At the Intersection of Paradise and Dimestore: the Creative Synergy of Lou Crabtree and Lee Smith

Lee Smith and Lou Crabtree met in 1980 at a literary event in Abingdon during the Virginia Highlands Festival, a meeting which was humorously detailed in Lee Smith's reflection on her writing life, Dimestore. It was a portentuous meeting, as they would continue to cross paths for the next twenty years, either on Lou's porch (also described in Dimestore), or at literary events like the Lee Smith Symposium which took place at the Washington County Public Library in the fall of 1998.

They were somewhat similar in background. Each grew up in small communities in Southwest Virginia and each had an innate sense for the unique qualities of the cultural milieu that shaped them as artists. But the trajectory of their careers could not not have been more different. Lou was 72 when her first book, a collection of short stories, was published. Born in 1944, Lee Smith has been writing professionally for almost fifty years and has published 13 novels and 4 books of short fiction. Ironically, each influenced the other. Lee's support and encouragement led to the publication of Lou's first book. For her part Lee gained a new appreciation for her craft in the unassuming approach to writing that characterized Lou's artistry.

In his introduction of Lee Smith when she spoke at Sinking Springs Presbyterian Church in 2016, following the publication of Dimestore: a Writer's Life, Ben Jennings remarked on Lee's "generosity of spirit" in nurturing aspiring writers and spoke of her role in the renaissance of Appalachian and Southern literature. He also expressed his appreciation for the role Lee played in nurturing the talent of our very own Lou Crabtree.

Going back to their fateful meeting at the creative writing class in 1980, Lee recalls the "battered suitcase" that Lou used to transport her stories and poems and marvels anew: "All that week, I read these poems and stories, immersing myself in Lou's magic, primal world of river hills and deep forest, of men and women and children as elemental as nature itself, of talking animals, witchcraft, and holiness. For Lou Crabtree was that rarity—a writer of perfect pitch and singular knowledge, a real artist. And most amazing of all..., she had written all this with no thought of publication. Writing was how she lived, I realized. It was what she lived by." (Dimestore: a Writer's Life, p. 89)

This archival project grew out of a donation by Quinn Hawkesworth (see Note to "Ballad of a Stranger" on the following page). Included in the donated material were a number of original and unpublished works by Lou Crabtree. Our purpose in preserving this material is to allow teachers and students an opportunity to discover—or rediscover—an important exemplar of Appalachian regional expression. According to Thomas Matthew Prater, in a thesis written in 2013, Appalachian writer Gurney Norman once referred to Lou Crabtree as the "true songbird of her place." ("Songbird Commotion: The Natural Voice of Lou Crabtree"). Hers is a voice that is so distinct, it is more than a voice: it is a presence. Or a "commotion" as Lee Smith described her, after their first meeting.