It’s odd to hear that question asked of me. Since fifth grade when I’d poured over the adventurous stories of Nancy Drew, Donna Parker and Trixie Belden, and I attempted my own words to paper, I had no inkling that one day my name would appear on a book’s cover.

Two years ago when I browsed inside a bookstore and inquired to the location for a writer’s handbook, the clerk asked, “Are you a writer?” I wasn’t sure how to answer. Though the title of “writer” deserved to be bestowed on a choice few, I was certain I wasn’t one of them. I’d had a few articles accepted to an ezine–unpaid–but I’d learned that didn’t qualify one to be called an official “writer.” But because I did write, I answered the question in the affirmative.

CTI News Room (Savannah, Georgia USA)– Acclaimed artist Luther E. Vann became the first Savannah-born African-American artist to have a one-man exhibit at the Telfair Museum’s Jepson Center for the Arts when his show opened there April 16, 2008. On May 29, the Jepson Center will host “An Evening with Luther E. Vann and Friends,” an event open to the public from 6-7 p.m.

 

The more the fate of books in the world are called into question ––as they compete with the ever-increasing domination of techno gadgetry–– the stronger and more enduring their impact seems to become.  There is, apparently, no such thing as a permanent substitute for the written word adorned by human imagination and artfully bound in hard or soft covers.

This observation is particularly evident in April 2008 for three strong reasons. Number one: this is indeed National Poetry Month and celebrations of it are in full swing, complete with the first “Poem in Your Pocket Day” observed on April 17.