In the early 1960s, shortly after publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee accompanied her childhood friend Truman Capote — the basis for the Dill Harris character — to Holcomb, Kansas, and served as a research assistant for Capote's 1966 novel, In Cold Blood.
Lee also published three articles in the '60s: "Love — In Other Words" in Vogue (1961), "Christmas to Me" in McCalls (1961), and "When Children Discover America" in McCalls (1965). President Lyndon Johnson named Lee to the National Council of Arts in 1966. She has received several honorary doctorates, including one from the University of Alabama and another from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. She attended both ceremonies, but spoke at neither and gave no interviews.
In 1998, the Harper Lee Award for a Distinguished Alabama Writer was unveiled by the executive committee of the Alabama Writers' Forum. This award recognizes an accomplished writer who was born in the state or who lived in Alabama during his or her formative years.
Never married, Lee continues to divide her time between New York and Monroeville, where she lives with her sister Alice. Known for her wit and charm, Lee has granted only a handful of interviews since To Kill a Mockingbird's publication. Her family and friends remain protective of her privacy.
Many wonder why a writer of such talent would choose to write only one novel. When Lee's cousin, Richard Williams, posed that question to the author, her answer was "When you have a hit like that, you can't go anywhere but down."
