Kathryn Stockett is an American novelist from Jackson, Mississippi. She is known for her 2009 debut novel, The Help, which is about African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960s. The novel climbed best seller charts a few months after it was released.
Stockett graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing. She then moved to New York City, and worked in magazine publishing. Currently, she lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter.
Reflective of her first novel, Stockett was raised by an African American domestic worker in lieu of an absentee mother.