Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953) was an American short-story writer and novelist born in Washington, D.C. She is best known for developing a canon of regional literature for rural Florida, where she moved as an adult after purchasing seventeen acres of land to focus on farming oranges and writing fiction. She expressed deep feelings for the local nature and high regard for the near-wild backwaters of Florida in her late works. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings published several novels throughout her career, including Cross Creek, South Moon Under, The Sojourner, Blood of My Blood, The Secret River and When the Whippoorwill; and a short story collection. Her most famous book, The Yearling, was the best-selling novel in the United States in 1938 and won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1939. She died in St Augustine, Florida in 1953.