The name of my novel is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville Alabama, a city of about 7,000 people in Monroe County, which has about 24,000 people. Monroeville is in southwest Alabama, about halfway between Montgomery and Mobile. She is the youngest of four children of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Finch Lee. Harper Lee attended one year at Huntingdon College in 1944-45, studied law at the University of Alabama 1945-49, and studied as an exchange student one year at Oxford University. In the 1950s she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern AirLines and BOAC in New York City.

In order to concentrate on writing Harper Lee gave up her position with the airline and moved into a cold water apartment with makeshift furniture. Her father's illness forced her to divide her time between New York and Monroeville, a practice she has continued. In 1957 Miss Lee submitted the manuscript of her novel to the J.B. Lippincott Company. She was told that her novel consisted of a series of short stories strung together, and she was urged to re-write it. For the next year and a half she re-worked the manuscript with the help of her editor, Tay Hohoff, and in 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird was published, her only published book. On May 29, 1961 the Alabama Legislature passed a resolution to congratulate Miss Lee on her success. That year she had two articles published: "Love-In Other Words" in Vogue, and "Christmas To Me" in McCalls. "Christmas to Me" is the story of Harper Lee receiving the gift of a year's time for writing from friends. "When Children Discover America" was published in 1965.

In June of 1966, Harper Lee was one of two persons named by President Johnson to the National Council of Arts. Miss Lee attended the 1983 Alabama History and Heritage Festival in Eufaula, Al. Miss Lee has received a number of honorary doctorates, perhaps four. In 1990 she was one of five recipients at the University of Alabama. She did not speak or give and interview. In 1997 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters at Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL.

To Kill a Mockingbird, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, became an international bestseller. It was adapted into screen in 1962. Lee was thirty-four years old when the worked was published, and it has remained her only novel. The setting and several characters are drawn from life. Finch was the maiden name of her mother and the character of Dill was drawn from Capote, Lee's childhood friend. The trial itself parallels to the famous "Scottboro Trial," in which the charge was rape. In both, too, the defendants were African American men and the accusers were white women.

Although her first novel gained a huge success, Harper Lee did not continue her career as a writer. She returned from New York to Monroeville, where she has lived avoiding interviews. Harper Lee today

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