Over his career, Price produced 38 total novels, short stories, and memoirs. he is classified as a Southern writer, as his works are often especially associated with his lifelong home of North Carolina. Price’s first ever published story, called “A Chain of Love”, came in 1958. He wrote his first novel, A Long and Happy Life, and witnessed its publication in 1962. The work received the William Faulkner Foundation Award (1963) and has sold over a million copies. His 1986 novel Kate Vaiden also gained immense popularity and received the National Books Critics Circle Award.

Price composed a memoir entitled Clear Pictures in 1989 which directly led to the production of a Charles Guggenheim documentary about the author’s lifetime. He completed another memoir called A Whole New Life in 1994 which chronicled his journey after the discovery of cancer in his spine. The Collected Poems, containing four volumes of poetry – Vital Provisions (1982), The Laws of Ice (1986), The Use of Fire (1990), and The Unaccountable Worth of the World (1997) – was published in 1997.

Price entered the realm of pop culture with the release and Top-40 status of James Taylor’s song “Copperline,” which he and Taylor wrote together. Bill Clinton characterized Price as one of his favorite authors.