Wayne Caldwell was born in Asheville, NC in the middle of the last century. He grew up in the Sand Hill section of the Enka community, where he remembers the Goat Man, the Beacon Restaurant, and Elson’s Drug Store. As a boy, he set up duck pins at the American Enka bowling alley, fished in Enka Lake, and took his first paying job at the Enka Lake Club, making ninety cents an hour.
He first became passionate about literature in Miss Laura Douglass Harrell’s English classes at Enka High School. She introduced him to Thomas Wolfe, among others, and joked with him about writing the Great American Novel. And occasionally threw an eraser at him.
He has three degrees in English, from UNC-Chapel Hill, Appalachian State, and Duke. In a former life he taught composition and literature at North Carolina Central and Union College (Schenectady NY).
His first novel, Cataloochee (2007) is still in print from Random House. His second, Requiem by Fire, is back in print (2020) from Leaning Chair Press, the publishing arm of Malaprop’s Bookstore and Café.
A third novel, Shadow Family, to be published by Madville Publishing in March, 2025, is an adoption story, told in three voices, that of a birth mother, an adoptive mom, and their mutual son. Here’s what Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek, said about it:
“Those of you fortunate enough to have read Wayne Caldwell’s blockbuster first novel, Cataloochee, will be excited to discover his newest work, Shadow Family, a story told in a polyphony of voices of parallel but connected families across generations. Wayne lets the characters speak for themselves, with intimacy and drama, on occasions of grief, and humor, loss and recovery of faith, and loyalty. This is a novel of kinship and love, in a rapidly changing world.“
Woodsmoke (2021), from Blair, was his first foray into poetry. The main voice is that of Posey Green, an old Appalachian widower who heats his house with wood and reflects on nature and life. The secondary voice is that of Susan McFalls, a poet, who becomes his neighbor and friend.
A companion volume of poems, River Road, was published by Blair in October, 2024. It continues the story in Woodsmoke in Susan McFalls’s voice. Here is the late Fred Chappell’s word about River Road:
“A little older, a bit more experienced, [Susan McFalls] has not essentially changed. And so we, her attentive audience, are expectant, reassured, and pleased to follow and applaud. These poems speak and happen all at once, convincing, admirable, true.“
Caldwell is the author of various short pieces, in 27 Views of Asheville (Eno, 2012), Drafthorse, an online journal from Lincoln Memorial University (Winter, 2013), Motif (an anthology of writings about water, Motes, 2014), and The Carolina Table (Eno, 2016). He also has a chapter in the hilarious collaborative novel, Naked Came the Leaf Peeper (Burning Bush, 2011).
In his spare time he works up firewood.
Wayne Caldwell 