HARDY, Michael C. 1972-

PERSONAL: Born March 5, 1972, in Apopka, FL; son of Robert M. (a minister) and Linda Diane (a homemaker; maiden name, Williams) Hardy; married Elizabeth Laine Baird (an instructor in English), August 5, 1995; children: Nathaniel Harrison. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Attended Caldwell Community College and Appalachian State University. Politics: "Conservative." Religion: Protestant. Hobbies and other interests: Photography.

ADDRESSES: Home—P.O. Box 393, Crossnore, NC 28616.

CAREER: Watauga County Public Library, Boone, NC, circulation president, 1998; Caldwell Community College, Watauga Campus, Boone, library assistant, 1999–.

MEMBER: Civil War Preservation Trust, Appalachian Writers Association, Yancey History Association (vice president, 2002–03; president, 2004), Fifty-eighth North Carolina Troops Preservation Society (president, 2000–03), Branch-Lane Brigade Society, Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg, Sons of Confederate Veterans.

WRITINGS:

The Thirty-seventh North Carolina Troops, McFarland and Co. (Jefferson, NC), 2003.

The c. 1840 McElroy House: A Glimpse of Yancey County, North Carolina's History, Donning, 2004.

Contributor to periodicals.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A Short History of Old Watauga County.

SIDELIGHTS: Michael C. Hardy told CA: "My primary motivation for writing is the preservation of history. Rather than the epic or sweeping events of history, I seek to find and relate the incidental or small facts that otherwise get glossed over or completely forgotten about. There are many events and people that are of interest to those whose families or communities are connected, but which are seldom even given a second thought by historians. These are the events and people to which I am drawn and about which I am most passionate in my writing.

"Some of my influences in U.S. Civil War literature are common names to many: Bell Wiley, Bruce Caton, and Douglas Southall Freeman. More recent scholarship that I enjoy includes the work of J. Tracy Powers, John Michael Priest, James I. Robertson, A. Wilson Greene, and William C. Davis. Fiction writers that I have read and reread over the years are Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and more recently, Sharyn McCrumb and J.K. Rowling. My favorite authors focusing on Appalachia include John C. Inscoe, Gordon McKinney, and Kenneth Noe.

"Much research goes into the books and articles that I write. I have built a large library, but also I frequently travel to academic libraries and archives to conduct research. My writing day does not usually begin until mid-afternoon, and it continues into the evening hours. In writing about battles or about Appalachia, I try to visit the areas I am writing about, an attempt to see the lay of the land and visualize how it appeared in the past. I am also an avid photographer and frequently take photographs to help me remember key details and to illustrate my own works.

"I have always seemed to have a passion for history. I grew up in central Florida, often visiting sites as varied as the nation's oldest city, Saint Augustine, and the Kennedy Space Center. I have spent over twenty years volunteering as a historical interpreter, both to teach about people who lived in the past and to learn more about the lives of the people I am trying to write about."