Grundy and its nearby isolated "hollers"
by the age of 9.
She continued to write at Hollins
College where she and classmate (and fellow writer) Annie Dillard sang and
danced in a band called The Virginia Woolfs.
In her senior year she won a writing contest, which led to her first
book, The Last Day The Dog Bushes Bloomed
in 196, the first of 15 novels and 4 collections of short stories.
Her writing has continued to earn
rave reviews and awards, including the Sidney Lanier Prize for Southern
Literature and the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. Her memoir Dimestore: A Writer’s Life, published
in 2016, is the story of her life in Grundy and beyond. “I write about people in small towns; I
don't write about people living in big cities,” she said. “My kind of storytelling depends upon people
that have time to talk to each other.”
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