Fred First gathers images--in words and light--from northeastern Floyd County. His creative work centers on relationship--to nature, to place and to community. His personal essays and stories are aired on WVTF and in print in several local newspapers. His public writing started on his blog, Fragments from Floyd, in 2002 at age 54. His books, Slow Road Home ~ a Blue Ridge Book of Days (2006) and What We Hold In Our Hands: a Slow Road Reader (2009) are non-fictional narratives of place.

My book is a comic strip style book I made up called “Kit Fox is on the Prowl.” Kit fox is a six-year-old American Indian boy. My book is not just a children's book but is for all ages who can read and understand it.

Historical novels include “The Starched Apron,” set in Russell County VA years 1792-1830; “Up the Water Spout” set primarily in the Abingdon - Meadowview, VA area 1918-1942 period and “Come Saturday” The latter book is set in depression years and tells of a true tragic event in the mountainous area of Southwest VA. Added are a mystery "First Ten Chapters," a collection of short stories "ZENITHS & ZEPHYRS" Mountain Peaks and Soft Breezes, and a "ghost" story called "HANOVER HOUSE, A Haunting Tale."

Born in Mount Airy, North Carolina, Historian Thomas D. "Tom" Perry, grew up in Ararat, Virginia, near Civil War General J. E. B. Stuart. A Virginia Tech graduate, where he studied under well know Civil War Historian James I. Robertson, Jr., Perry is the author, editor or publisher of over thirty books on regional history in southwest Virginia and northwest North Carolina.