Blue Ridge Gazette Magazine

Image copyright by Fred First

The May Issue of the Blue Ridge Gazette online magazine will be posted to the site on May 1, 2006. Check the site now for the current issue, which features articles from our excellent writers on BRG blog, plus new articles, The Danville and Western Railroad by Wayne Kirkpatrick and a feature on a Blue Ridge Mountain community, Meadows of Dan, Virginia.

Other great articles in the April issue include the first in John's birding series, The Eastern Phoebe; Mark's Bradford Pears and the Great Hunter Orion, a look at Traditional Music and Instruments in Appalachia, and many more. Visit our sponsors, check out our book review, and enjoy an April day in the Blue Ridge Mountains with the Blue Ridge Gazette. Sign up for our newsletter for a reminder of when the new issue is posted.

The May issue features new added pages with even more interesting Blue Ridge Mountain subjects. Learn to bake cat head biscuits with Sandra, find out about dyeing with walnut hulls with Leslie, visit our new featured community, and hear what's happening along the Crooked Road. New articles about whitewater rafting, an entertaining Blue Ridge Cookbook, and even more will be posted, along with pictures, links and events in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.

A special feature of our May issue is an interview with Fred First, Blue Ridge author from Floyd County, Virginia. His book, Slow Road Home, a Blue Ridge Book of Days, will be published soon, and one of our editors was fortunate to read a review copy .pdf file. She writes about Slow Road Home, "I'm a person that devours books, reading cover to cover in a rush to absorb words and meaning and experience. But this lovely book stopped me cold sentence after sentence. It's a book to pick up and savor, then put down to think about the phrases and meanings. I'll be reading this memoir for years. It speaks of a man's personal journey, and it speaks to my personal journey. I am in awe." There is more about this special book in the May issue, with a book review.

Be watching for our May issue up-date, on-line May 1. And enjoy our April issue, with lots of wonderful work by the authors you enjoy here at the Blue Ridge Gazette blog every day. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter for reminders of new issues of the Blue Ridge Gazette on-line magazine.