Events are planned through February 29 for the second annual One Book, One Columbia program, which encourages all residents of Columbia to read the same book at the same time. To celebrate One Book, One Columbia residents of Columbia had a chance to meet Ron Rash, author of Saints at the River, the book chosen for this year’s One Book, One Columbia. Rash spoke to a full crowd at the Bostick Auditorium January 17, 2012.

“ We’re not surprised [ at the success] because this is one of the south’s real important up and coming authors, so I think the turnout reflects the interest we have in southern fiction that tells a compelling story,” said Dr. Belinda Gergel, who helped kick off the program in 2011.

Saints at the River is about the drowning of a 12 year old girl and the environmental issues that arise from whether the body should be moved or not. Rash says the inspiration of the book came from a single image he had of a child’s face peering up from the water. It took Rash more than two years to write the book, but his favorite part was not the completion of it rather something more toward the beginning. “I had a lot of trouble with the opening, and it was very late in the process, and I finally realized what I needed to do.”

Rash is from Chester, South Carolina, and Saints at the River is set in the Carolinas like all of Rash’s books. Rash said, “The most important thing is I hope the readers enjoy the book. The book deals with some complex issues, but I hope that reading the book is invigorating, that people feel it was worth their time.”

At the library, readers asked Rash questions specifically about his thought process while writing the book, something that Gergel says adds an extra dimension to the reading experience. “It makes it very, very special because we have an opportunity to hear from the author about his writing process, his development of character, his sense of place, his choice of words, and this is really the icing on the cake.”