About
Hays Blinckmann
Welcome / Willkommen / Bienvenido / a / Bienvenue / Gratissimum
Hi, my name is Hays – insert “Hi Hays!” – I like to feel like I am in a self-help group when I introduce myself. They have the most encouraging and appropriate responses to meeting strangers. These days, youngsters swiping left and right don’t understand the verbal hug when a whole room of emotionally charged people shout “Hi Hays!” It’s magnificent.
Now, imagine me screaming Hi back in your face. There, we have officially met. Somewhere along the way, you stumbled upon some writing of mine and thought, “Well, this is shite, but I am going to google her anyway and waste ten minutes.” Thank you, most appreciated.
Who am I? I am a formerly damaged child armed with a computer. I don’t claim to have my shit together or, in essence, know what I am doing, but I am writing. I am writing as hard and as fast as I can before I die. A tad morbid, but living through some of the shit I have, it seems an appropriate goal.
Here’s me in a nutshell-
Hays Spangler Trott Blinckmann, born 1973 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Father, a doctor I never spent much time with because he divorced Mom when I was three. He remarried, went on to have two more children, and lived happily ever after with them. My older sister and I are surprisingly absent from the Sears portraits hanging over their mantel. I grew up with my mother and an older sister, who were very active alcoholics from my earliest memories. My sister tossed some prescription drugs on top of that mess, along with compulsive other addictions, to mix it up. They both were gems in the morning. (My grandfather, grandmother, and aunt were also alcoholics.)
My mother married and divorced four times. Both she and my sister attended various rehabs throughout their addictive careers.
Our mother died of cirrhosis in 2018.
I have lived in Ohio, North Carolina, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, London, and Florida. I am married to a German, so I get to go across the pond a lot. I love Germany. I was a fine art oil painter for many years, but after I met hubby and had two kids well into my 30s’, I finally found my writing voice. I am Gen X, and I say that proudly. I ran away 20 years ago to live in Key West because I admittedly couldn’t hack it in the real world. But the “real” world has a funny way of happening wherever I am.
So I got some stories.
How to describe my writing?
Dramady- a self-titled subtle mixture of family dysfunction, heart-wrenching stories, and humor. I like peeling back the layers of relationships between family members, friendships, and marriages. How we as people clash and collide with passion and fury is fascinating. We are flawed and funny at the same time. The most common question I get is, did all this happen to me? Well, let’s say each book is a 50/50 mix of fiction and non-fiction. Some characters and events are actual, some altered to fit the storyline and some flat out made up from my overactive imagination. I write intending for the reader to get lost, get out of one’s mind, and enjoy a good story. The fact I came from an unorthodox family helps a lot.
I am a writer, journalist, painter, mother, wife, and seasoned observer of news and pop culture.
Forced to attend Saturday classes at the St. Georges Preparatory School in Newport, Rhode Island, I spent high school learning how to smoke through a dormitory window and forge my mother’s signature to sign out. Shocking even to me, I went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Museum School, both in Boston. I made the shortlist for Yale grad art school but was too lazy to reapply. Then a bunch of stuff happened, places too big, then too small, but Key West was just right. I have fulfilled my dream of one-woman art shows, marrying for love, interviewing amazing B- List celebrities, making viral T-Rex videos and co-hosting local morning radio during a pandemic. Hobbies do not include cooking, mastering grammar, or learning German. (don’t ask). Spending copious amounts of time watching TV and hiding from the general public with my kids and husband, that’s where I excel. I do appreciate the value of good humor and gifts; gifts always help.