Thumbnail Bio and contact info at about.me
This blog was started on a whim in the spring of 2002 because I didn’t know what I was going to do for a living just then. Blogging became a way of sorting things out, then a front porch conversation with new friends. And it still goes on.
I’m an Alabama native, first living in Virginia in 1975. I’ve been a teacher (biology-related classes at Wytheville Community College and three semesters adjunct at Radford University), a physical therapist, and since 2002, a writer. Going back to grad school days at Auburn University, I have enjoyed nature photography and have been digital since 2000, using Nikon cameras and lenses.
The writing finds its way into regular columns in a couple of local newspapers since 2004. I’ve had some 30 essays broadcast on the Roanoke NPR station, WVTF and written two non-fiction books. Here’s the Fragments page where you can find out about both books, Slow Road Home ~ a blue ridge book of days, and the second book published in May of 2009, What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader.
Slow Road Home is now available in a variety of eBook formats. Check this link for a downloadable sample, or to purchase!
My nature and landscape photography shows up regularly on the blog and has been featured in Blue Ridge Country Magazine, Smith Mountain Laker, and widely in regional tourism brochures, ads and magazines.
I’m available to speak with your organization about writing, self-publishing, blogging, life in the southern Appalachians, nature photography or particular topics you might read about in either book such as “nature deficit disorder”, finding new passions or careers in later life, stewardship, elder computer use and multitasking, social capital and community, and sustainable futures.
Also I’m putting words and images together more these days and can tailor a talk with custom image collections and either with essays ready-made from the books or blog or adapted to your audience. These presentations have been appreciated so far by the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, various Friends of Libraries, Women’s Clubs and more in several cities.
If you find something interesting here or over at the main page, please share the link-love! Check out the image galleries, find and click if ads interest you, and find upcoming events and such on the main Fragments page sidebars.
I look forward as much to listening to my audiences as speaking to them. Let me hear from you. Soon!
Fred First / Floyd Virginia / fred1st over at google’s mail