I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1969, in a time and place where no one was saying, 'Look how far we've come,' because we hadn't come very far, to say the least. Although Jackson's population was half white and half black, I didn't have a single black friend or a black neighbor or even a black person in my school.

The Help took her five years to complete and the book was rejected by 60 literary agents before agent Susan Ramer agreed to represent Stockett. Reflective of her first novel Stockett was very close to an African-American domestic worker. A lawsuit was filed in a Mississippi court by Ablene Cooper a maid who used to work for Stockett's brother.

Kathryn Stockett is an American novelist.