Robert Hicks

About The Author

Robert Hicks, author of The New York Times bestsellers ,The Widow of the South and Separtate Country, was born and raised in South Florida. He moved to Williamson County, TN in 1974.  He made his mark as a music publisher and in artist management within both country and alternative-rock music, focusing on the role of the singer /songwriter. His first book, a collaboration with French-American photographer Michel Arnaud, Nashville: the Pilgrims of Guitar Town told the story in photographs and essays of those who have come to Nashville in pursuit of their dreams of making it in the music business.  He is founding chairman emeritus of Franklin’s Charge: A Vision and Campaign for the Preservation of Historic Open Space in the fight to secure and preserve the Civil War battlefield and other historic open spaces in Williamson County. 

In December 2005, the Nashville Tennessean named him ‘Tennessean of the Year’ for the impact The Widow of the South has had on Tennessee, heritage tourism, and preservation. He travels, throughout the nation, speaking on a variety of topics ranging from Why The Civil War Matters to The Importance of Fiction in Preserving History to Southern Material Culture to A Model for the Preservation of Historic Open Space for Every Community and a host of other topics. 

In 2008, Hicks co-edited, with Justin Stelter and John Bohlinger, A Guitar and A Pen: Short Stories and Story-Songs By Nashville Songwriters (Center Street Books/Hachette, North America) released in April 2008. A partner in the B. B. King’s Blues Clubs in Nashville, Memphis, Orlando, Las Vegas, and West Palm Beach, Hicks serves as ‘Curator of Vibe’ of the corporation. A lifelong collector, Hicks was the first Tennessean to be listed among
Arts & Antiques’ Top 100 Collectors in America. He served as curator on the exhibition,
Art of Tennessee, at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. The exhibition was a seven-year endeavor from conception at his kitchen table to its opening in September 2003. He was co-editor of the exhibition’s award winning and critically acclaimed catalog, Art of Tennessee (University of Tennessee Press, September 2003).


About His Novels

When Robert Hicks moved to Tennessee, he became a passionate preservationist, not only working to preserve the important, much written about battleground at Franklin, but acquiring an historic log cabin to renovate and live in. His passion made him focus on the Civil War era in his fiction and the results have been hugely successful for him.

He was, for instance, featured on a CBS Sunday Morning segment about Why the Civil War Matters to Southerners on April 17. The segment was filmed in Charleston and other locations around the South with a full day of filming in Franklin at Carnton Plantation and The Carter House. This was the third time Robert Hicks was featured on CBS Sunday Morning. He was featured first in September of 2005, soon after the release of The Widow of the South. Several years later, Hicks reappeared on the show after he joined a team of authors to fight to save the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT from closing. In the field of historic preservation, Hicks has served on the Boards of Historic Carnton Plantation, the Battle of Franklin Trust, the Tennessee State Museum, The Williamson County Historical Society, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts. Hicks is founding chairman emeritus of Franklin’s Charge: A Campaign for the Reclamation and Preservation of Franklin’s Historic Battlefield. Jim Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Trust, said “There is no close second in any community in the nation to match the success of Franklin’s Charge in preserving and reclaiming the battlefield at Franklin.”

Hicks is proof positive of how an author's passion can inspire great fiction and concurrently
give him a national platform to promote his books.

A SEPARATE COUNTRY

Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, A Separate Country is a novel based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army–and one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated. Starting fresh after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 children with her, including three sets of twins. But fate had other plans. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had one last foe to battle: Yellow Fever.

A Separate Country is the heartrending story of a decent and good man who struggled with his inability to admit his failures–and the story of those who taught him to love, and to be loved, and transformed him.

THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH

In late 1864, five months before the end of the Civil War, the Confederate Army of Tennessee charged the Union Army positions just south of Nashville in the small town of Franklin, Tennessee. A few hours later, 9,200 men, including six Confederate generals, lay dead or injured on the battlefield. It was one of the bloodiest days in an incredibly bloody war. Just outside the town was the Carnton Plantation, which was forced into service as a field hospital during and after the battle, and eventually became the burial ground for 1,500 Confederate soldiers. Carrie McGavock, mistress of the plantation, tended to the sick and dying and became caretaker of the burial plots on her plantation. Her life had been consumed by the dead and dying, and she knew she'd spend the rest of her life tending to the men in these graves and their families that visited or wrote Carrie about the final resting place of their loved ones.Robert Hicks tells the remarkable story of Carrie McGavock in The Widow of the South. As the novel opens in 1894, she is accompanied by her ex-slave, servant, and friend, Mariah, as she makes her daily pilgrimage among the graves. Hicks describes her acceptance of her role in life: