WRITERS OF THE SOUTH

When we moved to Columbia, South Carolina we found it was truly a wonderful place in which to live. Columbia is the state capital as well as the site of the University. The Capital and main campus of the school are virtually side by side at the end of Main Street where everything is within walking distance, including department stores, shops, restaurants and hotels. I felt we were living in a small town atmosphere complete with diagonal parking.

On the local PBS station there was a show produced by the University called “The Writers Workshop”. The journalism department invited known writers to conduct classes with students, which were televised. The host for the series was George Plimpton and also featured authors who were professors on the staff. James Dickey the poet was one.  Another was William Priced Fox, a truly southern fiction writer. The hit movie “Nashville” was based on one of his many novels.

Our son had just started his first year at Berry College in Georgia when we moved to South Carolina. Every student at that small liberal arts school is guaranteed a paying job on campus, which we were grateful for. It’s a beautiful school and our son loved being there, but unfortunately classes in his major were not available and by January he was on academic probation.

In the meantime, in Columbia at a local high school we saw that William Price Fox was holding a seminar on writing which was open to the public. My husband and I attended and were able to talk to Bill about our son. He told us to have Chuck monitor his classes when he came home on spring break, which he did.

After transferring to USC, Chuck was mentored by Bill Fox and Franklin Ashley, another author.  He graduated with a degree in journalism and worked as a writer for “The State” newspaper before moving to Florida, where he now lives with his wife and three children. He also has a very successful public relations/marketing firm.

The three years we lived in South Carolina I consider it to be the experience of a lifetime for all of us. Besides enabling our son to realize his dreams, if you've read my earlier blogs, you would know what an exciting time it was for me, too.