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At an age when most people are mapping out their retirement, Jane Haynes launched her writing career at 60.

Many of her writings resulted from her research on Nobel Prize-winning Southern author William Faulkner. Haynes’s published works include two books on Faulkner and many articles in scholarly journals.

Her interest in Faulkner was piqued after attending a seminar, she says. Haynes was born and raised in Tennessee, near the town where Faulkner had once lived, and she grew up hearing about his family. “I wanted to know more about those people in his novels,” she says. “They were like the people I grew up with.”

Jane Haynes

Eventually, Haynes’ reputation as a noted Faulkner scholar earned her a special gift. After reading a newspaper article about her writings on Faulkner, a woman in Memphis contacted Haynes and gave her an original handwritten manuscript by the novelist entitled “The Sorority.” Faulkner wrote it in 1933 for the woman, who had been a close friend of his stepdaughter.

Due to the manuscript’s fragile condition, Haynes donated it to Southeast Missouri State University’s Center for Faulkner Studies in 2007, along with other Faulkner materials she had collected over the years.

More than 30 years after her first essay was published, Jane continues to write. Her essay, “Faulkner, Faust and Stagolee Legends,” will be published in an upcoming special issue on Faulkner this year by Mississippi Quarterly: the Journal of Southern Cultures. And as the archivist for the Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis, Haynes writes about the church’s history. She also contributes to Regents Point’s resident newsletter, The Pointer, and writes vignettes about her life.

Before she began her writing career, Haynes focused her time on raising three children. “I read throughout my life, but I didn’t write. I started writing when I had the time.”