Overview
- He died on Nov. 28 at his home in West Plains, Missouri, from pancreatic cancer, his wife Katie Estill-Woodrell confirmed.
- Woodrell’s 2006 novel Winter’s Bone inspired the acclaimed 2010 film that earned four Academy Award nominations and launched Jennifer Lawrence’s breakout.
- He described his approach as “country noir,” portraying stark rural lives and consequences, and he set much of his work in a fictional Ozarks town called West Table.
- Earlier in life he served in the U.S. Marines, later earned a BA at the University of Kansas and an MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he met his future wife.
- He is survived by his wife and his brother, Ted, and had previously gone into remission after colon cancer in the early 2010s.