Louise McNeill

Louise McNeill (January 9, 1911 – June 18, 1993) was an American poet, essayist, and historian of Appalachia. McNeill was born January 9, 1911 in Buckeye, West Virginia, USA on a farm that her family had owned since 1769. Her father, G. D. McNeil was a writer who published a collections of short stories about the forests of Pocahontas County, West Virginia. She wrote her first poem at 16, pecking it out on a friend's typewriter. The experience caused her to vow "to be a poet and write poems forever." She graduated from Concord College (now Concord University) and then got her master's from Miami University in Ohio. She earned her doctorate from West Virginia University. She also studied at Middlebury College with the poet Robert Frost,...