Sharyn McCrumb

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Born
in Wilmington, North Carolina, The United States
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June 2010



    Sharyn McCrumb, an award-winning Southern writer, is best known for her Appalachian “Ballad” novels, including the New York Times best sellers The Ballad of Tom Dooley, The Ballad of Frankie Silver, and The Songcatcher. Ghost Riders, which won the Wilma Dykeman Award for Literature from the East Tennessee Historical Society and the national Audie Award for Best Recorded Books. The Unquiet Grave, a well-researched novel about West Virginia's Greenbrier Ghost, will be published in September by Atria, a division of Simon &Schuster.        
       Sharyn McCrumb, named a Virginia Woman of History by the Library of Virginia and a Woman of the Arts by the national Daughters of the American Revolution,  was awarded the Mary Hobson Prize for A
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Sharyn McCrumb Nora Bonesteel was inspired years ago by my friend Charlotte Ross of western North Carolina. She is a repository of legends, mountain history, and sto…moreNora Bonesteel was inspired years ago by my friend Charlotte Ross of western North Carolina. She is a repository of legends, mountain history, and stories of her family who settled in these mountains back in pioneer days.
Nora is not in the first Ballad novel, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O, but Charlotte was with me at the Appalachian Studies Conference in north Georgia when we had a reception for the newly published book. That night we hosted a party in our cabin, and the guests, professors from universities throughout the mountain region, started telling their family ghost stories. I realized that this mystical element of the culture, a legacy from Celtic Britain, is what was missing from the novel, so in The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, I introduced Nora Bonesteel, and some of the experiences described in it are adapted from Charlotte's stories of growing up on a north Georgia farm with the Sight. I persuaded Charlotte to record some of her family stories for posterity, and I still have copies. I see that it's not on my website anymore, but message me if you want to purchase one.(less)
Sharyn McCrumb Oleeta,
Thanks for your message. I wonder if our ancestors knew one another? Mine fought with Sevier's Watauga militia.
I'm not going to do the fictio…more
Oleeta,
Thanks for your message. I wonder if our ancestors knew one another? Mine fought with Sevier's Watauga militia.
I'm not going to do the fictional equivalent of regimental histories, but one can hardly write about NC/TN events without stumbling over a King's Mountain veteran or a descendant. Here are a few who have turned up in other books:

1)The Ballad of Frankie Silver
*Sheriff Morris, John Boone's distant predecessor, who let John Sevier out of the Morganton jail in the 1780's. Morris had been under Sevier's command at King's Mountain.
* Eliza Grace McDowell - granddaughter of Colonel Charles McDowell (commander of Burke Co. Militia)

2) Ghost Riders
* NC Governor Zebulon Baird Vance - grandson of David Vance of the Burke County Militia.(less)
Average rating: 3.95 · 89,019 ratings · 6,209 reviews · 126 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Hangman's Beautiful Dau...

3.97 avg rating — 5,617 ratings — published 1992 — 25 editions
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The Ballad of Frankie Silve...

3.93 avg rating — 5,469 ratings — published 1998 — 40 editions
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She Walks These Hills (Ball...

4.10 avg rating — 4,265 ratings — published 1994 — 22 editions
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The Rosewood Casket (Ballad...

4.04 avg rating — 3,749 ratings — published 1996 — 35 editions
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If Ever I Return, Pretty Pe...

3.94 avg rating — 3,573 ratings — published 1990 — 23 editions
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The Songcatcher (Ballad, #6)

4.04 avg rating — 2,778 ratings — published 2001 — 20 editions
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The Ballad of Tom Dooley (B...

3.68 avg rating — 2,975 ratings — published 2011 — 17 editions
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The Unquiet Grave (Ballad, ...

3.75 avg rating — 2,714 ratings — published 2017 — 9 editions
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Bimbos of the Death Sun (Ja...

3.71 avg rating — 2,729 ratings — published 1987 — 21 editions
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If I'd Killed Him When I Me...

3.84 avg rating — 2,378 ratings — published 1995 — 21 editions
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More books by Sharyn McCrumb…
If Ever I Return, Pretty Pe... The Hangman's Beautiful Dau... She Walks These Hills The Rosewood Casket The Ballad of Frankie Silver The Songcatcher Ghost Riders
(12 books)
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3.91 avg rating — 38,616 ratings

Sick of Shadows Lovely in Her Bones Highland Laddie Gone Paying the Piper The Windsor Knot Missing Susan MacPherson's Lament
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3.74 avg rating — 12,713 ratings

Bimbos of the Death Sun Zombies of the Gene Pool
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3.63 avg rating — 4,062 ratings

Quotes by Sharyn McCrumb  (?)
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“Romulan or Vulcan?' the ushers asked each guest.

Marion, who had been poised to say 'friends of the bride' had responded to the question with an open-mouthed stare, and Jay Omega answered, 'Klingon!" which got them seats in the back row of the Romulan side.”
Sharyn McCrumb, Bimbos of the Death Sun

“It couldn't be the beer. Donnie McRory was certain of that. If you sent American beer out to be analyzed, the lab would probably phone up and say, 'Your horse has diabetes.”
Sharyn McCrumb, Bimbos of the Death Sun
tags: beer

“Boondocks' is simply the Tagalog word for mountains.”
Sharyn McCrumb, The Devil Amongst the Lawyers

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“Seasons didn't come behind the nicotine-stained walls of Mountain City's prison, so Harm always imagined it spring--the locust trees clustered with shaggy white blooms, the wet woods flecked with bloodroot, and wild roses and honeysuckle flashing white among the chestnuts on the mountainsides...”
Sharyn McCrumb, She Walks These Hills

“There is a time in late September when the leaves are still green, and the days are still warm, but somehow you know that it is all about to end, as if summer was holding its breath, and when it let it out again, it would be autumn.”
Sharyn McCrumb, King's Mountain

“Wild steep mountains floating in a haze of cloud...a sea of green trees swallowing the hills and valleys, and curling around the trails and rivers, with the wind in the leaves as its tide.”
Sharyn McCrumb, The Songcatcher




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Kathryn Scarborough you're my favorite author!


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