To Kill a Mockingbird burst into the world in 1960, followed by the Academy Award–winning film in 1962. Since then, the story of Scout, Atticus, Tom Robinson and Boo Radley has been an indelible part of American culture. Playwright Christopher Sergel secured Harper Lee’s blessing in 1970 for the stage adaptation of her novel, and in 1991, Kathy McCoy and the Mockingbird Players began the annual ritual of staging the show on its home turf and beyond. Author John M. Williams chronicles the production’s extraordinary journey, along with a wealth of side stories from the deep and colorful histories of Monroeville and Monroe County.

John M. Williams is a mentor in the Reinhardt University MFA Creative Writing program. He was named Georgia Author of the Year for First Novel in 2002 for Lake Moon (Mercer UP). He has written and cowritten numerous plays, with several local productions, and published a variety of stories, essays and reviews over the years. His and coauthor Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s play Hiram: Becoming Hank, about the formative years of singer Hank Williams, was performed at the Monroe County, Alabama courthouse in April 2021. His most recent books are Village People: Sketches of Auburn (Solomon and George, 2016) and Atlanta Pop in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s: The Magic of Bill Lowery, coauthored with Andy Lee White (The History Press, 2019). Previous publications can be found on his website at johnmwilliams.net, which hosts his blog, johnmwilliams.net/blog.