Mabel Martin Wyrick Local History Collection

Mabel Martin Wyrick (1913 – 2003) was a Kentucky writer.  Her published books include If Quilts Could Talk... I'd Listen, Tales of the Rails, How to Bury a Drifter, The Ultimate Irony, Factual Folklore, and Land Beneath the Lake. Wyrick also wrote weekly newspaper columns including "If Quilts Could Talk ... I'd Listen" and "Land Beneath the Lake." Her columns were regularly featured in several periodicals, including the Corbin Times-Tribune, the Sentinel-Echo, the Berea Citizen, Appalachian Heritage, and Back Home in Kentucky. Many of her books and writings told the stories of early life in the hills of Southeastern Kentucky. Wyrick began her writing career in 1978 at the request of the editor of Times-Tribune. Her first newspaper columns described her experiences while traveling in the Holy Land. She quickly expanded her columns to tell stories from her childhood as well as stories passed down through her friends and family. Wyrick coined the term “Factual Folklore” to describe her writing - tales based on fact which have been passed down through the generations. In a 1999 interview with the Lexington Herald, Wyrick said that, “Factual folklore is my link between folklore and history. It's the history that wasn't written down, but should have been.”