A: I began writing short stories when I was an English major at Furman University. I had a teacher everyone said was the hardest in the department and he asked us to write a paragraph that would be the beginning of a short story. I worked and worked on that paragraph and after I handed it in, I went to see him in his office to see what he thought about it. As I was turning the corner to his office, I heard him holler to the professor in an office across the hall, “Hays wrote a pretty good paragraph.” I stopped in my tracks, spun around and walked out thinking, Well maybe I could be a writer some day.

Q: Your novels center around life-changing events, whether it be a devastating illness, death, or the end of a relationship. How do you capture the emotions and voice of your characters? How much of your fiction is based on your own life?

A: My fiction is not autobiographical in the literal sense. However, my novels do grow out of what is going on in my life. For instance my last novel The Pleasure Was Mine grew out of my family’s own struggle with my father’s Alzheimer’s. I actually tried writing a nonfiction account of his demise and our family, but that didn’t work so then I switched to Prate, the narrator of my novel, a housepainter who takes care of his wife who has Alzheimer’s. I draw on the emotions that I’m in the midst of but the stories are stories. And it’s not a particularly conscious thing. It’s just that when I’m writing well, my emotions bubble up out of the characters’ lives.

In the Family Way, my second novel is about how a family regroups after a brother’s death. We didn’t have that death in the family. I met a woman who had seen her 7 year old run down and killed by a dog, so I made that happen one year before the novel actually takes place. In that novel I used my family to a great degree, but by introducing this traumatic event before the novel even gets started I made my family an entirely different family and was freed up to write a story.

Q: You do a great job of depicting life in a small town in your novels. Are you from a small town?

A: I grew up in Greenville, SC, which I suppose at one time was a small town. I enjoy and feel at home in small towns. Also because they’re small, they contain so much drama. Everybody knows everybody.

Q: How has teaching creative writing influenced you as a novelist?

A: I enjoy teaching writing because it gives me a chance to meet all kinds of people. I teach in the summers in SC Governor’s school, so I teach 10th graders then, for six years I’ve taught in the Great Smokies Writing Program, a community writing program through UNC-Asheville and there I’ve taught adults, and this year I’m teaching undergrads at UNCA. So teaching has given me a chance to meet all kinds of people from all walks of life. Also I think it helps writers to look at other’s work in an attentive way. I think it cultivates an awareness of craft and maybe how to better execute. That is if you’re not too busy reading everybody’s else work to write some of your own now and then.

Q: How would you characterize the term 'Southern literature' and why is it so distinctive?

A: I’m not sure exactly what Southern literature is. I mean I know many writers from the South, but they write in such different ways. I guess if anything to me it might suggest the power of place. And how when writing rises out of Georgia or South Carolina or North Carolina or Tennessee or any Southern states, that it has a certain flavor that is recognizable, especially to those of us from those places. But if a place is written about well, it can be felt by any reader.

Q: How has your writing career evolved? Who were your mentors along the way?

A: Next to Dr. William Rogers at Furman, Reynolds Price was one of my earliest. I met him at writer’s conference at Vanderbilt and then he asked that I join several other writers he had chosen to go to the Atlantic Center for the Arts to study with him. Josephine Humphreys was one of the other students as was Louise Shivers. It was a pretty amazing group. And then Reynolds played a part in getting my first novel, Sam’s Crossing, published. We had the same publisher. And he also read my last novel, The Pleasure Was Mine, and gave me some important suggestions. But I’ve worked with a lot of writers. One of the most important experiences was going through the MFA Program at Warren Wilson College where I worked closely with three writers – Francine Prose, Joan Silber and Robert Boswell. All of them were amazing in different ways. Then after school I’ve had several important reader/writer friends like George Singleton, Ron Rash, Mark Swanson and many others.

I am a slow writer but I feel like I’ve made progress in exploring my characters more deeply with each of my novels and I hope that continues.

Q: What is your favorite book?

A: Max Steele’s “Debby”
James Agee’s “A Death in the Family” is one of my favorites.
William Maxwell’s “So Long See You Tomorrow” is another.
Reynolds Price’s “The Tongues of Angels”
Josephine Humphreys’ “Nowhere Else on Earth”
Ron Rash’s “Saints at the River”
George Singleton’s “The Half Mammals of Dixie”

Q: What upcoming projects do you see on the horizon for yourself in the coming months?

A: I am at work on a novel told from the point of view of a 12 year old boy named Grover who lives in the Montford neighborhood, the oldest neighborhood in Asheville. It’s set now. I have about 240 pages of manuscript of a very rough draft. I think I’ll have a good 50 or 60 more before I have a whole very rough draft.

Interview Date: September 2006
Profile and questions compiled by Megan M., Main Library