Terry Kay, "a masterful storyteller and author of the internationally acclaimed novel To Dance with the White Dog," died December 12 at age 82, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Kay wrote his first book after Pat Conroy, "unbeknownst to Kay, convinced a high-powered literary agent in New York City that Kay had written a brilliant manuscript." Kay "had not written a word. I yelled at (Conroy). I cursed him. I had no interest in writing a novel." Nevertheless, he spent two months writing 150 pages. "To my shock and horror and great surprise, they offered me a small contract and a small advance to write a novel based on one vignette in that book. And that's how I came to be a writer." Houghton Mifflin released The Year the Lights Came On in 1976. Kay would go on to publish 18 books, including a collection of essays and two children's titles. "Limited to no one genre, his novels tend toward stories of love and loss set in the rural South told with compassion and a touch of nostalgia."
His fourth novel, To Dance with the White Dog (1990), sold millions of copies and was adapted into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in 1993. Two other books were also adapted for the screen: The Valley of Light (2007), which won the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and The Runaway (1997). His last book, The Forever Wish of Middy Sweet, was published by Mercer University Press this past August.