Liz Kirchner
Local readers, writers, and those interested in the history of Blacksburg will have the opportunity to speak with local authors Michael Abraham, Jiffy Day, and Gary McPherson about their remarkable experiences and the importance of Blacksburg to their lives and works at 2 p.m. at Blacksburg Public Library on Saturday, March 9.
Trained as an engineer, Michael Abraham followed various careers before beginning to write in 2009. One of a small group of writers nominated in both fiction and non-fiction categories for the Library of Virginia Literary Award, his most recent is “Chasing the Powatan Arrow” called “a travelogue in economic geography.” It’s the view along the 700-mile train route of the landscapes and communities embedded in them, up and over the Appalachians from Norfolk to Cincinnati.
In his own community, he writes generous social commentary on contemporary issues of our time and place for The News Messenger and Radford News Journal.
“I do, as a matter of habit, work from more than my own thoughts, including profiles and interviews with local people,” Abraham said. “I try to tackle more vexing subjects and attempt to deal with them in balanced, nuanced ways.”
, has eight books in print and hundreds of published articles in magazines and newspapers.
Abraham, Day and McPherson, different writers, they share Blacksburg and the New River Valley as inspiration and setting.
AlthoughJiffy Day grew up in Southwest Virginia unable to read or write, he dreamed of being a writer. It was not until years later after doctors discovered and removed a golf-ball-size tumor from the left frontal lobe of his brain that Jiffy found the courage and ability to write his first novel, “The Growing Season.”
Jiffy lives with his wife, the love of his life, Glenda–and other characters inhabiting his mind–on a mountain in Southwest Virginia where he is working on the rest of the story. Though functionally illiterate, Day uses voice recognition and editors to help him with his books. He currently lives in Christiansburg, I’ve “pretty much been in the region his entire life” Day said.
Gary McPherson began his writing career at age 52. McPherson spent his childhood summers in Blacksburg, his parents’ hometown. His breakthrough thriller, “Joshua and the Shadow of Death,” is in part inspired by the space and military environment he grew up with during his father’s work on the rocket projects that put the US into space. “My ties to Blacksburg are primarily familial. That, in turn, inspired both my novel and my anthologies,” he said.
