Charles Price visited Hayesville and signed books

Charles Price is the author of the “Hiawassee” series, four works of historical fiction set in his native Western North Carolina. His novel “Freedom’s Altar” won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award. “The Cock’s Spur” received an Independent Publisher Book Award as one of the Ten Outstanding Books of 2001 and also won the Historical Fiction Award of the North Carolina Society of Historians.

We found Price set up in Crumpets Dessertery inside Phillips and Lloyd Book store in Hayesville, NC with a host of family around him on Saturday afternoon. His latest novel, Nor the Battle to the Strong: A Novel of the American Revolution in the South was stacked on the table before him. Customers from the Festival on the Square were filing in and out of the book store. I suspect many of them stumbled upon Charles Price when they came in to escape the heat on the town square which was packed with tents and tables for crafts.

Price, a native of Clay County, is popular in the area. Elizabeth and Joe Rybicki said he is a delightful person and we found him to be friendly and talkative. We brought in our visitors from south Georgia. They bought Hiawassee for their son, a Civil War buff, and enjoyed conversation with the author as he told us about the cover shot that graces his new hardback book. It was a perfect choice and, since covers often sell books, we imagine the close-up shot of a soldier's boot in the stirrup on horseback intriqued many readers to take a closer look.

When asked if he might come to the area and teach a workshop for Netwest, Charles Price said he no longer teaches. Too bad. He is one of the more succesful writers from this area.

His novel, “Where the Water-Dogs Laughed,” was a first finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award for Historical Fiction. Price was a Washington lobbyist, management consultant, urban planner and journalist before returning to North Carolina to be a full-time writer. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from UNC Chapel Hill.