In 1999, Gay published his first novel, The Long Home. Gay was recognized and marketed as "the real thing," a new Larry Brown.[3] The novel won the 1999 James A. Michener Memorial Prize and sold well enough to start a bidding war for his second novel. Provinces of Night was published in late 2000 and confirmed Gay's knack for storytelling. It formed the basis for the 2010independent filmBloodworth. In 2002, Gay published a collection of stories, I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down, and in 2006 Gay's third novel, Twilight was published. With its story of a kinky undertaker who hires a hitman to kill a nosy teenager, Twilight is Gay's most straightforward Southern Gothic novel. Gay's stories have been anthologized extensively, and as well as his fictional work, Gay frequently contributed essays on music to magazines such as Paste and Oxford American. William Gay was named a 2007 USA Ford Foundation Fellow and awarded a $50,000 grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists.

Listing 1 story.