Terry Kay
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Terry Kay's details
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“ . . . a hauntingly beautiful story about love, family and relationships.”
– the Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu
“’To Dance With the White Dog’ is what literature is – or should be – all about . . .”
– novelist Anne Rivers Siddons
Terry Kay, a 2006 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, has been a sports writer and film/theater reviewer (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), a public relations executive, and a corporate officer. He is the author of several novels, including “Bogmeadow’s Wish,” “The Book of Marie,” “To Dance with the White Dog,” “The Valley of Light,” “Taking Lottie Home,” “The Kidnapping of Aaron Greene,” “Shadow Song,” “The Runaway,” “Dark Thirty,” “After Eli,” and “The Year the Lights Came On,” as well as a book of essays, “Special K,” and a children’s book, “To Whom the Angel Spoke.”
On May 7, 2009, author Terry Kay received the Governor’s Award for the Humanities. He began his career in journalism in 1959 at the Decatur-DeKalb News, a weekly newspaper in Decatur (GA) and later worked for The Atlanta Journal as a sportswriter and, for eight years, as one of America’s leading film-theater critics. Kay resigned from The Atlanta Journal in 1973 to begin a career in public relations, later becoming Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Oglethorpe Power Corporation. In 1989, he left the corporate world to devote full time to writing.
“To Dance With the White Dog” earned Kay the Outstanding Author of the Year award in 1991 from the Southeastern Library Association. The book was twice nominated for the American Booksellers’ Book of the Year (ABBY) award and was named by the Georgia Center for the Book as one of the 25 recommended books for all Georgians to read. In 1993 it was presented as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie for CBS television, starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, watched by more than 33 million viewers. Cronyn won that year’s Emmy for Best Actor in the role of Sam Peek, the character based on Kay’s father.
“The Runaway” was also produced as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, featuring Dean Cain and Maya Angelou, and was released in 2002. “The Valley of Light,” won both the 2004 Townsend Award and the Best Fiction Award from the Georgia Writers Association for 2004. It was also released as a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation in 2007, starring Chris Klein and Gretchen Mol.
