White, Rc: - Through the years that she taught literature at the high school level, RC (Ruth) White fell under the spell of the writers she studied and dreamed of creating stories like them. Finally, with a successful career behind her, she took a first step and wrote a simple story. Now, armed with a character named Queenie, she was on her way. For the first time in her life, Ruth learned that she didn't have to search for stories; they would find her. A drive down the Natchez Trace Parkway revealed tales from every bend in the roadway, and a stop at a country store yielded secrets lurking in its darkened corners. People's stories were everywhere in her native Deep South, even in a dream that resulted in her first novel. Once the stories appeared, she turned to writers' conferences for help in telling them. It was there that she came face-to-face with the basis of all good writers. Putting the pen to paper or the hands on the keyboard is the first and most important step in the thousands to come. Today the impetus remains the same...for someone else to read and hopefully understand what the writer is saying about the human condition. For Ruth, that process had begun many years before when she first picked up a book by a fellow named Charles Dickens. Throughout her formal education, Ruth sought out those with different backgrounds and with different stories, learning as much as possible about the human spirit. From day one, she fell in love with ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and that concept has lured her like a siren perched on a rock in the Rhine. This concept remains a theme in her work today. Interpreting life through stories has supplied Ruth with the most wonderful friends on the planet--writers. Although very few become famous, all are special. She believes that writers, along with other artists, have that rare ability to see beneath the surface of human behavior and into our very hearts.