New York Times best-selling writer Sharyn McCrumb is the author of sixteen books, including the highly acclaimed "Ballad" novels, lyrical works incorporating the history and folklore of Appalachia into a contemporary narrative. Her novels have been named Notable Books by The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, and she received the Appalachian Writers Association’s 1997 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Appalachian Literature.

The Ballad series consists of If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O; The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter; She Walks These Hills; and The Rosewood Casket. The fifth book in the series, The Ballad of Frankie Silver, was released in May by Dutton.

In addition to the Appalachian novels, McCrumb is the author of two other series: the Elizabeth MacPherson novels, which feature the adventures of a forensic anthropologist, and the Jay Omega books, which are humorous satires of the science fiction world. McCrumb has won all of the major crime fiction awards in the U.S., including the coveted Edgar. Her first book of short stories, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, was released in September 1997 by Ballantine. The short story "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," from which the book is titled, received the Denny C. Plattner/Appalachian Heritage Award for Best Short Story in 1997.

Her novels, which are studied in universities throughout the world, have been translated into German, Dutch, Japanese, French, Greek, Czech, Russian, Danish, Spanish and Italian.

McCrumb is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an MA in English from Virginia Tech. She has taught journalism and Appalachian Studies at Virginia Tech, but she is now a full-time novelist and lecturer. She has been invited to talk about her work at the University of Bonn, the American Library in Berlin, Oxford University, the Smithsonian Institution, and at literary festivals and universities throughout the United States.

Sharyn McCrumb’s great-grandfathers were circuit preachers in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains a hundred years ago, riding horseback over the ridges to preach in a different community each week. It is from them, she says, that she gets her regard for books, her gift of story-telling and public-speaking, and her love of the Appalachian Mountains.