Charlotte Hays is a recovering gossip columnist who thanks her late mother for teaching her this art form. She has been a gossip columnist at the Washington Times, the New York Observer, and the New York Daily News. Charlotte has written for National Review, Town & Country, New York magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the Weekly Standard. Charlotte was a reporter at the Figaro and Courier in New Orleans, and has been a feature writer at the Washingtonian magazine. She is editor of In Character magazine. Charlotte is a native of Greenville, Mississippi, but she currently lives in Washington, D.C. She plans to atone for this absence by being dead in Greenville.



As the daughter of one of the Delta’s great conversationalists, Gayden Metcalfe found that she had to go a step further and put it all between hard covers. Being Dead was born of Gayden’s desire to preserve southern recipes and lore. Much of the book derives from Gayden’s experiences on the pastoral care committee at St. James Episcopal Church in Greenville, Mississippi (where, believe it or not, they are still speaking to her). She is a lifelong southerner, garden club member, civic leader, and mother who has long maintained that the key to being a good mother is a full tank of gas. She lives in Greenville, with her husband Harley Metcalfe III.

is a lifelong southerner and a founder of the Greenville Arts Council. Active in civic institutions, Gayden has an extensive background in merchandising