8/9/2019 Fred First Floyd County Virginia Author-Photographer ~ biography

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FRED FIRST confesses that hes been a closet hydro-vehicular writer formuch of his lifetelling himself stories and enjoying the sound and feel of languagein the shower and when driving alone in the car. He went public

with his writing in 2002.

That year, at 54, burned out on his second career (in health care, his rst in education)he began to explore the where of his life in wordsin a weblog he called Fragments

from Floyd. (The photo-blog remains active to date.) In that medium he discoveredthe joy of compositions of language, a compatible compliment to his creative work with light as a digital photographer. His writings online lead to NPR radio essays,regular newspaper columns and two non- ction books.

Fred is an Alabama native, a graduate of Auburn University (MS Zoology 1973) andof the University of Alabama at Bham (MS in Physical Therapy 1989).

He and his wife Ann discovered Virginia in 1975 and spent 12 years in Wytheville where Fred taught general biol-ogy, anatomy and physiology, eld botany and other courses, left, then returned to Floyd County VA in 1997.

Firsts writing often turns to our relationships with the landscapes of our lives--the natural eco-context that shapes

the way we see, understand and think about ourselves as community, about the larger world and passing time.Fred is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, and is on the Board of Directors for SustainFloyd, andis active in stewardship endeavors locally. His photography has appeared in regional publications including BlueRidge Country Magazine, Smith Mountain Laker, and widely in regional tourism publications.

Since 2002, he has returned part time to clinical practice and to adjunct faculty teaching at Radford University. Helives in a remote creek valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia in an antebellum houseandhometo which he and his wife have been moving all their lives.

Slow Road Home: a Blue Ridge Book of Days ( 2006) emerged from a year of solitude in aremote Floyd County (VA) landscape. In more than 100 vignettes and a few longer stories,First explores sense of place, and relationships with nature, culture and one cold creek val-ley he calls home. The book bears the tension of that uncertain year cast off from the familiarroutine of work. But more, it celebrates with great care and reverence the beautiful ordinary just beyond his doora world that becomes visible when we slow down and rediscover achild-like curiosity, awe and wonder.

What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader (2009) rangeswidely across the realm of relationshipswith family, community,and the global order of natureboth as blessings and as obligationswe hold in our hands. Like his rst book, this one is, in part, a memoir of place, a personalecology with more about Nameless Creek, HeresHome and the non-human neighbors theauthor lives with. First also brings the reader to more perplexing issues: how much (clothes,technology and stuff) is enough? How ought we to live so that our childrens children canlive within their means and within the planets capacities to rebound? With good humorand an easy style, the author elevates the simple, ordinary, and local in a way that will bringa smile, a raised eyebrow, or nod of af rmation.

Fred First / Goose Creek Press / Check, VA 24072ragments romfoyd.com slowroadhome.com red1st@gmail.com

540.651.4563(H) 540.268.0260 (C)