LILLIE D. CHAFFIN

(February 1, 1925–October 27, 1993)

Lillie Dorton Chaffin Kash grew up in eastern Kentucky, the daughter of Fairy Belle Kelly Dorton and Kenis Roscoe Dorton. A graduate of Pikeville College (B.S., 1956) and Eastern Kentucky University (M.A., 1966), she began her career as an elementary school teacher and a librarian. In the 1960s, she became a freelance writer of poetry and books for children. As a wife, a mother, a teacher, and a writer, she explained, “I do most of my creative writing at odd’ hours, mostly from two a.m. to six a.m.”

From the beginning, Chaffin (pronounced CHAY-fin) received wide recognition and a number of awards for her writing, including first prize from the National League of American Pen Women for the picture book A Garden is Good in 1964, the International Poetry Prize for A Stone for Sisyphus in 1967, the Child Study Association Children's Book Award for John Henry McCoy in 1971, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination for 8th Day, 13th Moon in 1975. More than three hundred of her poems appear in anthologies and journals, including Jack and Jill, Child Life, Humpty Dumpty, and Prairie Schooner. She served as poetry editor to the literary magazine Twigs and as fiction editor for American Pen Women.

After the death of her first husband, Thomas W. Chaffin, in 1981, she married Vernon O. Kash, who died in 1985. She is survived by one son and four grandchildren.

She described herself as “a child of local economics tied to coal mining, part of everything ever seen, heard, read, and imagined.” Having focused her writing on natural subjects and on motherhood, she hoped to be accepted by readers as “regional in the best sense of the word.”

OTHER SOURCES TO EXPLORE

PRIMARY

Books for children: Freeman (1972), John Henry McCoy (1971), A World of Books [Autobiography] (1970), I Have a Tree (1969), In My Backyard (1968), Bear Weather (1968), America's First Ladies (1968), Tommy's Big Problem (1965), A Garden is Good (1963). Poetry: Appalachian History and Other Poems (1980), Love Poems (1976), Star Following (1976), 8th Day, 13th Moon (1974), First Notes (1969), A Stone for Sisyphus (1967), Lines and Points (1966).

SECONDARY

Contemporary Authors, First Revision, Vols. 33–36, 180–81. Something About the Author, Vol. 4, 44–46.