“I've always been fascinated by the Mississippi River and the way of life in these small river towns.”

American novelist and short story writer

Daniel Woodrell is an American novelist and short story writer, known for fiction set largely in the Missouri Ozarks. He wrote nine novels and one collection of short stories, and his work has become closely associated with the term he coined, "country noir". Woodrell used that phrase for his 1996 novel Give Us a Kiss, and reviewers later adopted it to describe his writing more broadly. His fiction is often linked to rural Missouri, especially the Ozarks, which gives his books a distinctive regional setting and tone.