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Tommy Hays, noted local author and UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program director, will be featured on the popular UNC-TV program “North Carolina Bookwatch” at 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 2. During the half-hour show, Hays will discuss his third novel, “The Pleasure Was Mine,” which was released to critical acclaim in March from St. Martin’s Press.
Hays will also be reading from this new novel on Oct. 11 as part of the Warren Wilson College Visiting Writer Series. The event, free and open to the public, will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Canon Lounge on the Warren Wilson campus. Hays is the most recent in a line of distinguished visitors to the campus, which has included Kevin McIlvoy, David Budbill, Selah Saterstrom, Marie Harris, Glenis Redmond, Phillip Shabazz, Brad Land, Sarah Messer, Wendy Rawlings, Joel Brouwer, Robley Wilson, Lori Horvitz and Susan Hubbard. The Huntsville, Ala. Times calls “The Pleasure Was Mine” “a story of family relationships, how they are formed and how they grow, what they mean to us all. In spite of the sadness of the situation, the reader is left with the light of hope and the warmth of love.” “The Pleasure Was Mine” is the story of three men: Prate Marshbanks, his grown son Newell, and his nine-year-old grandson Jackson – as they come to terms with the fading of Irene, the heart and center of the family. Set in Greenville, S.C. and Western North Carolina, the book is narrated by Prate, a prickly house painter who retires to care for Irene, his beloved wife who suffers from Alzheimer’s and had to be admitted to a nursing home. As Prate adjusts to these life changes, Newell, a recently widowed artist, needs to spend the summer at Penland School of Crafts. He leaves Jackson, his reticent, bookish son, with Prate for the summer. Prate finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having to finally get to know his moody grandson, who insists on going with Prate to the nursing home every day and maintaining the very strong connection with his grandmother.
Hays is the author of two other novels, “Sam’s Crossing” and “In the Family Way,” which was a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award. He is director of the Great Smokies Writing Program, a consortium of Western North Carolina writers and UNC Asheville. Hays is also the director of creative writing for the Academy at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. He reviews books for The Atlanta Constitution, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and is a frequent contributor to Our State magazine. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Furman University and a master’s of fine arts degree in creative writing from Warren Wilson. He lives in Asheville with his wife and two children.
(Images provided by TommyHays.com, Warren Wilson, and NC Bookwatch.)
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For more information, visit the “North Carolina Bookwatch” Web site Web site at 