![]() ![]() ![]() Michael was a popular composer and lyricist who worked on Broadway, and was quite well off financially.įor Christmas in 1956, the couple gave Lee a generous present: a year’s worth of wages. Luckily for Lee, she had befriended Michael and Joy Brown. She was struggling with something all budding authors find difficult to balance: having the time and energy to write and the money to support herself while doing so. Lee ended up taking a job as an airline ticket agent, where she worked for several years. The problem is, you can’t produce a best-selling novel overnight, and you have to eat somehow. She wrote for the school paper before she dropped out of college entirely, opting instead to move to New York to pursue a career in writing. However, a transfer to the University of Alabama saw a switch to a law degree-no doubt in an attempt to do something that was potentially more lucrative-before turning her sights back on writing again. After graduation, she attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, where she focused on writing. Lee knew that she wanted to be a writer after developing an interest in English literature in high school. ![]() But it might not exist at all if it hadn’t been for a kind benefactor who helped to support Harper Lee while she wrote the story. The book, which was Lee’s first and only published novel until recently, was heralded as an “instant classic” when it was published in 1960, and it is a staple in high school classrooms today. Today I found out about the year’s “free wages” that led to Harper Lee writing To Kill a Mockingbird. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |