Ed Bell

Ed Bell (1910-1956) was a newspaperman and fiction writer from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He deeply loved his hometown and passed up prestigious work in New York City to stay in the countryside.

Bell wrote columns for several Nashville-area papers, like the Daily News Journal, and he was editor for the Rutherford Courier, where he had a front-page column. He also wrote for the Associated Press's Nashville branch for a year. Bell was also involved in the WPA Writers Project and received a grant from the Julius Rosenweild Fund in 1942.

He published two novels in his life, 1935's The Fish on the Steeple and 1938's Tommy Lee Feathers. A collection of nonfiction, The Lonely People and Their Strange Ways, was published posthumously. (Some excerpts from The Lonely People can be found here.)

Sources:

“Asst. Tennessean City Editor, Five Others Win Fellowships.” The Tennessean. 4 May 1942.

"Ed Bell Rites Will Be Today." The Tennessean. 11 Oct 1956.

"Ed Bell's The Lonely People Goes on Sale Today." The Daily News-Journal (Nashville, TN). 17 Nov 1957.

"High Place." The Tennessean. 21 Jan 1951.