Sharyn McCrumb, Author

"No one seeks the silences in Appalachian history better than Sharyn McCrumb." ~ Teresa O' Cassidy

Sharyn McCrumb is an award-winning Southern writer, best known for her Appalachian "Ballad" novels, set in the North Carolina/Tennessee mountains, including the New York Times Best Sellers: The Ballad of Tom Dooley, She Walks These Hills and The Rosewood Casket. Her books have been named New York Times and Los Angeles Times Notable Books, and her current novel The Unquiet Grave is a well-researched history of West Virginia's Greenbrier Ghost. The Unquiet Grave was selected by the Georgia Library System as the 2017 selection for North Georgia Reads; the All Conference Read for the West Virginia State Library Conference; the West Virginia Featured Book at the West Virginia Book Festival; and a featured alternate by the Literary Guild.

In 2014, Sharyn McCrumb was awarded the Mary Frances Hobson Prize for Southern Literature by North Carolina's Chowan University. Named a "Virginia Woman of History" in 2008 for Achievement in Literature, she was a guest author at the National Festival of the Book in Washington, D.C. in 2006. In April 2017, the national DAR named her a "Woman in the Arts" for literary achievement. In November 2017, the West Virginia Library Association presented Sharyn McCrumb with their Award of Merit for Contributions to Appalachian Literature.

King's Mountain (2013, St. Martin's Press), the story of the 1780 Revolutionary War battle and the Overmountain Men, received a DAR Award from the Edward Buncombe Chapter (NC)., and in June 2015 the Patricia Winn Award for Southern Fiction from the Montgomery County Arts & Heritage Council of Clarksville TN. King's Mountain is taught in schools and featured at historical museums in four states. Sharyn McCrumb's other best-selling novels include The Ballad of Frankie Silver, the story of the first woman hanged for murder in the state of North Carolina. Ghost Riders, an account of the Civil War in the mountains of western North Carolina, which won the Wilma Dykeman Award for Literature given by the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Audie Award for Best Recorded Book. The Parkway Playhouse in Burnsville NC staged theatrical versions of Ghost Riders and The Ballad of Frankie Silver in 2014 and 2016.

McCrumb's other honors include: AWA Outstanding Contribution to Appalachian Literature Award; the Chafin Award for Southern Literature; the Plattner Award for Short Story; and AWA's Best Appalachian Novel. She was named "Best Mountain Writer 2013" by Blue Ridge Country Magazine. A graduate of UNC- Chapel Hill, with an M.A. in English from Virginia Tech, McCrumb was the first writer-in-residence at King College in Tennessee. In 2005 she honored as the Writer of the Year at Emory & Henry College.

Her novels, studied in universities throughout the world, have been translated into eleven languages, including French, German, Dutch, Japanese, Arabic, and Italian. She has lectured on her work at universities and museums throughout the US, as well as at Oxford University, the University of Bonn-Germany, and at the Smithsonian Institution. Ms. McCrumb taught a writers workshop in Paris, and has served as writer in residence at King College in Tennessee and at the Chautauqua Institute in western New York.