Lee Maynard was an American and Appalachian novelist, short story writer, journalist, philanthropist, and adventurer who was born in 1936 in the small Tug River town of Crum, West Virginia, which he immortalized in the "Crum Trilogy", three semi-autobiographical novels. The three novels, "Crum", "Screaming With The Cannibals", and "The Scummers", were among his six novels and eight total books published. Lee Maynard became somewhat of a pariah in his hometown due to a great deal of markedly negative descriptions he published about the town of Crum. For a time his novels were banned from sale at Tamarack, the official West Virginia "... showcase for all aspects of advancing West Virginia arts, crafts, food products, and those who produce or perform them" due to the markedly negative opinions held by many West Virginians and Appalachians about his work. But they are sold there at this time. Lee Maynard's response to having his books banned at his home state's official promotional agency said this: ""My first reaction was about 30 seconds of rage and indignation. I was like, my god, who would do such a thing? Then I thought, hey, I'm in some good company — Twain, Faulkner, Maya Angelou, Shakespeare — they have all had their books banned at some time, in some place. There is always someone trying to regulate your life, telling you what to think and what to know, and in the final analysis, I really appreciated being added to that list. Ultimately, it didn't bother me at all. I loved it." But many people who have studied his work and knew the man dispute the bleak picture his detractors paint of him and his opinions of his home state. He lived for many years in New Mexico and died in Albuquerque on June 16, 2017, at the age of 81. Nearly every year during that time in New Mexico he attended the West Virginia Writers Workshops held in his home state. In 1995, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship in Fiction and was a highly regarded writer of fiction, much of which was either set in West Virginia or drew from his life and experiences in the Mountain State. He was a graduate of West Virginia University and actually returned to the university to complete his degree in journalism after having served in the US military. He was also an employee of the state of West Virginia for several years in the capacities of editor of the West Virginia Conservation Magazine which was published by the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources; Assistant Director of the Information and Education Division of the Department of Natural Resources; Director of Public Relations for the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and as editor of West Virginia Commerce Magazine. In 1967, Maynard was named the Executive Secretary of the newly formed West Virginia Commission on Manpower, Technology and Training, the youngest secretary of any of the state's diverse departments. Lee Maynard also served for a time as the National Director of Operations for Outward Bound in Boston, Massachusetts, and as an administrator at Prescot College in Prescott, Arizona.

Lee Maynard was also a devoted motorcyclist and his posthumously published book "A Triumph of the Spirit: One Writer's Experience of the Machine, the Mind, the Spirit . . . and the Horizon" was released shortly after his death in 2017. His autobiographical novel "Magnetic North" tells a somewhat fictionalized story of a ride he took with a close friend from New Mexico to the Arctic Circle on motorcycles in the autumn as winter descended on the Arctic. He was also known to sometimes ride a motorcycle to and from his frequent returns to his native West Virginia. His novel "Cinco Becknell" is set in New Mexico and is centered on the homeless with whom he volunteered regularly and founded "The Storehouse" an Albuquerque food pantry for the needy.

Lee Maynard was married to his wife Helen, who died in 2011, for more than fifty years and they had two children: a daughter Darci who was born in 1962, and their son Toran, born in 1965. He requested to be cremated and have his ashes placed in a clay urn with her ashes and Lee's son, Toran Maynard, stated that he would trek into the Grand Canyon to place the urn in a niche where over time, it would disintegrate so their ashes can be scattered with the wind.