Olive Ann Burns was an American journalist and novelist best known for Cold Sassy Tree (1984), which received the Society of Midland Authors Award for Fiction. She studied journalism at Mercer University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, later writing for the Atlanta Journal under the name “Amy Larkin.” Her novel, inspired by family stories, portrayed small-town Southern life at the turn of the twentieth century in ways that reflected experiences familiar to Alabama and the wider South. Burns completed the book while undergoing treatment for cancer, publishing it at age sixty. Her work continues to be read as a significant contribution to twentieth-century Southern literature.