Harper Lee

Lee grew up in Monroeville, Alabama, next door to a young Truman Capote, a childhood friendship that lasted their whole lives; she later served as his research partner and companion during the reporting for In Cold Blood. She studied law at the University of Alabama without finishing a degree.

To Kill a Mockingbird, drawn loosely from her own childhood and a real 1930s Alabama rape trial, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and became a fixture of American classrooms and a beloved film starring Gregory Peck. She then published nothing new in fiction for over half a century.

In 2015, a year before her death, an earlier draft called Go Set a Watchman was controversially published, complicating Atticus Finch's legacy with an aged, more bigoted version of the character. She died in Monroeville in 2016.