June 2, 1918

Author and storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham was born in Selma. Windham used a variety of media to relay her love for Southern culture and the human experience to the public. She published 29 books, including an eight-book series of ghost stories, and worked as an award-winning journalist for several Alabama newspapers. Her commentaries ran on Alabama Public Radio for more than two decades and, from 1985 to 1987, also ran on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Her achievements led to numerous awards and distinctions, including an induction into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame and the creation of the Kathryn Tucker Windham Museum in Thomasville.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Kathryn Tucker graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from Huntingdon College in Montgomery in 1939 and soon began her career as a journalist with the Alabama Journal. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Courtesy of the Huntingdon College Archives)

Kathryn Tucker Windham’s 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey is the first in a series of ghost story collections set in the Deep South, published in 1969. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.