Lee’s new book, Mrs. Darcy Meets the Blue-Eyed Stranger, will be published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in early spring 2010. It is a collection of new and selected stories.

For a list of Lee Smith's recommended books, click here.

Click to hear Lee Smith read a portion of The Last Girls.

Click Here for information on Barbara Bates Smith's new one-woman show On Agate Hill. Read the review or check out her schedule.

Her most recent novel On Agate Hill was published in October 2006.

Good Ol' Girls

“Like A Chorus Line for women.”

Lee Smith, Matraca Berg and Marshall Chapman
That’s the way Southern author Lee Smith (Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History) explains Good Ol’ Girls, a musical featuring the stories of Smith and novelist and short story writer Jill McCorkle (Ferris Beach, July 7th) as well as the songs of Matraca Berg and Marshall Chapman. The New York Times called it “a feminist literary country music review” and Smith agreed saying, “It’s a show with attitude—not a show for belles!”

Adapted and directed by UNC—CH professor Paul Ferguson, Good Ol’ Girls is the brainchild of Berg, the Nashville singer/songwriter who has written many hit songs, including number one “Strawberry Wine” for Deanna Carter.

Lee Smith, Marshall Chapman, Paul Ferguson
After reading some of Smith’s novels, Matraca approached Chapman with the idea of a musical. Marshall, who has 8 critically acclaimed albums of her own and has written songs for EmmyLou Harris, Jimmy Buffett, and Joe Cocker, knew Smith from their days together in Nashville in the ‘70’s. After they talked, Lee asked Prof. Ferguson, who adapted Smith’s The Devil’s Dream into a very successful musical several years earlier, to direct the show and adapt their work for the stage. Five months later they workshopped a highly popular version of the show at the North Carolina Literary Festival in Chapel Hill.

The show is about “women of all types in all different places . . .coming to terms with some big issues in life,” says McCorkle. “These good ol’ girls are strong ol’ girls, survivors.

Lee Smith and Matraca Berg
When rocker Jerry Lee Lewis first met Marshall Chapman, he said in awe, “Honey, I think you ought to slow down.” Thankfully, she hasn’t slowed down a bit, and neither have the other women whose different and entertaining voices have created Girls who are also wild and funny and charming—smart and independent girls who often start out as hellraisers and then settle down to become good women. Women not entirely unlike the four who brought their unique gifts together in the bittersweet , uplifting Good Ol' Girls.