[1][2] Louise McNeill began her writing career selling short poems to the Saturday Evening Post, charging $5 a line.
[4] This work would establish McNeill as a very skilled technical writer of poetry, combining rhythm and imagery into an art form.
[4] She incorporated themes of life in rural Appalachia in her work, and "was often hailed for her unflinching acceptance of local speech and dialect into the overall construction of her rhythmic poetry.
"[4] McNeill published poetry over the course of her life, earning praise from another Appalachian author, Jesse Stuart, who,in 1964, wrote her saying, "Girl, there is genius in you...you are a first class poet.
In 1979, then-governor Jay Rockefeller named McNeill West Virginia's poet laureate,[6] and she held the title until her death in 1993.