Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 23, 1993 TAG: 9305220014
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Blue Ridge Books has hosted a number of writing classes by authors Liza Field and Robert McKinney, and is launching periodic gatherings of aspiring writers.
The first meeting is scheduled for June 6 at 3 p.m. in the store on Main Street.
Some of Field's students who had just completed a series of weekly writing classes recently read some of the stories and poems they had written during the course.
Nelson Brown of Pulaski works in real estate. Before that, his jobs had been in the restaurant and electrical engineering fields.
Through all that, he said, "I've always wanted to write."
He amused those attending the reading, especially cat owners, with his story from a cat's point of view about putting things over on humans.
It was written as an exercise when Field handed out various kinds of items to be used as writing subjects, and he got a cat picture.
Sally Mook of Blacksburg described herself as a nurse, wife, homemaker "and, hopefully, a writer."
Her readings ranged from a fictional story centering on a family locket - so believable that people asked her if the locket she was wearing was the one in the story - to a poem about her yearning for peanut butter.
Ann Laing, librarian at Spiller Primary School in Wytheville, read from a work in progress about a character inspired by recollections of her own family.
Mimi Heldreth of Wytheville offered a cautionary tale based on newspaper accounts of education budget cuts.
She painted a bleak future in which families had to pay schools an extra $500 for a child to take an arts course and where insecticides had killed almost all plant life.
"God, how I hope they don't kill our dandelions," the story's narrator said.
Laing recalled coming home after an early writing class in what she thought was fiction and telling her husband, Gary, that she was having to write poetry.
"I don't like poetry," she said.
But the poetry helped her form her prose stories.
"Most good fiction writers are poets whether they know it or not," student Betty Jane Blevins said she learned.
Field will be teaching three-class courses in poetry on Tuesdays at Blue Ridge Books for young adults (ages 13-19), starting June 15, and children 9 to 12), on Wednesdays starting June 16.
Both classes will meet from 8 to 9:30 a.m.
Fees are $35 and students can register by calling 228-8303.
by CNB