To Kill a Mockingbird author attended University of Alabama

Aspiring writers may be familiar with the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The author, Nelle Harper Lee, attended the University of Alabama before writing the critically-acclaimed book.

According to Biography, Lee wrote for various student publications and spent a year as editor of the campus humor magazine, Rammer Jammer.

After her collegiate years, Lee wrote several stories and contacted an agent. She then received an advance from a family friend to being writing a novel. Lee finished the manuscript in 1959 and To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960. It was an immediate bestseller and won critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961, the Encyclopedia of Alabama reports.

The novel remains a bestseller with more than 30 million copies in print. In 1999, it was voted "Best Novel of the Century" in a poll by the Library Journal.

Lee is also known for assisting childhood friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood.