Diane Thomas

My second novel, In Wilderness, a literary thriller inspired in part by the haunting southern Appalachian folk ballads of violence and erotic obsession, was also my first. I wrote it in 1981 to distract myself from fears of dying, during an extended period of extreme ill health. I titled this early version The Clearing, gave my symptoms to its protagonist, and sent her into a Georgia mountain wilderness to either die or heal.

Before moving to New Mexico in 2009, I'd lived in Atlanta and north Georgia since age four, except for two years in New York earning an MFA in Theater and Film History and Criticism at Columbia University. I hold a BA in English from Georgia State University and have worked as a reporter for The Atlanta Constitution, now the AJC. In 1966, at 24, I became the nation’s youngest major-newspaper entertainment editor, reviewing local plays, interviewing national film and theatre celebrities (including directors Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, and Elia Kazan, and actors Susan Hayward, Carol Channing, and Michael Caine), and reviewing such iconic films as “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Midnight Cowboy,” and “Blow Up.” I later joined Atlanta, then a controversial, pioneering city magazine. By the time I fell ill, I had become successful as a freelance writer.

Though nominated for the Pushcart Editors Prize, The Clearing was never published. My illness abated, I resumed my freelance career fulltime, studied in Georgia State’s Creative Writing program, and in 2002 completed The Year the Music Changed: The Letters of Achsa McEachern-Isaacs and Elvis Presley (The Toby Press, 2005). This coming-of-age novel enjoyed critical success and, for a small-press book, respectable sales.

In 2009, my husband and I moved to New Mexico. Homesick for the Georgia mountains, where we’d spent much of the previous seven years, I completely rewrote The Clearing, retitled it In Wilderness, and never dreamed anyone would publish it, since no one had before. A Santa Fe friend talked me into looking for an agent anyway and, miracle of miracles, I found one and she found a publisher for my book.

In Wilderness came out in March 2015 from Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, seven weeks before my 73rd birthday. It was names an "Amazon Best Book" for March 2015, was recommended by Library Journal for "readers who also like the raw, honest writing of Amy Bloom and Amanda Coplin," and endorsed by Lee Child as "Altogether spectacular."