Dean Faulkner Wells 
Major Works
- Ghosts of Rowan Oak: William Faulkner's Ghost Stories for Children -- Dean Faulkner Wells, Willie Morris
- The Faulkner Newsletter : Collected Issues -- William Boozer (Editor), et al
- The Best of Bad Faulkner : choice entries from the faux faulkner contest -- Dean Faulkner Wells (Editor)
- The Great American Writers' Cookbook--editor
- Belle-Duck at The Peabody ( children's book--ages 7-9)
- Mississippi Heroes Ed. by Dean Faulkner Wells and Hunter Cold (2002)
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Dean Faulkner Wells: A Biography
Dean Faulkner Wells, born in 1936, is the niece of William Faulkner and the daughter of Dean Swift Faulkner, Faulkner's youngest brother, and Louise Hale. Her father was killed before she was born in a plane crash in 1935. When she was growing up, she was entertained by stories told by her famous uncle, whom she called "Pappy" at his home Rowan Oak. William Faulkner told ghost stories to Dean, his daughter Jill, and his granddaughter Vicki
Dean Faulkner Wells has retold three of his ghost stories from her childhood in The Ghosts of Rowan Oak: William Faulkner's Ghost Stories for Children. She has written stories and articles which have appeared in Parade Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, and the Paris Review. She is also the editor of The Great American Writers' Cookbook and The Best of Bad Faulkner and the author of the children's book Belle-Duck at the Peabody.
Wells was educated in Geneva and at the University of Mississippi. She married Larry Wells and together they live today in Oxford, Mississippi. They run Yoknapatawpha Press.
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A Review
of A Christmas Remembered
by Emily Cranford (SHS)
A Christmas Remembered by Dean Faulkner Wells describes a Christmas that many Southerners can relate to. The non-story tells of Faulkner's visit as a little girl to her uncle’s house. Her uncle is the famous writer William Faulkner, the man she called Pappy. She and her mother and her grandmother Nanie always went to Rowan Oak on Christmas and Wells describes one Christmas day in particular that was hot. She wore a green velvet dress as she rode in the rumble seat Wells describes the car ride to her uncle’s houseas one in which she stared at her white stockings and shiny shoes because she could not see over the rumble seat. The way Wells describes her visit to her uncle’s house makes you feel as though you are there too. Wells knew that they were at her uncle’s the moment they hit a pothole in the driveway. She describes the way the air smelled and how the tall trees looked to her as a child. Through sight and smell Wells shows what Mississippi was really like, but her story is especially of interest because it provide insight into the life and personality of William Faulkner.
I thought A Christmas Remembered was a very touching story. The story describes Christmas past in Mississippi in the lives of one of its most famous families, the Faulkners. I like A Christmas Remembered, and I think anyone who likes to remember the past with family and friends would like it, too.
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Related Websites
Publisher's page for Dean Faulkner Wells is found here.
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Bibliography
Wells, Dean Faulkner."A Christmas Remembered". Mississippi Writers: An Anthology. Dorothy Abbott, ed. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991. 369-375.
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