Wiley Cash

Wiley Cash is from western North Carolina. He has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and teaches English at Bethany College.

His stories have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Roanoke Review and The Carolina Quarterly.

Cash's first novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, is now out from William Morrow.

From his Q & A with Julianna Baggott:

What kind of child were you, inside of what kind of childhood, and how did it shape you as a writer?

I was a big-time liar when I was a kid, and I’ve never been able to understand why. Perhaps I was into telling stories and experimenting with fiction before I realized that I wanted to be a writer. I’ll never forget the story I told my neighbor one summer evening while we shot basketball in my driveway. I was probably six years old at the time, and I was telling my friend about a recent trip my family had taken to Myrtle Beach. I told him that my sister had buried me up to my neck in the sand, but she had to dig me out when I felt a crab trying to pinch off my toes. I told the story as if a real emergency situation had descended upon Myrtle Beach. My sister, my parents, and even complete strangers were digging and clawing away at the sand to save my toes from that murderous crab.

Unfortunately, it was a cool summer night and the windows were open. My sister was waiting for me when I went inside the house once it got dark; she was probably fourteen years old at the time. She said, “I heard the story you just told out there. None of that happened. Why did you lie?” I didn’t know what to say. She asked me the same question several times, and I was never able to give her an answer. I still can’t.

What’s your reading life like? Do you have any current favorites or sleepers that may have flown under our radar?

I think of myself as more of a professional reader than a professional writer. I studied literature in college and graduate school for what seems like forever, and I’ve been teaching American literature for the past several years, so I really feel like I’ve dedicated my life to reading, and to be honest, I can’t think of anything I’d rather spend my time doing. I probably spend twice as much time reading as I do writing.

Lately, I’ve been really drawn to...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Wiley Cash's website.

Writers Read: Wiley Cash.

My Book, The Movie: A Land More Kind Than Home.

--Marshal Zeringue