Stories from the Attic Now Available from Dzanc Books

The final book from the William Gay Archive has been released. What began as This Ride Ain’t Over Yet, an early attempt at collecting posthumous short works, Stories from the Attic contains previously unpublished short stories, memoirs, and fragments. The book includes a preface by JM White, and concludes with a question and answer with the team of editors that have worked on the publication, including myself.

Stories from the Attic is a wonderful closure to a decade of working on the posthumous works of a great author and man. The project has been one of the unexpected honors of my life. I will be forever grateful to Michael White and William’s family for letting me contribute as much as I did.

Rest well, William.

From Dzanc Books:

“From a celebrated master of the Southern Gothic comes a last collection of hard-hitting short fiction, his final posthumous work.

Beloved for his novels Twilight, The Long Home, and The Lost Country and his groundbreaking collection I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down, William Gay returns with one final posthumous collection of short stories, adapted from the archive found after his death in February 2012. In addition to previously unpublished short stories, Stories from the Attic includes fragments from two of the unpublished novels that were works in progress at the time of his death.

Marked by his signature skill and bare-knuckled insight, this collection is a must-read for William Gay devotees and fans of Southern short fiction.”

$26.95

Publication Date: July 17, 2022
Hardcover: 348 pages
ISBN: 9781950539451

Order from Dzanc Books HERE.

Preorders for Stories from the Attic

The posthumous short story collection, Stories from the Attic, is now available for preorder from Dzanc Books. We began working on collecting and editing these pages in 2012 and it is exciting to see them finally published. Another gracious thank you to Michelle Dotter and everyone at Dzanc Books for their work and dedication to this project.

From Dzanc:
From a celebrated master of the Southern Gothic comes a last collection of hard-hitting short fiction, his final posthumous work

Beloved for his novels Twilight, The Long Home, and The Lost Country and his groundbreaking collection I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down, William Gay returns with one final posthumous collection of short stories, adapted from the archive found after his death in February 2012. In addition to previously unpublished short stories, Stories from the Attic includes fragments from two of the unpublished novels that were works in progress at the time of his death.

Marked by his signature skill and bare-knuckled insight, this collection is a must-read for William Gay devotees and fans of Southern short fiction.

Fugitives of the Heart Published

I’m proud to have helped edit the last posthumous novel by William Gay, Fugitives of the Heart. It has been published by The University of West Alabama’s Livingston Press and is currently available at their store.

With this writing, William Gay has offered admirable homage to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Marion Yates, a teenage orphan, is taken in by an ex-schoolteacher named Black Crowe. The boy in turn cares for Crowe when he is temporarily disabled by a dynamite blast. Every hardscrabble thing we have come to expect from Gay lies in this novel, including an offbeat and dark humor. With a forward by Sonny Brewer and afterward by JM White.

The William Gay Archive’s own Dawn Major has written an excellent review of the book herself for the Southern Literary Review.

Roundtable Interview in the Chattahoochee Review

The editors of the William Gay Archive and Dzanc Books are featured in a roundtable interview within the Volume 38.2-3 Fall 2018/Winter 2019 issue of The Chattahoochee Review. I join Michelle Dotter of Dzanc Books, Lamont Ingalls, Sheila Kennedy, Susan McDonald, and Michael White in discussing William Gay’s ongoing legacy and the releasing of his posthumous works. My thanks to everyone at TCR, they were a pleasure to work with.

The Chattahoochee Review is a literary journal published by Perimeter College at Georgia State University.

The Lost Country Release Day

Raise your glass to William Gay. Today The Lost Country is released by Dzanc Books. Order your copy from Dzanc here, or Amazon here, or support your local booksellers.

The Lost Country Available July 10, 2018

Ten years after it was first announced, The Lost Country is to be released on June 10, 2018 from Dzanc Books. I began work on this book in 2014. At the time, I was told I was the fourth or fifth person to read the first rough manuscript. What an honor and ultimate gift for a fan like me.

A couple of days ago, I received my advance hardcover copy. It was an emotional moment to take the book in my hands and feel its weight. All the time working on the manuscript, all the worry about making it right for William. And here it is. I hope everyone agrees it is the masterpiece we feel it is.

Many thanks, William. I hope we did you proud.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE LOST COUNTRY

“The language and the imagery Gay uses is so vividly haunting that I want to savor it all. Definitely a must-read for fans of Southern Literature.”
—Catherine Bock, Parnassus Books

“Like so many fans of Gay's, I've been waiting to read this seemingly mythical work, The Lost Country, for quite some time....Gay's elegiac prose sings once again as he breathes life into his characters and mines his patch of soil with the skill of the old masters. The Lost Country is the story of Billy Edgewater and his hard journey through a post World War II South filled with the downtrodden—hucksters, racists, drunks, bad or lost men and women, all trying to make it in a harsh rural setting that is unforgiving yet beautiful. It's a helluva good ride and I can't wait to recommend it.”
—Cody Morrison, Square Books

“The Lost Country lands like a shimmering gift from the beyond. For those of us who cherish and honor Gay's tremendous talent, his bold method of seeing the waste and wonder we are, this posthumous novel is a reminder of what we miss: the language pitched toward the sublime, his men and women grappling for redemption in a world that has damned them, his understanding of grace in the presence of human badness. When Gay died too soon, we lost much, but The Lost Country gives a piece of him back to us.”
—William Giraldi, author of Hold the Dark

“The novel exposes us to a deliciously dark southern underbelly, one that, when paired with its sparse, lean prose and quiet intensity, becomes incredibly mesmerizing.”
—The Next Best Book Club

For ordering and more information, please visit Dzanc Books.

The Advance Copy of The Lost Country

We are finalizing the final proof of The Lost Country, to be published by Dzanc Books in July, 2018. Words cannot describe how exciting it is to get the advance reader and see all of our hard work realized. Everyone at the William Gay Archive is grateful to Dzanc Books and Publisher and Editor in chief Michelle Dotter for their dedication in seeing this book through.

Announcing williamgay.net

I'm very excited to announce the website dedicated to Southern author William Gay and the William Gay Archive. With contributions from the Archive members, I have put together a website that celebrates the writings and paintings of a great American writer.

We will be updating the site with news and information on upcoming posthumous releases from Anomolaic Press and the other publishers handling the material. There are galleries of William throughout his life and his oil paintings. We have talked about putting up an unreleased short story or two down the road. The site will continue to grow, and our hope is that William's prose will continue to touch readers as it has touched us.

I will still continue this blog of my involvement with editing and doing photography and design for the Archive, as this continues to be a very exciting part of my life.

www.williamgay.net

February Release of Stoneburner

Unfortunately, we caught a few errors in our latest book proof of Stoneburner and are working to correct them. This will probably set the release back into February 2018.

I've used the time to improve the slipcover design and I can say for certain this will be the final cover. Added are a brushstroke of black along the spine and some new text. The book's now really striking from the shelf and the spine's easier to read, while one is still able to get a sense of William's painting a whole. I also reduced the size of the Stoneburner cover logo slightly to show more of the end drips.

Thank you everyone for your support and interest. We really value those that have written and shared their excitement for William Gay's works, past and future.

Update on Stoneburner

It's safe to say that all of us at the William Gay Archive were hoping Stoneburner would be out by now. Through trial and error we are finding the self publishing world to be a thorny one, and we are working hard to get the book to a place that we all can be proud of.

We had some setbacks with the inside book layout, and I have tinkered with my dust jacket design some. A third book proof has been ordered, and once that is reviewed and approved by all of us at the Archive, we will go ahead and send the presses into motion.

It is looking like December 2017 for the release. Thank you for everyone's interest and support in this book and the other posthumous books to come. We all appreciate it.

Jacket Design for William Gay's Stoneburner

It's hard for me to express what a strange honor it is for me to be working on the writings and jacket design for William's second posthumous release, Stoneburner. Long before I became involved with the archive project, I was a fan. I would read William's books and imagine what I would do for the covers. His writing spoke to some of my imagery and I felt a commonality. And so the years pass and an unlikely fate intervenes.

My original proposal for the Stoneburner cover was to do it entirely of my own design. JM White, William's friend, publisher, and director of the archive pushed for inclusion of one of William's paintings. He explained that William always wanted his paintings on the covers of his books, and it bothered William when the larger publishers didn't use them. During his lifetime, only two books had his paintings on the covers, Wittgenstein's Lolita and Time Done Been Won't Be No More, both published by JM White and Wild Dog Press.

I looked over many of William's paintings and selected a snowy farm house scene. There is a location in the novel where this is fitting, and I liked the painting's somber tone. The symmetrical composition of the painting naturally lent itself to both front and back covers. I made an effort not to manipulate any of the image, and to cover as little of it as possible and still have it work in a larger design.

The front cover for the novel Stoneburner. Typography and design by Paul Nitsche. Painting by William Gay.

The back and front covers for the novel Stoneburner. Typography and design by Paul Nitsche. Painting by William Gay.

In adding the ink brushstrokes and drips, I was thinking about the growing unraveling for the characters in the novel, the sense that things are falling apart and becoming uncontrolled. At some point during the design of this book, I began to realize the cover was an unexpected collaboration with one of my favorite authors. I can only hope William approves.

The full jacket design for the novel Stoneburner. Typography and design by Paul Nitsche. Painting by William Gay.

The full winter farm painting by William Gay.

Anomolaic Press to Publish Stoneburner

The inception of Anomolaic Press began in early 2014, when I was helping a group of William Gay's friends and admirers prepare what was to be the first manuscript of posthumous writings, This Ride's Not Over Yet. Our original intention was that we would publish the book ourselves under the imprint Anomolaic Press. During this time I created the two-headed whippoorwill image and Anomolaic Press logo. The manuscript was shelved when Dzanc Books voiced interest in purchasing the rights to Little Sister Death and The Lost Country.

The manuscript of Stoneburner has been completed for some time, but it was necessary to explore all the publishing options with different presses. In the end, we decided to release the book ourselves, and resurrect Anomolaic Press. In doing so, it will ensure several points: we have absolute editorial control, the book looks and is printed they way we think William would want, and most importantly, control over all profits so that they may go to William Gay's family.

The word anomolaic was a favorite of William's, and appears in several of his writings. We thought it an appropriate name for our press, as well as a tribute to the man himself.

New Author Photograph

Years ago, before I was involved with William Gay's archive, I was a fan and avid reader of his works. I often searched out any images or videos I could find of the man. To discover a new image of his rough-hewn face or to hear the deep Tennessee in his voice was always thrilling.

It was a pleasure to work on the new author photograph for the upcoming William Gay novel, Stoneburner. Originally taken by JM White, I converted it to black and white, did a few touch ups, and added some atmosphere.

Little Sister Death Now Out in Paperback

Little Sister Death, the first William Gay book to be published posthumously, is now out in paperback from Dzanc Books. This is one of the William Gay manuscripts that I helped edit, and I'm pleased to see it continue to be published and find new readers.

From Amazon:
David Binder is a young, successful writer living in Chicago and suffering from writer’s block. He stares at the blank page, and the blank page stares back — until inspiration strikes in the form of a ghost story that captivated him as a child. With his pregnant wife and young daughter in tow, he sets out to explore the myth of Virginia Beale, Faery Queen of the Haunted Dell. But as his investigation takes him deeper and deeper into the legacy of blood and violence that casts its shadow over the old Beale farm, Binder finds himself obsessed with a force that’s as wicked as it is seductive.

A stirring literary rendition of Tennessee’s famed Curse of the Bell Witch, Little Sister Death skillfully toes the line between Southern Gothic and horror, and further cements William Gay’s legacy as not only one of the South’s finest writers, but among the best that American literature has to offer.