Biography

Native Texan novelist, scholar, and critic Clay Reynolds is the author of thirteen books and more than seven hundred other publications ranging from critical studies to short fiction and poems. He additionally has served as fiction editor for literary magazines and as editorial consultant for several university and small presses, bookstores, writer's organizations, and individual writers.

 
Reynolds' third novel, Franklin's Crossing was entered into the Pulitzer Prize competition for 1992; it also received the Violet Crown Award for fiction as well as other awards and honors; Monuments also won the Violet Crown Award for 2000. Both novels were finalists for the Western Writers of America Spur Award, which has also recognized Reynolds' short fiction; he has also been runner-up for both essay and fiction prizes from PEN Texas, among other literary awards. He has received grants from the Texas Commission for the Arts and is also a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow.

Reynolds' critical evaluations and feature articles have appeared in several national magazines, including Chronicles, American Way, and Texas Monthly; his short fiction has been published in Writers' Forum, South Dakota Review, High Plains Literary Review, and Cimarron Review, among other publications, and has been widely anthologized. He frequently contributes book reviews and feature columns to several metropolitan newspapers; he is also a regular contributor to Publishers Weekly, and has written for Kirkus Reviews and The New York Times.

Reynolds holds academic degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (B.A.), Trinity University (M.A.), and the University of Tulsa (Ph.D.) and has more than thirty years of university teaching experience. He is presently professor of arts and humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas and for five years served as the school's associate dean for undergraduate studies. Previously, he served on the part time or visiting faculties of Texas Woman's University, the University of South Dakota, West Texas A&M University Writer's Workshop, Rice University's Continuing Education writer's program and also Rice's Professional Publishing Program, and Villanova University where he was visiting writer-in-residence in 1994. Prior to these appointments, he served as a professor of English and Novelist in Residence on the faculty of the University of North Texas; previously, he was a professor of English at Lamar University. He regularly conducts formal workshops and lectures on writing and the business of writing for both community writing groups and university and collegiate programs. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, and Western Writers of America.

His published novels include The Vigil, Agatite, Franklin's Crossing, Players, Monuments, The Tentmaker,Ars Poetica and Threading the Needle. A new collection of short fiction, Sandhill County Lines appeared in 2007. His nonfiction books include Stage Left: The Development of the American Social Drama, Taking Stock: A Larry McMurtry Casebook, A Hundred Years of Heroes: A Centennial History of the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show, Twenty Questions: Answers for the Inquiring Writer, and The Plays of Jack London. A collection of creative nonfiction, Of Snakes and Sex and Playing in the Rain appeared in 2007. Reynolds has written screenplays of Players and The Vigil and Monuments, as well as adaptations of some of his short fiction, and several of his novels remain under option to various motion picture companies.

Reynolds lives on an acre of sun-baked ground in Lowry Crossing, Texas, with his wife Judy, Laboratory Manager for the Cancer Center Associates in McKinney and their dog, Sadie, their cat, Bodie, and Judy’s cat; their son, Wesley, is a structural engineer in Denver, Colorado; their daughter, Virginia, holds a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from Texas A&M and presently is working as an intern at the Ocean State Critical Care Clinic in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.

Clay Reynolds 2006

Players by Clay Reynolds Monuments by Clay Reynolds Vigil by Clay Reynolds Franklin's Crossing by Clay Reynolds Taking Stock by Clay Reynolds 20 Questions by Clay Reynolds Threading the Needle by Clay Reynolds Ars Poetica by Clay Reynolds Stage Left by Clay Reynolds A Hundred Years of Heros by Clay Reynolds Agatite by Clay Reynolds The Tentmaker by Clay Reynolds