Thomas, Diane C.

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Thomas, Diane C.

(Diane Coulter Thomas)

PERSONAL: Born in Oakland, CA; married Bill Osher (a writer, editor, and college administrator). Education: Georgia State University, B.A.; Columbia University, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—GA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Toby Press, P.O. Box 8531, New Milford, CT 06776-8531. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Novelist, journalist, and editor. Worked as a freelance writer and editor producing advertising copy, public relations materials, training manuals, and other materials. Atlanta Journal, entertainment editor; Atlanta magazine, editorial associate; Human Ecologist, editor.

WRITINGS:

Atlanta, a City for the World, corporate profiles by Pamela A. Keene, foreword by Mayor Andrew Young, Windsor Publications (Northridge, CA), 1988.

(With Thomas M. Camden and Bill Osher) How to Get a Job in Atlanta: The Insider's Guide, Surrey Books (Chicago, IL), 1990, 2nd edition, 1992.

The Year the Music Changed, Toby Press (New Milford, CT), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals such as Redbook and Rolling Stone.

SIDELIGHTS: Novelist Diane C. Thomas is also a journalist whose work has focused largely on Atlanta, Georgia. Born in California, Thomas arrived in Atlanta when she was four years old. She was the entertainment editor, reviewing movies and plays, for the Atlanta Constitution, which later merged with another local paper to form the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She has also worked as an editorial associate for Atlanta magazine and written two book-length works related to Atlanta. Atlanta, a City for the World describes Atlanta's business and cultural climate, and How to Get a Job in Atlanta: The Insider's Guide provides in-depth advice on searching for and finding work within the unique environment of Atlanta. Her other work includes an advertising copywriting, technical writing, public-relations writing, and editing.

Thomas's debut work of fiction, The Year the Music Changed, is a "sweet and gripping first novel," remarked a contributor in Kirkus Reviews. Achsa McEachern, a fourteen-year-old girl living in rural America, writes a fan letter to Elvis Presley after she hears the singer perform "That's All Right, Mama." To her surprise, Presley writes back, and the novel chronicles the fourteen months of ongoing correspondence between the two. At first, Presley mistakes Achsa for a man because of her name and proficiency with language. Even after he finds out differently, he still encourages her to keep writing to him. "The result is a touching, funny,… tender exchange between two people trying to find their way through thorny emotional terrain," noted Eleanor J. Bader in Library Journal.

Achsa details her difficulties at school, the cleft palate that impairs her, the tumultuous family situation she lives in, the social ostracism she experiences because of her deformity, her plainness, and her keen intellect. Presley writes to her of life on the road and his single-minded determination to succeed in the music business. The two find a grateful confidante in each other as each teeters on the brink of a new and unfamiliar world. Like Presley, who knows deep within himself that he will succeed, Achsa "knows that she's destined for better things than high-school popularity," the Kirkus Reviews critic noted. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the book a "warm, lively and immensely readable novel that will especially touch fans of 'the King.'"

Though the popular perception of the 1950s is that it was a time of conformity, family tranquility, and even repression, Thomas observes that a great deal of dissent and nonconformity lurked under the surface of docile Americana. "That's what I wanted to write about, that fascinating underside of the 1950s, how things are never what they seem—or what most people wish us to believe." she remarked in an interview on her home page. "There really did seem to be one year where the music completely changed character." "We went into it with Perry Como and Patti Page and came out of it with Little Richard and Chuck Berry."