Lee Howard was an original. Tormented by her past, courageous in her lifetime, she chiseled lasting words of hard-won truth into modern Appalachia's literary bedrock. Lee Howard's work, too much of it left unpublished until now, is a crucial piece of heritage. Her method had a profound impact on many of the region's most beloved (and better-known) authors. This definitive collection of Lee's published and unpublished works, edited by her colleague George Ella Lyon, proves Lee Howard's genius, her ear for language, and her love for the place of her birth, in spite of the hurt it handed her. Here are the speech and storytelling traditions of the rural South, served up like a home-cooked meal for all the world to savor."Her great spirit and powerful language made her an indispensable writer in what has been called the Appalachian literary renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s." -Gurney Norman, Kentucky Poet Laureate(This book includes a foreword by Kentucky Poet Laureate Gurney Norman, an afterword by author Anne Shelby, and numerous photos of Lee Howard, her family, friends and pets.) www.MotesBooks.com