CREATIVE TRAILBLAZINGBY VICKY MOON
There's more to life in Middleburg than hors e s and hunt balls. There's also a strong community of writers. During the 1930's, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe stayed at the historic estate of Welbourne, and both wrote a story using the mansion as a setting. For aspiring writers looking for inspiration, the circa 1770 house is now a bed and breakfast. Herman Wouk (The Winds of War and War and Remembrance) once owned a home in Middleburg. Broad Run resident and Pulitzer Prize winner Nick Kotz's most recent book, Judgment Day: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America recently came out in paperback. Marc Leepson, who lives at Chilton (the estate once owned by Washington attorney Hobart Taylor), has written Saving Monticello: The Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built and Flag: An American Biography. He's now working on a book about General Jubal Early's role in the July 9, 1894 Civil War battle of Monocacy (near Frederick, Md.) There are also several past and present Washington Post writers-Joel Garreau, Paul Hodge and Leonard Shapiro (husband of this writer) who live in the area, not to mention Donald Graham, who inherited the exquisite country home Glen Welby from his mother Katharine Graham. Paul Cronin, director of riding at Sweet Briar College for more than thirty years, lives and rides from his home in Rectortown. He's penned an academic approach to horsemanship with Schooling And Riding The Sport Horse: A Modern American Hunter/Jumper System.
THETHRILLOFTHECHASE Attorney and author Jan Neuharth started Paper Chase Farms twenty years ago with her Swiss-born husband, Joseph Keusch. Together they managed the operation, which included a boarding stable, lessons and horse shows. In the past few years, the focus of the business has turned to the development and sale of horse products and book publishing. Jan's new mystery, The Chase, takes place in familiar Virginia horse country. The plot swirls around the suspicious vehicle accident of a good looking, well-to-do attorney and horseman. Jan signed lots of books at a pre-release book party at The Red Fox Inn in late May and is now on tour at various bookshops and horse events. Portrait painter and sporting artist Sandra Massie Forbush and her husband Gus Forbush, a joint master of the Old Dominion Hounds, were at the reception. Sportsman Randy Rouse and wife Michelle Rouse stopped in to get a book signed. Dr. Nat White, director of the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center, also was there. Part of The Chase is set at the very high tech horse hospital over in Leesburg. "I have fictitious characters, but real places and hopefully authentic situations," says Jan, who is also on the board of the center. In the book, a horse is injured in a car and trailer accident and taken
WORD ON THE STREET HUNT COUNTRY DATES July 11- Backyard BBQ Cooking Class, Market Salamander, www. marketsalamander.com, (540) 687-8011. July 15- Two-Year Anniversary Celebration at All the King¹s Horses Gift Shop in Leesburg will include Arabian stallion KKoi holding court on the premises. www. AllKingsHorses.com , (703) 777-7989. July 22-Key West Fest, Change of Latitude and Attitude, Breaux Vineyards in Hillsboro, www.breauxvineyards.com, (800) 492-9961. August 26-27- 4th Annual Dog Days Sunflower and Peach Fest, features peach pies and peach slushies, Great Country Farms in Bluemont, www. greatcountryfarms.com, (540) 554-2073. August 31-Septmber 3 - The 107th
Annual Warrenton Horse Show,
Labor Day weekend tradition, |
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