Born in Hart County, Georgia in 1938 to T.H. and Viola Winn Kay, Terry Kay was raised in Royston, Georgia. There, he was educated in the public schools and played football for his Royston High School. After high school, Kay graduated from West Georgia Junior College and LaGrange College with a degree in Social Science and extensive study in the theatre arts. In August 1959, Kay married Tommie Duncan. After college, Terry Kay held a variety of jobs in journalism and public relations: columnist for the Dekalb-Decatur News , sports writer and film and theatre critic for the Atlanta Journal, creative director of Pace Corp., account executive of the public relations firm Walburn & Associates, and public information manager and external affairs representative for the Oglethorpe Power Corp. Terry Kay and his wife now reside in Athens, Georgia; they have four children and four grandchildren.

Terry Kay's career as a novelist began with The Year the Lights Came On, published in 1976. Kay's novel explores life in rural Georgia in the era when rural areas were receiving electrical power for the first time. The Year the Lights Came On was not originally conceived as a novel; the original story was published as a magazine piece, which Pat Conroy read and admired. Conroy urged Kay to expand the magazine story into a novel, which Kay did. The Year the Lights Came On, described by the New Georgia Encyclopedia as a “nostalgic coming of age story”, was very well received. The New York Times Book Review gave the novel positive reviews, saying that “Kay sees the lightless years in a warm glow of sentiment.”

Kay's next two novels, After Eli (1981) and Dark Thirty (1984) were darker in tone than The Year the Lights Came On and also set in the rural South. Though both explored themes of violence, After Eli has been described as a darkly disturbing ghost story and, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, is a “drama of unfolding terror and psychological horror.” Dark Thirty, set in Appalachia, explored the themes of justice and vengeance.

Terry Kay's most celebrated work is To Dance with the White Dog, which was published in 1990. To Dance with the White Dog is described thusly in the New Georgia Encyclopedia :

In 1990 Kay published his breakthrough novel, To Dance with the White Dog . The work made him internationally famous. The Hallmark Hall of Fame dramatization of the novel in 1993 won an Emmy. The novel began as a nonfiction work to celebrate Kay's parents' long marriage and to recount how his father, who died of cancer in 1980, was visited by a white dog after his wife's death in 1973. The eighty-one-year-old protagonist, Sam Peek, has just lost his wife, Cora, after fifty-seven years of marriage. A phantom-like white dog appears soon afterward, and Sam is convinced that it is the soul of Cora. The dog accompanies Sam on a journey, literally and symbolically, to his high school reunion in Madison. This touching novel explores universal themes of love, loss, and coming to terms with mortality.

Following To Dance with the White Dog, Terry Kay, again at the urging of Pat Conroy, turned a magazine piece into a novel, Shadow Song. Drawing upon his experiences working at a resort in the Catskill Mountains, Kay wrotes a novel described by Publisher's Weekly as a “bittersweet tale of thwarted love.” Kay followed Shadow Song with The Runaway in 1997.

Terry Kay's next novel, published in 1999, is The Kidnapping of Aaron Greene. This novel tells the tale of a young bank employee kidnapped and held for ransom. The Kidnapping of Aaron Greene was also well received, and Publisher's Weekly called it “a clever, well-wrought tale from an author who knows how to do it.” Taking Lottie Home and The Valley of Light have followed The Kidnapping of Aaron Greene. Taking Lottie Home deals with Lottie Barton who leaves her shanty-town near Augusta, Georgia and meets two minor league baseball players on a train; despite her trials, she never loses her innocent outlook. The Valley of Light, which deals with themes similar to those of To Dance With a White Dog, is about a young fisherman in the north Georgia mountains following World War II. His most recent novel, The Book of Marie (2007), explored the last half of the twentieth century through the lives of Southerners who reached maturity during the civil rights era.

Terry Kay has also written, in addition to his novels, the children's book To Whom Angels Spoke: A Story of Christmas, and a collection of his columns and essays titled Special K: The Wisdom of Terry Kay.

The following titles may be found in the Hall of Fame Library:

The Book of Marie. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2007.

Dark Thirty. New York: Pocket Books, 1985, c1984.

The Year the Lights Came On. Athens: University of Georgia Press , 1989.

To Dance with the White Dog. Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 1990.

Taking Lottie Home. New York: William Morrow, 2000.

The Valley of Light. New York : Atria, 2003.

After Eli. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.

To Whom the Angel Spoke: a Story of Christmas. Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 1991.

Dark Thirty. New York: Poseidon Press, 1984.

Shadow Song. New York: Pocket Books, 1994.

The Runaway. New York: William Morrow, 1997.

The Kidnapping of Aaron Greene. New York: William Morrow, 1999.

Special Kay: The Wisdom of Terry Kay. Athens: Hill Street Press, 2000.

• The New Georgia Encyclopedia (new window)
• Terry Kay's Website (new window)

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