Lou Crabtree

Lou Crabtree

Lou Crabtree

Lou Crabtree

Lou V. Crabtree (1913-2006)- "Lou Crabtree...lived most of her life in Washington County, VA. Her career...included school teaching, farming, directing a band, and lecturing. Her first book, a collection of short stories entitled Sweet Hollow, was published in 1983 by Louisiana State University Press after writer Lee Smith "discovered" Crabtree during a visit to Virginia. Crabtree has won many awards for her writing, including a PEN/Faulkner award and poetry awards from Shenandoah and the Poetry Society of Virginia. In 1988, she was declared a "laureate in Literature" in Virginia. In 1998, the Sow's Ear Press published a collection of Crabtree's poems entitled The River Hills and Beyond, which was named the Virginia Center for the Book's Poetry Book of the Year in 1999."

• Source: "What Kind of Egg are You? A Profile of Lou V. Crabtree," by Judy K. Miller. Her Words: Diverse Voices in Appalachian Women's Poetry, ed. Felicia Mitchell. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, c.2002 (85)

"Always she has written, putting a random thought, or phrase or story on a snatch of paper and tucking it away in a drawer somewhere. When she retired from teaching with her kids grown, she had time to turn her notes into short stories, plays, poems, and novels. Plural."

• Source: "In her own words: For Lou Crabtree, writing is a way of making sense of her life,"Beth Macy. Roanoke Times & World-News. Sept. 20, 1992

In 2015, Lou's friend and collaborator Quinn Hawkesworth dontated a number of items to the Washington County Public Library. These included a selection of unpublished short stories and plays by Lou, an adaptation taken from Lou's writings, and an album of photographs. The library has one and a half archival boxes of these doucuments, together with clippings from the library's Vertical Files which are in a separate, shared file*. In addition, there is a large newspaper box, also shared*, with articles and pictures, paying tribute to her life and accomplishments as a writer and as a mentor to other writers, which culminated in a 1984 Barter Theatre production "Calling on Lou." The Collection also includes the photo album, featuring places where Lou lived at various times, many of which figured in her writings [See: "Making Sense of Lou Crabtree"], and a videorecording of Lou's 1985 appearance on the Today Show.

*Along with the Crabtree material, Washington County Public Library has documents, clippings, and publicity for Lou's friend and celebrated local author Lee Smith, The documents are in a separate document case. The clippings and publicity from the 1998 Lee Smith Symposium, held at the library, are in shared boxes.

Will Stein

Crabtree papers

Washington County Public Library

1980-2006

Quinn Hawkesworth
Lee Smith
Beth Macy
Judy Miller
Robert Weisfeld
Carol Fields
Joyce Dyer

Washington County Public Library

Lou Crabtree Papers, 1989-2015, Belk Library, W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University, Special Collections, AC 1201.
Donated by Lee Smith in 2015, "includes personal materials, publications, news clippings, photographs, and recordings which pertain to Crabtree's life and writings."

"Porches in Paradise" Jeanne Johnson. RU Magazine: the magazine of Radford University, Radford, Va.: Radford University, Office of Public Information and Relations, May, 1999

Documents
Video recordings
Sound recordings

English
Appalachian Dialect

At the Intersection of Paradise and Dimestore: The Creative Synergy of Lou Crabtree and Lee Smith
"Making Sense of Lou Crabtree", an online Exhibit
"Calling on Lou" (script)
"Calling On Lou" (playbill)
"Calling on Lou" (Reviews)
"Songbird Commotion: The Natural Voice of Lou Crabtree," by Thomas Matthew Prater. Appalachian State University, Thesis, 2013 (permanent link)
"Paradise in Price Valley," Lou Crabtree, from Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers, Joyce Dyer, ed. Univ. Press of Kentucky, c.1998 (used by permission of the Editor)