Debra Conner as Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta, GA in 1901 as a granddaughter of the Old South, where stories were passed around like platters of fried chicken at every family gathering.  Margaret Mitchell took her story telling abilities to another level and had Gone with the Wind published 35 years later.  In her late teenage years, Mitchell had many male admirers and spent the next few years investing time in romantic relationships with family at home, as opposed to focusing on writing.  But she soon committed to utilizing her talent for storytelling and eventually submitted Gone With the Wind to a New York talent scout at an Atlanta train station.  Not even a year later, Mitchell's story was in print and subsequently began shaping the way Americans-and people throughout the world-view the Civil War and Reconstruction. Apart from the Bible, no other book has sold more copies in hardcover. 

Despite the public's hunger for a sequel, Mitchell would never write another word of fiction after she finished Gone with the Wind.  She died at age 48 as a result of injuries sustained after being hit by a speeding car while crossing an Atlanta street. 

Debra Conner is an Ohio native who has lived in Parkersburg, West Virginia since 1972.  She holds a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Virginia and a MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College.  She is currently self-employed in the commercial advertising business.  For over twenty years, she was adjunct instructor in the English department of West Virginia University in Parkersburg.  Also a poet, Conner conducts workshops and residencies in creative writing.  She is part of the Ohio Arts Council's writer in residence program, and she has published an essay about that experience in "Teaching Writing from the Writer's Point of View," which was published by the National Council of Teachers of English.  In addition, her writing has appeared in publications such as the West Virginia Encyclopedia, Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry and Ohio Schools magazine 

Conner began her career as a Chautauqua portraying Emily Dickinson in 1997, thanks to a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts.  Since then, she has added in-character portrayals of Zelda Fitzgerald, Margaret Mitchell, Margaret Blennerhassett, and Rebecca Harding Davis to her character offerings.  "It's my best chance to be a famous writer," she claims.

She performed as part of Chautauqua's That's Entertainment at the Route 66 Theater in Webb City on Sunday, June 29, 2008.  Her presentation was followed by a showing of Gone With the Wind.