author
Wilma Dykeman
1920–2006
A vivid voice of Appalachia, her books explored the region’s people, landscapes, and hard questions with warmth and moral clarity. She was also an early environmental and civil rights advocate whose work reached far beyond the page.
1 Audiobook
At home in the Smokies : a history handbook for Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee
by United States. National Park Service, Wilma Dykeman, James Stokely
About the author
Born near Asheville, North Carolina, Wilma Dykeman became one of the most distinctive writers to chronicle Appalachian life. She studied at Biltmore Junior College and graduated from Northwestern University in 1940, then married writer James R. Stokely Jr. that same year.
She wrote fiction and nonfiction that returned again and again to the land and communities of the mountain South. Her work is especially remembered for bringing together storytelling, history, and public concern, with subjects that included the French Broad River, race relations, social justice, and the everyday lives of Appalachian people.
Dykeman was more than a novelist and essayist: she was also a teacher, speaker, journalist, and activist. The institutions and organizations that continue to honor her describe her as a pioneering environmental voice and an important figure in Appalachian studies, and that combination of literary talent and civic purpose remains central to her legacy.