Charlotte Hays is IWF’s senior editor and director of cultural program.

Hays gets up most mornings and contributes to the Inkwell, the weblog of the Independent Women’s Forum. Hays joined the Independent Women’s Forum in 1999 as editor of The Women’s Quarterly. When the quarterly evolved into our web operation, Hays became a senior editor.

Known for her quick and irreverent sense of humor, Hays has appeared on cable television programs such as Politically Incorrect, C-Span’s Washington Journal, and PBS’s To the Contrary. A former correspondent for the National Catholic Register and a feature writer at The Washington Times, Hays has been fascinated by politics since covering local politics for alternative weeklies in New Orleans. She is coauthor of three humorous books on southern culture, the first of which was the best-selling Being Dead Is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral. She is also author of Fortune Hunters, a book on what it takes to make a Midas marriage. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street JournalNew York magazine, the Washington Post’s “Book World,” and the Weekly Standard.

Hays has recently returned to IWF after several years of serving as editor of In Character, A Journal of Everyday Virtues, which was published by the John Templeton Foundation.mes, Hays has been fascinated by politics since covering local politics for alternative weeklies in New Orleans.