Author Daniel Woodrell penned a grainy portrait of southern Missouri filled with the “violence and squalor of his native Ozarks.” Those aren’t my words – they were published in The New York Times upon his passing last November.
I never met the “country noir” author, whose fame went far beyond the Ozarks where he was born, left, and returned. He was most famous for “Winter’s Bone,” the book-turned-hit movie that showcased drugs, poverty, and murder – and helped introduce actress Jennifer Lawrence to the world.
“Esquire magazine described him in the early 2010s as ‘one of American literature’s best-kept secret,’” noted the Times obituary. “The author Donald Ray Pollock, writing in The New York Times Book Review in 2012, declared that Mr. Woodrell ‘writes about violence and dark deeds better than almost anyone in America today.’”
When I heard of Woodrell’s passing, I couldn’t help but stop and consider this moment of irony. The dark side of the Ozarks that Woodrell shared wasn’t false, nor was it specifically about West Plains, the south-central Missouri town where he lived. His literary licence repeatedly focused on the fictional community of West Table.
In 2025, West Plains was named Missouri’s Creative Community by the Missouri Arts Council. Its public library was chosen as the state’s best. West Plains, the Howell County seat, is home to a university campus, a technical school, and a health care system. The downtown district – complete with a collection of restored historical buildings that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places – is experiencing renewal. Arts and culture abound through nonprofit efforts, focused on local history and heritage.
Woodrell’s charge wasn’t to paint a complete picture of the Ozarks, but his work still likely had an impact on how those from “off” see the region. His popularity – alongside portrayals such as the TV show “Ozark” – reminds us how a stereotype, generally speaking, can be a broken lens through which to see the world.
“I do think it makes an impact,” Greg Carter, director of the West Plains Public Library, said about stereotypes – and not just those about the Ozarks. “Maybe when I read books about people who live in large cities I’ve never been to, I think you do internalize some of those perceptions.”
In West Plains, so many good things prove that there is more to stories than stereotypes. The town’s motto is “Make It Happen Here,” which can be applied to almost any community – from a remote small town to a tight-knit urban neighborhood – that is maligned in popular culture.
The Back Story of West Plains
Let me just say this upfront: I’m a big fan of Woodrell’s work, and of West Plains, the hometown of an unexpected number of celebrities.
Dick Van Dyke was born there in 1925, and baseball stars Bill Virdon and Preacher Roe called it home. Country star Jan Howard was from thereabouts. The longest street in town is named after its most famous son: Porter Wagoner, another country singer known for his sparkly Nudie suits, two-decade-long TV show where he helped introduce the world to Dolly Parton, and legendary status at the Grand Ole Opry.
West Plains was established as “the regional hub of trade and commerce” when the railroad came to town in 1883. In 1928, a tragic explosion destroyed a dance hall, killed nearly 40 people, and began a mystery that was never solved yet spurred a folk song (and “The Maid’s Version,” another of Woodrell’s novels).
By then, negative stereotypes about the Ozarks were already in place.
“The whole stereotypical stuff about people from the Ozarks goes way back to the 1800s when Henry Schoolcraft did a survey here,” said Mike Topliff, West Plains mayor, of the explorer whose work is one of the first written accounts of the Ozarks. “He wrote about how under-educated we were and everything, and that’s where it kind of kicked off – even though if it hadn’t been for the people in the Ozarks, he would have died during that time.”
In 1907, another book called “The Shepherd of the Hills” expanded opinions of what it meant to live in the Ozarks. The novel became widely successful and helped grow the Ozarks as a tourist destination: Folks wanted to come see the hillbilly characters they read about in the novel’s pages. If you’ve ever heard of Branson – a community a couple hours down the road from West Plains – you have its author Harold Bell Wright to thank.
But back to West Plains. Just minutes from town, the landscape gets ruggedly rural and intersects with National Forest land. It’s a reality that does offer a sense of isolation, supporting the desire to be left alone. Such isolation – across the wider Ozarks, not just around West Plains – does lead to undeniable realities involving illegal drugs, violence, and desperate situations.
“Woodrell had shone this bright light on a part of Ozarks society that exists. It’s not the dominant part of Ozarks society, but when you get such a bright light shone on it by a writer like Woodrell and then it turns into this terrific film by Debra Granik, then all of a sudden people on the coasts are seeing this as ‘the’ Ozarks,” Dr. Brooks Blevins, an Ozarks scholar at Missouri State University, said in a recent podcast.
“I kept a file of the movie reviews of ‘Winter’s Bone’ when it came out, and in a lot of them you could tell the critics were just convinced that this is just a pure slice of Ozarks life and this is what you’re going to see if you go to the Ozarks.”
Perhaps, in a way, that light helped shine on issues that need to be discussed, too.
Abby Hess is editor and publisher of the West Plains Daily Quill. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
“He wrote about generational poverty, and that was not something that was at the forefront of any literary consciousness,” Abby Hess, editor and publisher of the West Plains Daily Quill newspaper, said of Woodrell. “I mean, sure, academically, it was (known) – but (in terms of literature), it was novel. I mean, that’s where that ‘country noir’ concept came into play, you know?
“When you’re talking about generational cycles, he gave an insight that didn’t previously exist.”
Seeing What Makes a Place Special
I wanted to chat with Hess given her role in seeing it all. She’s been at the newspaper for most of 10 years, a job that evolved after moving to the rural community with her wife.
“When we first moved here, we never, ever felt unwelcome,” she said, noting that she was surprised, given that they were a same-sex couple moving to a conservative area. Later, she was touched again when they sought financial support in buying their home when they were just a little short and benefited from a fundraiser.
“Not only did we meet our goal – we overshot,” she said of the GoFundMe campaign. “It was anonymous people from West Plains, Missouri. It was people whose names we’d never seen or heard before.”
She’s a Woodrell fan – lived down the street from him, in fact – but didn’t know him well. I get the sense that he was quiet and reserved, although he did host Anthony Bourdain for an episode of “No Reservations.” And even though he changed names in his works, there were times people felt they saw themselves in his writings.
“I think that it’s accurate in that there are certain universal human elements, especially in a small town,” Hess said of Woodrell’s work.
We visited the Quill’s office just off the square and in the heart of downtown, a place that reminds of the value of preserving character. A big part of that is due to Toney and Kathleen Aid, locals who have restored 15 downtown buildings since the 1990s.
“A community’s identity is strongly associated with its downtown,” said Toney Aid, whose family opened a downtown hardware store in the 1880s. He still owns the building today.
“People do not remember a town for its Walmart or McDonald’s,” Aid told me. “As an example, when new doctors consider working at our hospital, they are interested first in our schools; second, they are anxious to see the downtown. A vibrant downtown is an important selling point.”
Those structures help create a sense of place. Community vibrancy comes from integrating a place’s unique history into its future.
Yet Aid also notes the need to be nimble and change. An example is the Ozarks Small Business Incubator, heralded as Missouri’s first rural business incubator that is based in downtown West Plains. It offers mentoring programs, microloans, coworking space, and more.
Those unique projects color the region, as do arts initiatives that draw neighbors to feel connected and rooted.
Those moments shine through the Yellow House, a nonprofit arts initiative that focuses on local music and art, and the Ozarks Heritage Festival, a decades-running annual event that showcases regional musical and artistic tradition. Those elements and more were part of the state’s Creative Community Award, announced by the office of Missouri’s Lieutenant Governor. A mural tour celebrates its history, a vintage theater houses a performing arts group, and local history is preserved at a museum and a research center.
They’re part of conversations about regional identity, and a reminder that the conversation about who we are is never really over. That reality also shines through Lincoln School, a new cultural center that opened in 2024 in the town’s former Black school.
The project was led by Crockett and Tonya Oaks III, who purchased the building and restored it into a place for the community. It’s especially meaningful as Crockett Oaks’s father was one of the school’s last pupils before schools were integrated in the 1950s.
“Right now, what I’m trying to do is build up the storyline of Lincoln School and help others see how the metaphor of Lincoln School in their communities can apply,” Oaks said in late 2025 after announcing he would become the center’s first full-time director. “I think I can be a good messenger to stoke people up to care about an old building – and then, through caring about that old building, start caring about each other.”
Crockett Oaks III is a founder of the Lincoln School Project. In 2023, he and his wife, Tonya Oaks, purchased the town’s former Black school and transformed it into a cultural center. His father was one of the school’s last students prior to integration in the 1950s. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
A Structure to Grow
From my rural Ozarks wanderings, I see several needs in order for rural areas to thrive. Two of them are access to health care and meaningful employment opportunities. Both help lead to a secure, sustainable life for a growing family.
West Plains has both. It’s home to a health care system with clinics throughout the region and 1,300 employees, tied to that employment need.
Another point of note is IT, which is expanding in West Plains. Soon, a new IT company will set up shop downtown – defying the stereotypes that Mayor Topliff personally has experienced working in IT.
“For the longest time, when I first started, that was the attitude – I worked with a lot of people from St. Louis, and they were kind of like ‘Ohhhh…,” he said, noting that they originally treated rural people like they couldn’t be competent in IT.
“A few things happen, and the next thing you know, they’re like, ‘Well, how did you know that?’ I’m like, ‘You all should probably read somebody’s resume once in a while.’”
And, of course, elements of those industries (and a spectrum of others) need education to exist. There are technical training opportunities at Southern Missouri Technical Institute, as well as Missouri State University-West Plains, a two-year accredited campus of the larger Missouri State University system.
A key point of note on the latter is a focus on rural educators. For more than 25 years, a program that grew out of a need for more teachers locally, its website notes. More than 700 teachers have been minted, helping fill gaps in the nearby rural school districts.
The bottom line: West Plains has been willing to change, adapt, and grow.
Carter, director of the West Plains Public Library, represents that ideal. After growing up in West Plains, he began his college journey at MSU-West Plains before becoming a teacher and librarian.
When taking the city library’s top leadership post in 2023, one of his top priorities was making the library more accessible to the community, such as by eliminating late fees.
“That’s not to say we don’t want people to bring their items back,” he said, explaining, “Let’s just trust people. Let’s trust the good in people. And ever since being fine-free, they still bring their items back.”
Looking Beyond the Cover
There’s a lot more to West Plains than these few paragraphs, but you get the idea: Look beyond what you think you know – everywhere.
“When something happens, there’s someone there helping you,” said Topliff, giving an example of a major 2017 flood that caused significant damage throughout the area. “We didn’t wait for the government to come in and get things going. As we all do, we jumped in, and we started helping each other and got back on our feet.”
Perceptions aren’t an Ozarks thing, or even a rural thing. It’s a human thing. And building beyond those stereotypes can bring pride.
“My dad used to tell me, ‘People call me a hillbilly, and I’m proud of that. I’m proud to be a hillbilly because the hillbilly means I’m ingenious. I’m good about fixing problems. I’m resilient in times of poverty,’” Carter said.
Dr. Greg Carter, director of the West Plains Public Library, grew up locally and was a public school teacher and librarian before taking his current post in 2023. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell)
You see that clearly in Woodrell’s “Winter’s Bone” through the main character, Ree Dolly, who went on a quest to find her father. Her commitment led her to a pond where she ultimately helped cut off her father’s hands to prove he was dead and thereby not lose the family land to a bail bondsman.
Again, fiction. But life is tough in the Ozarks.
“Our grandparents were probably dirt poor but knew how to live and were happy and knew how to survive,” Carter said. “And I think that’s the true Ozarks spirit.
“You can put us through hell, but we’re going to survive and be better on the other end of it.”
The post Ozarks Notebook: Daniel Woodrell and the Myth of the Ozarks appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
