THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 27, 1996 TAG: 9604270486
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
When I declare Hampton Roads an international region, my big-city friends from Philly, New York and Washington snicker.
But that's all right. I believe what I'm saying.
A port region on the edge of the Atlantic, Hampton Roads is a gateway (OK, a distant gateway) to the Caribbean, Europe and beyond. Our shores are spiced with a potpourri of Asian ethnicity, courtesy of the Navy. Virginia Beach is home to 12,000 Filipinos, the largest population of any East Coast city. About 40,000 Hispanics live in the region. Universities and colleges attract educators and scholars from around the world.
The region's military interests keep us interested in global events.
So it makes perfect sense for the International Writers Center to be based right here in good old Hampton Roads.
Only it may not be anymore.
The year-old center is located in a cozy and artsy house at Old Dominion University. But its $47,500-a-year budget comes jointly from ODU and the Associated Writing Programs, which was recently forced to cut off funding. There's no guarantee that ODU can foot the bill alone.
Meanwhile, the center's director and solo employee, Ron Wray, is looking for a new home.
I'd be sorry to see the center written off.
In a short time, it has helped many people peek into a kaleidoscope of international culture, from the mellow magic of steel drum bands to the eloquent voices of the world's authors.
Anyone who has looked through the dizzying display of colors has come away with fresh eyes.
Last fall, the center brought writer Andrej Blatnik here for five weeks.
He was a vessel of political and creative energy, sharing intimate awakenings from the 1991 war that set his native Slovenia free from the former Yugoslavia.
Blatnik read his stories, marvels of craft and brevity, for everybody - Portsmouth residents who had never attended a reading, Norfolk State University students, members of the local Slovenian Women's Union.
Yes. The Slovenian Women's Union. The center's activities and artists can bring such unheard-of groups out of the woodwork so that their silent voices can be heard, their cultural treasures shared.
In February, Gordon Rohlehr, a renowned post-colonial scholar from the University of the West Indies, read and led discussions on Caribbean literature at ODU and NSU.
Now, other such activities may not come our way, like a visit from a most unlikely literary duo: Wayne Karlin, a Vietnam veteran helicopter gunner, and Le Minh Khue, who as a teenager cleared bombs from the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
They've collaborated on ``The Other Side of Heaven,'' an anthology of postwar fiction by Vietnamese and American writers. Oh, what a healing that could be for locals who still suffer that battle's deep bruises.
A.B. Yehoshua, a controversial Israeli peace activist, fiction writer and Fulbright Fellow, is also on the schedule.
But unless a willing philanthropy, institution or corporation comes along, or the amrita of the gods falls abundantly, the kaleidoscope will fade.
And with it, another chance for Hampton Roads to take on a greater global identity. by CNB