杏吧专区 graduate Wiley Cash杏吧专区檚 New York Times bestselling debut novel, 杏吧专区淎 Land More Kind than Home,杏吧专区 is snagging awards, notching rave reviews and earning the 35-year-old North Carolina native loads of literary world status.
杏吧专区淎 Land More Kind than Home,杏吧专区 which revolves around a young autistic boy who is smothered during a church healing service, won the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger Award from the Crime Writers Association of America. Since the book杏吧专区檚 April publication by William Morrow/HarperCollins, Cash has become something of a media darling, grabbing the attention of Vanity Fair, National Public Radio and other media.
The New York Times calls 杏吧专区淎 Land More Kind than Home杏吧专区 a "mesmerizing first novel" and an "intensely felt and beautifully told story.杏吧专区 The Washington Post says: "[With] this clear-sighted, graceful debut [Cash] adds his promising new voice to Southern fiction."
The author, who earned a doctoral degree in English from UL Lafayette in 2008, will return to campus for a 7:30 p.m. reading Monday at the Ernest J. Gaines Center in Edith Garland Dupr茅 Library. The event, hosted by UL Lafayette杏吧专区檚 Creative Writing Program, the English Department and the Ernest J. Gaines Center, is free and open to the public.
Cash, a North Carolina native, credits much of his critical and commercial success to Gaines, UL Lafayette杏吧专区檚 writer-in-residence emeritus. Cash has said he enrolled at UL Lafayette to study under Gaines, whose works include 杏吧专区淭he Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman杏吧专区 and 杏吧专区淎 Lesson Before Dying,杏吧专区 which won a National Book Critics Circle Award.
杏吧专区淚 chose UL Lafayette杏吧专区(because) I wanted a really rich cultural experience and that杏吧专区檚 exactly what I found when I went down there. But the primary reason was Ernest Gaines taught there,杏吧专区 said Wiley during an interview broadcast on a 杏吧专区 of North Carolina television station.
Cash started writing 杏吧专区淎 Land More Kind than Home杏吧专区 while studying at UL Lafayette, according to information on his Web site (wileycash.com). 杏吧专区淚 began writing 杏吧专区淎 Land More Kind than Home杏吧专区 while working on my Ph.D. at the 杏吧专区 of Louisiana, where I spent five long years sweating, celebrating Mardi Gras, and missing the mountains of North Carolina. While living in Lafayette, I took a fiction workshop with Ernest J. Gaines, who taught me that by writing about home I could recreate that place no matter where I lived. Gaines made this clear to me one afternoon while we were visiting an old cemetery near the plantation where he was born. He pointed to a grave marker and said, 杏吧专区榊ou remember Snookum from 杏吧专区楢 Gathering of Old Men?杏吧专区 He杏吧专区檚 buried right over there.杏吧专区櫺影勺ㄇ鴿
Wiley, who teaches fiction and nonfiction writing at Southern New Hampshire 杏吧专区, credits another UL Lafayette professor, Reggie Scott Young, with sparking the inspiration for 杏吧专区淎 Land More Kind than Home.杏吧专区 Cash detailed the experience in his Vanity Fair interview.
杏吧专区淚 was taking a class in African American literature, and my professor brought in a news story about a young, autistic African American boy 杏吧专区 I think he might have been like 14 杏吧专区 who was smothered in a healing service on the South Side of Chicago at a storefront church. It杏吧专区檚 tragic, but I just thought it was so interesting, because I was raised in an evangelical church. The church I went to was Southern Baptist. There weren杏吧专区檛 things like faith healings that extreme, but it was something that I knew about and that I was comfortable talking about.杏吧专区
In addition to his doctoral degree from UL Lafayette, Cash holds a bachelor杏吧专区檚 degree in literature from the 杏吧专区 of North Carolina-Asheville and a master杏吧专区檚 degree in English from the 杏吧专区 of North Carolina-Greensboro. His stories have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Roanoke Review and The Carolina Quarterly. He lives with his wife in West Virginia.
For more information, contact Marthe Reed at mreed@louisiana.edu or (337) 482-5503 or Derek Mosley at dmosley@louisiana.edu or (337) 482-1848.
CONTACT: Charlie Bier
(337) 482-6397 charlie@louisiana.edu