Daniel Woodrell is an American novelist and short story writer, born on March 4, 1953. He has written nine novels and a collection of short stories, many of which are set in the Missouri Ozarks. Woodrell is renowned for coining the phrase "country noir" to describe his 1996 novel, Give Us a Kiss. This term has been frequently used by reviewers to categorize his unique writing style.

Growing up in Missouri, seventy miles downriver from Hannibal, Mark Twain influenced him early in life. Other literary influences include Robert Louis Stevenson, Hemingway, James Agee, Flannery O'Connor, and Faulkner. Daniel Woodrell left school to enlist in the Marines at seventeen, later obtaining his bachelor's degree at twenty-seven and graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.