After her divorce, Mayes began dating Edward Kleinschmidt, a fellow poet and professor employed at nearby Santa Clara University.
[4] She and her partner Kleinschmidt began an extensive renovation of the abandoned property, which Mayes documented in her 1996 memoire Under the Tuscan Sun.
[9] In 2007, the Mayes family moved their American residence from San Francisco to North Carolina, along with Frances' daughter Ashley.
[1][10] Mayes has published several works of poetry: Climbing Aconcagua (1977), Sunday in Another Country (1977), After Such Pleasures (1979), The Arts of Fire (1982), Hours (1984), and Ex Voto (1995).
A Place in the World: Finding the Meaning of Home was published in 2022 and was long-listed for the PEN essay category.
In 1996, Mayes published the book Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy, which was on the New York Times Best Seller list for over two years.
The book is a memoir of Mayes buying, renovating, and living in an abandoned villa in rural Cortona in Tuscany, a region of Italy.