"When we are young, what happens is not nearly as important as what we think happens.
Perhaps that is true even when we are not so young."
- from Robert Ebert's 1995 review of the film "Hope and Glory"
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| The sisters at Halloween.
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FAMILY PHOTO
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PROGRAM
Go Fish
Dickie Medaris Threw It At Me
Bowling Alley Wax
West Monroe, Louisiana
Playing Among the Dead
Monopoly at Twelve
The Wheelchair
Rosemary and Theodore
Not Far From Dallas
Going Home With Peanut
A Special Thank You to:
Artspace's Marian Hollowell and John Bailey
Dorothy Ricketts
Travis Hardy (Sound equipment)
The Many Pearls from Nimrod
Nimrod's Charlotte Morgan, our guru and Cowpasture River sidekick
AND TO THE SWEET INSPIRATIONS,
my Mama and sisters:
Phyllis Freeman
Cathy Hall
Janice Galyen
Sharon Saloutos
| Linda Rae Johnson
Reading from her
"Ouachita Girl"
Vignettes of a Louisiana Childhood
Saturday, May 22
Ms. Linda Rae Johnson has written thirteen vignettes in a collection entitled Ouachita (WASH-ah-taw) Girl, based on her West Monroe, Louisiana, childhood years (1954-1963). The stories are embellished somewhat where names and circumstances have faded from the writer's memory, to protect the innocent and not shame the guilty. They represent glimpses of her life from age 9 to 13.
Ms. Johnson refers to her genre as creative memoir. She credits her first summer at the Nimrod Writers Retreat in Bath County Virginia, where she wrote "Monopoly at Twelve," as the beginning of her "Ouachita Girl" voice. With a touch of zany humor and a sense of comic timing, Ms. Johnson has enjoyed reading these stories throughout Virginia for the last two years. In November 1997 she won first place in the semifinals at the Open Stage Theater competition in Richmond. Ms. Johnson was one of five featured readers as part of the Performance Art Series at Artspace in May 1998. Most recently, she performed for two weekends at Windy River Winery in November and was showcased on WCVE Radio's "Gallery" with host, John Porter. Two stories from her collection have been published in the Allegheny regional literary journal, Lumina.
When Ms. Johnson is not writing or sharing her stories, she enjoys reading, dancing, collecting memorabilia from the '30s, '40s and '50s and wandering the back roads of Virginia.
Visit Linda Rea online at: www.ouachitagirl.com
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