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Wilson Rawls

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Author

The Resume

    (September 24, 1913-December 16, 1984)
    Born in Scraper, Oklahoma
    Birth name was Woodrow Wilson Rawls
    Wrote 'Where the Red Fern Grows' (1961) and 'Summer of the Monkeys' (1976)

Why he might be annoying:

    He was arrested in New Mexico for breaking and entering (1940) and sentenced to 2-3 years in prison.
    He was so embarrassed by the spelling and grammar errors in his manuscripts that he burned them before getting married. ('I didn't want my wife to know I was that bad.')
    'Where the Red Fern Grows' sold slowly at first, mainly because Doubleday marketed it to adults initially.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He based 'Where the Red Fern Grows' on his experiences growing up in Oklahoma.
    He only had a year and a half of formal education.
    He travelled around the country as a laborer during the Depression, including working on the AlCan highway in Alaska.
    After he told his wife about the destroyed manuscripts, she asked him to recreate one of his stories. He rewrote 'Where the Red Fern Grows' in three weeks from memory. She told him it was a wonderful story and offered to polish the spelling and grammar and help find a publisher.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying