The French Broad

Wilma Dykeman (1920-2006), journalist, activist, biographer, speaker, teacher, and novelist, led a life not easily described in brief. A deep love of the world and a vision for a brighter future defined her character. Acclaim for The French Broad, first published in 1955, raised Dykeman's public and professional profile and brought national attention to the issue of water pollution. In her career as a writer and speaker, she became a long-standing influential figure both at home and across the country. Though grounded to her roots in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee, she traveled extensively to speak and share her knowledge. Her lifelong commitment to social justice and her prolific writing--19 books of fiction and nonfiction and countless articles and essays--establish her among the great literary figures of her time. A few of her major accomplishments:

• She received a Guggenheim Fellowship, became a senior fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and received the first ever Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Prize;
• Her work appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Ebony, Prairie Schooner, The Nation, New Republic, US News and World Report, and Readers Digest, among other publications;
• She was the first female Tennessee State Historian and raised the profile of women's contributions to the state;
• She taught Appalachian literature and creative writing at the University of Tennessee for two decades;
• She was the first female trustee of Berea College in Kentucky, who fought to preserve admissions for groups not traditionally supported in higher learning;
• With her husband, James R. Stokely Jr., she was awarded a Sidney Hillman Award for their pioneering civil rights reporting in Neither Black Nor White (Rinehart 1957).

Her account of the French Broad River is steeped in her love of the river and Appalachia. Part of the Rivers of America series, the book includes this description of the river that equally describes her own influence: "How can a sentence sing it or a chapter describe it or a book give it full life?"