A group of University of Alabama students honored the writing of Mary Ward Brown Friday as actors performed a dramatic reading of “The Amaryllis,” one of Brown’s short stories.             The story, about a retired judge who becomes fascinated by a blooming amaryllis plant, was accompanied by live jazz music, a favorite of Brown’s.

“Writing starts with something that sticks in your mind,” Brown said of her technique. “It gathers material and becomes something.”

After the performance, Brown answered questions from the audience, gave writing advice and spoke about her life.

“I couldn’t write poetry because I never could get the mechanics,” Brown said. “There’s a technique to writing fiction, but it’s not as complicated.”

Brown, a native of Alabama, began her writing as a newspaper editor for Judson College, a Baptist women’s college in Marion, Ala.

Brown married her husband, Kirtley Brown, in 1939. Several years after the birth of their sons and inheriting her family’s farm, Brown was exhausted from the stress of being a mother, wife and writer.

“You have to put off writing for awhile,” Brown said. “You have to make sacrifices.”

Using author Stephen King as an example of writers who recommend writing every day, Brown recalled when her son was a teenager how she would try to write while he was in school.            

One day, he and his friends had finished playing basketball, and she wanted to finish a particular story, but she also wanted to make lunch for him and his friends. That day, Brown decided not to write anymore until “something changed.”

Brown took a 25-year break from writing. After her husband’s death in 1970, she resumed her writing and began publishing stories in short-story collections and periodicals.

“I thought her advice was unique,” said Russell Willoughby, a freshman majoring in English. “Not many authors admit that writing can be hard.”

Brown’s appearance at the University was the result of an Honors College class’ desire to film documentaries about Alabama history and biographies about famous Alabama residents.

“We called Brown up and told her we wanted to make a film about her,” said Billy Field, professor of documentary film production in the Honors College. “Mary Ward Brown deserves to have a film made about her life, and [my students] are doing it.”

Brown has won numerous awards for her collections of short fiction, including the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award. The University of Alabama Press published her second book, “It Wasn’t All Dancing.”

Students who are interested in the films made by The Honors College can find them at http://www.lightscameraAlabama.com.