Novelist Tommy Hays to read from new book on Oct. 20 at Malaprop’s Bookstore

Press release

From UNCA News Services:

Novelist Tommy Hays will read from his new book, What I Came to Tell You, in the next installment of the Writers at Home series, at 3 p.m. on Sunday, October 20, at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, 55 Haywood St., in downtown Asheville. This series, produced by UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program, is free and open to the public.

What I Came to Tell You earned a prepublication “starred review” from Publishers Weekly and was named an “Okra Pick,” – a “great Southern book fresh off the vine” – by the Southern Independent Booksellers Association. Hays’ novel, published by EgmontUSA, features two youngsters and their father coming to grips with the accidental death of their mother. It is written to appeal to middle-grades readers, their parents and other adults.

Asheville readers will recognize a constant stream of familiar haunts and people, some identified by their real names. But the more universal essence of the novel is the changing relationships between Hays’ fictional characters and their feelings quietly expressed.

What I Came to Tell You is Hays’ fourth novel, but his first for younger readers; his 2006 novel, The Pleasure Was Mine, which dealt tenderly with adjustment to Alzheimer’s disease, was an NPR “Radio Reader” and was chosen for many community reads. For more information about Hays and What I Came to Tell You, visit tommyhays.com.

Tommy Hays is director of UNC Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program and is a lecturer in the university’s Master of Liberal Arts Program. For more information about the Writers at Home series, visit agc.unca.edu/writers-home-series or call 828.254.6734.

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