St Albans Writes

The Advisory Board, for the St. Albans Branch Library, is proud to present St Albans Writes...a monthly speaker series featuring local authors.  Samuel D. Owens will discuss his historical novel, I, Senias.

After graduating from St. Albans High School, Mr. Owens earned a bachelor of arts degree in Spanish, history, and English from Marshall College and a master of arts degree in Spanish literary history from the University of Kansas. He studied Colombian history, geography and literature in Colombia, South America as a recipient of a Hayes-Fulbright Seminar scholarship, and Mexican literature and sociology for a summer semester at the Universidad Automoma de Guadalajara.  He also studied methodology and language at the National Defense Education Act Institute at West Virginia University.

Mr. Owens has spent his professional career in the field of public education.  He has taught foreign languages at all levels of education; elementary, secondary, and universality. Prior to his retirement he served as Supervisor of Foreign Languages for Kanawha County Schools.

His motivation for writing I, Senias is his profound interest in the history, often elusive, of the Celtic People. Senias is the son of a prominent family living in first century B.C.E. Gaul. It is he who relates to the reader the often tragic story of a mighty army of warriors called the Romans, who roamed the Gallic countryside murdering folks, plundering villages, snatching women and children to sell as slaves. The deep spirituality of Senias leads to his selection as an apprentice Philosopher and thrusts him into the cryptic world of Celtic mythology.