Daniel Woodrell

A native of the hardscrabble Missouri Ozarks, Daniel Woodrell attended the University of Kansas and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop before publishing his first novel, Under the Bright Lights, in 1986. Two of his ten books have been made into films: his second novel, Woe to Live On, was adapted into Ride with the Devil by Ang Lee in 1999, and his 2006 novel Winter’s Bone was adapted by Debra Granik in 2010. The latter received four Academy Award nominations, among them Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Of his time spent at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has said, “People would say things, and where I was from you’d smack them; where they’re from, you’re supposed to come back with a witty rejoinder.”