In her 89 years, Nelle Harper Lee wrote a best seller and earned the title of top-earning author. Lee wrote the famous book “To Kill a Mockingbird,” published in 1960. She was born in Monroeville, Ala. on April 28, 1926. She grew up in the small town and was the youngest of the four children. Her father was a lawyer and a member of Alabama state legislature. Lee’s mother suffered from mental illness; they believe it was a “nervous disorder.” It wasn’t until high school Lee realized that she had an interest for English literature. After she graduated in 1944 she went to the all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery. She then later transferred to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Her interest for writing grew, she became part of the school newspaper and their humor magazine, Rammer Jammer, which she eventually became the editor of. Her junior year she followed in her father’s footsteps and went to the university’s law school, which forced her to leave her post as editor of the Rammer Jammer. After she spent a summer abroad at Oxford University and went back to law school she realized this was not her passion. She dropped out of law school after the first semester and went to the north to focus on her writing. 23-year-old Lee went to New York in 1949 and followed her dream. There she met broadway composer Michael Martin Brown and his wife Joy and they became fast friends. In New York she worked as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines and the Overseas Air Corp. The Browns gave her the best gift that Christmas, they supported her for a whole year so she could quit her job and dedicate all her time to her writing. The Browns also helped her find her agent, Maurice Crain, who then got publisher J.B. Lippincott into her work. She then started writing a book about a young girl who lived in a small town in Alabama, which led to bestseller “To Kill a Mockingbird.” One year after it was published she won a Pulitzer Prize. The book also won the Brotherhood Award. The Presidential Medal of Freedom was bestowed upon her by President George Bush in 2007 for the book. She made the sequel to “To Kill a Mockingbird” in 2015 called “Go set a Watchman.” She died today, Feb. 19 2016 in her home town.