His first fiction publication, says author Terry Kay, was based on a hoax by his friend Pat Conroy.

Kay told the amusing incident in an interview Monday before reading from and autographing his newest novel," The Kipnapping of Aaron Greene," at Omega Books in Peachtree City.

"Pat loved to hear me tell southern stories," Kay recalled, "and when I ran out of ones I knew about, I started making them up. He kept after me to write fiction, and I kept telling him I didn't want to."

Conroy got on the phone with his editor, Kay related, and "told her he had just read the first 150 pages of a novel by his friend Terry Kay, and it was great, and she should look at it."

The editor called him, "and I didn't know what the hell she was talking about," Kay added. He talked to Conroy, who said "well, you can either tell her I lied, or you can write the 150 pages."

"When somebody expresses that kind of faith in you," Kay says, "you have an obligation to do something about it. So I wrote the 150 pages, and to my shock and horror it was accepted. The rest, as they say, is history."

Kay regaled a packed house at Cruse Coffee Co. & Gallery, located near Omega, with more "southern stories," newspaper reminiscences, and excerpts from the newest book. He had started "Aaron Greene" many years ago, he said, "in a period of recovery from the emotions of writing 'To Dance with the White Dog,' which was about the death of my parents; I wanted to write something completely different."

He put it aside and did other works, including "Shadow Song," and recently resurrected the book and finished it.

"It's just fun," he said, teasing the crowd with what he called the "twists and turns" of the concept of an "absolute nobody" who gets kidnapped. At one point, he even told the group who instigated the kidnapping, "and you think I've told you too much, but that's just the beginning."

In the book, communication about the kidnapping is done through the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where Kay once worked. Kay read an excerpt with the obvious touch of personal experience, contrasting the news rooms of yesterday with the computer-silent news production of the present.

Coming to Peachtree City gives him an opportunity to talk again with his old friend, Fayette Countian Jim Minter, Kay said. Kay was on the Journal sports staff when Minter was the boss, "and there is nobody in the world I respect more than Jim Minter. There's a bunch of us, who were there then, that if Jim called and said 'come help me chop down this tree,' why, we would just drop everything and be there."

He said the current book-signing tour through the southeast and will include about 25-30 stops this year.