Willie Drye

Willie Drye (born 1949) is an American journalist and non-fiction author. He has published three books and is a contributing editor for National Geographic News. His work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), and other national and regional publications. He is currently the President at Washington County Waterways Commission.

Willie Drye
Drye in July 2015
Born	(1949-10-22) October 22, 1949 Albemarle, North Carolina, U.S.
Occupation	Author, journalist
Education	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (BA)

Early life and education

Drye was born on October 22, 1949, in Albemarle, North Carolina. He participated in athletics at North Stanly High School and won a local award for sports writing for the student newspaper in 1967.

Drye attended Mitchell College (now Mitchell Community College) in Statesville, North Carolina, and later served as a medic in the US Army. After receiving an Honorable Discharge, he attended Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina for one semester to earn credits needed for admission to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While at the University of North Carolina, he studied English and Journalism.

Journalism

Following the publication of his first book, Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, Drye began writing for National Geographic News. That same year, Storm of the Century was the basis for a documentary film, “Nature’s Fury: Storm of the Century,” premiering in 2006. It was produced for the History Channel by Towers Productions of Chicago. Drye served as the film's primary narrator.

In August 2005, Drye wrote a series of stories for National Geographic News examining the immediate effects of Hurricane Katrina. In the aftermath of Katrina, he wrote about the hurricane's unprecedented devastation and the political fallout for The Washington Post and the History News Network.

In 2006, Drye was hired by Key West Magazine to write about how Key West and the Florida Keys could be affected by a major hurricane.

Drye produces a blog, Drye Goods, about topics of personal interest such as baseball, the Civil War, hurricanes, and popular culture. He is a frequent guest on radio talk shows, including WLRN in Miami and WUNC in Chapel Hill.

Books

Drye's first book, Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, was published by National Geographic Books in 2002. This work of narrative non-fiction tells the story of the most powerful hurricane in US history, which struck the Upper Florida Keys on September 2, 1935, during the depths of the Great Depression. The book was well received by reviewers, who noted Drye's description of the Keys in the early 20th century and his portrayal of the storm's power.

Drye was a consultant for author Jennifer Holm when she was writing Turtle in Paradise, a children's novel set during the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. After its publication in 2010, the book became a Newbery Honor Book.

His second book, Images of America: Plymouth and Washington County, was published by Arcadia Publishing in 2014.

His third book, For Sale—American Paradise: How Our Nation Was Sold an Impossible Dream in Florida, was published by Lyons Press in 2015. It tells the story of the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s. The book received positive reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, The Florida Times-Union, and others.

Honors and awards

In 2006, Drye was recognized for his work by the University of North Carolina's General Alumni Association.

In 2007, Drye was the winner of the first place Charlie Award for Public Service from the Florida Magazine Association.

In 2016, his third book, For Sale—American Paradise: How Our Nation Was Sold an Impossible Dream in Florida, won a Silver Medal for Best Nonfiction-Southeast Region from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (the IPPY Awards).