Mary Lee Settle is the one in the middle; the one with the haughty, naughty smile, square jaw, flame-red hair, ‘damn-the-torpedoes’ attitude. Mary Lee Settle won the 1978 National Book award, founded the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, published twenty-one novels, memoirs, and travelogues. Mary Lee Settle was bold, brassy, and often brash; she took no prisoners and suffered no fools. Follow me throughout 2018 as I celebrate the 100^th anniversary of Mary Lee Settle’s birth, reading and exploring the life and work of one of America’s greatest women of letters.