Ellen Brown, lawyer and an award-winning freelance writer, discusses the book she co-authored with John Wiley, Jr. The book is titled, *Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller’s Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood*. She tells the story of the extensive research they undertook in order to write this biography which is focused mainly on the book itself. How it went from a disorganized and incomplete manuscript by an unknown Southern writer and how it was discovered by a major New York publisher and became one of the most popular, profitable, and controversial novels in literary history.
Ellen F. Brown is a bibliophile. After a childhood spent with her nose in a book, Brown went to law school on the theory that she would be paid to read dusty old tomes with fancy leather bindings. After a decade of practicing environmental law, a field in which few of the case books are leatherbound, she decided to follow her dream via another route. In 2007, she opened an antiquarian bookselling business and became a freelance writer with a bent for all things bookish. Today, Brown focuses her energies on the writing side of her career. She writes a regular column for Fine Books & Collections magazine and her first book, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood will be published by Taylor Trade in 2011. She is now working on her second book. Ellen lives in Richmond, Virginia's historic Fan District with her husband, their two sons, and a bassett hound named Leo. She is a member of Virginia Press Women and sits on the boards of the Library of Virginia Foundation and James River Writers.