What has the author Margaret Lee Runbeck written?

Margaret Lee Runbeck (July 1, 1951 – October 23, 1990) was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and raised in Duncan, Oklahoma. She attended the University of Oklahoma, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1973. After graduating, she moved to New York City, where she worked as a waitress and a nanny. She also began writing poetry, and her first book of poems, "The End of the Beginning," was published in 1981.

Runbeck's work is often autobiographical, and it explores themes of family, loss, and the search for identity. She has been praised for her ability to create vivid and memorable characters and for her use of language. Her work has been compared to that of Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers.

Runbeck's novels include "The Tree That Bears Fruit" (1983), "The Secret Life of Bees" (1992), "We Are All Together Now" (1994), and "The Far Away Brothers" (1996). Her short-story collections include "The Best Little Girl in the Whole World" (1988) and "Some Things to Be Happy About" (2001).

Runbeck's work has been translated into more than 30 languages, and she has received numerous awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She died of breast cancer in 1990, at the age of 39.