Tommy Hays's new novel, published in March of this year, is The Marriage Bed (Blair). His novel The Pleasure Was Mine (St. Martin’s Press) was a Finalist for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Fiction Award, and was chosen for numerous community reads and read on NPR’s “Radio Reader". His other adult novels are Sam’s Crossing (Atheneum) and In the Family Way (Random House), winner of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. Tommy’s middle grade novel, What I Came to Tell You (Egmont USA), was chosen as a SIBA Okra Pick. He's published stories and various pieces in magazines and literary journals such as Redbook, Our State, Smoky Mountain Living, The Chattahoochee Review and storySouth.
He was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors and named to the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the governor of North Carolina. He's a member of National Book Critics Circle. He is retired Founding Director of the Great Smokies Writing Program and Lecturer Emeritus in the Master of Liberal Arts program at UNC Asheville. He received his BA in English from Furman University and graduated from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
(Photo by Michael Mauney)