Floyd County's First Bloggers. These bloggers represent a subset of Floyd County writers. They use their web log as a journal, a gallery, a medium by which to connect to each other, to their neighbors and the world. And more! These four unique voices were the first to blog from and about the county.

Colleen Redman at Loose Leaf Notes

Drawing on my Irish storytelling heritage, I started Loose Leaf Notes to have fun with writing, but it also appeals to the record keeper in me and brings out my nutty professor side. I consider my blog to by my writer's petrie dish, a lab where new work is developed and sometimes launched from.

It has also served as a forum for my continued writings on grief and loss, which began with "The Jim and Dan Stories," a memoir about losing my brothers.

Whether I'm writing about Scrabble games at the local cafe, posting poetry or photos of butterflies in my garden, my blog is a time-capsule of time and place that connects me with readers and other bloggers all over the world.

David St. Lawrence at Making Ripples

I've always noticed patterns in life and in the world around me and tried to communicate what I saw. This weblog offers me the opportunity to share my observations in a way they can be retrieved by others.

Making Ripples is a running account of my adventures creating a viable career as a craftsman/writer/publisher after 50 years of corporate employment. The range of topics is a result of my curiosity about many things that are not my business.

The name of this weblog has to do with change, the persistence of ideas. Every change tlelgraphs its arrival by creating ripples. All one has to do is to watch for ripples of a certain kind and one will see social tsunamis coming while they are still far over the visible horizon.

Doug Thompson at Blue Ridge Muse

Doug was early on the web with the site DCDarkside.com and continues to own and operate Capitol Hill Blue, visited since 1994.

In 2002, Thompson launched American Newsreel, a combination news site/blog that chronicles both serious and absurd news in the country. He also started the weblog, Blue Ridge Muse chronicling his return to the Blue Ridge Mountain roots in 2004.

Since returning to Floyd County, he has also started FloydCounty.com, a new and information website. He and wife Amy live in a hilltop retreat five miles north of Floyd.

Fred First at Fragments from Floyd

In the spring of 2002, the weblog offered an opportunity to explore the world through new eyes after pulling back from an unfulfilling professional life.

Fragments was an invitation to new friends to stop by for a front porch conversation with the hopes eventually to build a greater sense of local community and connection from our isolated setting on Goose Creek.

That first public writing at FFF lead to the publication of my "book of days" called Slow Road Home. New threads of connectedness come together every day through the poser of worlds and images from the heart. I have felt fortunate and thankful to have at my disposal this powerful way to share and learn.

Contact: Colleen Redman

Meet the Floyd Writer's Circle.