Wilson Rawls

Woodrow Wilson Rawls was born in Scraper, Oklahoma in 1913. His family was extremely poor. The area where he lived had no schools. Wilson's mother taught him how to read at home. He remained uninterested in books until his mother brought home a copy of Jack London's The Call of the Wild. From this time on Wilson wanted to write his own book.

Wilson began writing in his youth. Due to his lack of schooling, Wilson's work had poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation. He was ashamed of this so he kept his works to himself. Wilson's family moved from place to place during the Depression. Wilson continued to write. The writings were rejected by publishers due to the spelling and grammar.

Right before Wilson was to get married in 1958, he burned all his writings, so his new wife Sophia would not know of his failures. Finally Wilson told his wife of his dream. She encouraged him to rewrite his story of his boyhood. She loved the book and helped him with the spelling and grammar.

The book was accepted and published in a three-part serial called "The Hounds of Youth" by The Saturday Evening Post in 1961. It was published later that year as a novel by Doubleday as Where the Red Fern Grows. Wilson continued his writing with a second book called Summer of the Monkeys. It was published in 1976. Both books have received numerous awards. Wilson died in December of 1984.

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