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Campus News - October 15, 2001 |
Historian pens tales of fact, fiction
By Laurie Mellas-Ramirez
On
the eve of battle, Americans turn to the past for answers. They seek strength
and refuge in wars won and enemies defeated. They reflect upon lives lost and
heroes saluted.
UNM Associate Professor of History Virgina Scharff heeds the call. As
historians we feel an obligation to share the tools. Dont let us make
the decisions we are much better at the past than the future but
at least we can inform discussion, she says.
We need the comfort in knowing that we are not the first to face an
event, especially in times like now, she adds.
An expert on the American west, social theory, womens and environmental
history, for 12 years Scharff has been teaching UNM courses from the freshmen
U.S. Survey course to graduate seminars.
An avid reader, she paged her way through the annals of American history as a young girl. As feminism made its mark on the country, Scharffs mother would profoundly influence her daughters career by driving car-pools that included her six children.
Women were running a defacto transportation system for the entire country,
she notes, adding that she eventually pursued academia to claim my mothers
life for history. Scharffs first book is titled Taking the
Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age, (1991).
Every reader pines to be a writer and Scharff is no exception. She completed
her undergraduate degree at Yale and headed for J-school at the University of
California at Berkeley. It was the Watergate era, so I thought I wanted
to be a reporter, she says.
Later, she earned a masters at the University of Wyoming and Ph.D. from
the University of Arizona, both in history.
Im a Wildcat, which I never tell anyone during basketball season,
she jokes.
A yen to write surfaced once more in the late 70s and early 80s during a period
of unemployment. She composed a few short stories and novels that didnt
go anywhere. A few years back Scharff was cleaning her office and came
upon these false starts, which she tossed in the trash, she says.
Then I had a dream and the characters from the stories were crying out
to me saying you cant throw us out! Scharff sat down, wrote
a paragraph, the paragraph became pages and the rest is history. Harper Collins
published her novel Brown-Eyed Girl in 2000 under the pen name Virginia
Swift.
I always liked fiction, but I didnt think I could write dialogue,
she admits.
You have to learn to listen to the way people really speak hear
real sounding voices in your head. It may sound mentally ill, but its
still good fiction, she adds.
Scharffs second novel, Bad Company will be published in May.
The protagonist is a historian who teaches at the University of Wyoming
and is a former country western singer, she says, noting that she has
written a song or two and also plays guitar. Im really acoustic,
but I can plug in. I paid my way through school gigging in low rent bars in
California and the Rockies.
Her latest project is directing UNMs Center for the Southwest. Ever the
storyteller, Scharff says, Were kind of inventing as we go along.
The center encourages interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations among
faculty engaged in regional projects.
I think I have the best job in the world, she says. Thats a fact.
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