FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Editor’s note: This is the second article in an occasional series about writers and the writing process in Fairhope and vicinity, a place some people claim has more published writers per capita than anywhere in the country.

One day last month, the students in Kacie Hardman’s kindergarten class sat with rapt expressions and smiles on their faces.

They were listening to original stories created and read by eighth-grade students from Fairhope Middle School.

“The next day, Zebra went to the watering hole to get a drink,” said Secovia Baker and Kaylyn Sandford, as they took turns reading aloud from the book they wrote and illustrated together. “As she was drinking, Zebra looked into the water at her reflection. She noticed all the stripes on her body and looked up and saw how all the other animals didn’t have stripes like she did. She felt special and unique.”

The kindergarten students clapped when the story came to its happy ending, when the zebra learned why she had stripes.

The authors of that story were among the 14 students in author Suzanne Hudson’s unique writing class, which visited several kindergarten and first-grade classes at the Fairhope K-1 Center on April 30, to read and show their original books to those younger students.

After each set of writers finished their story, they moved to a different classroom to read to a new group of students.

“My children loved them,” said kindergarten teacher Pam Privett. “My children were able to recognize stories that had a moral and identify those that had rhyming words. They loved the interactive stories where they got to participate.”

A week later, students in Jenny Douglass’ first-grade class wrote about the older kids’ visit as part of their own “writing workshop” curriculum at the K-1 Center.

“I thought it was really cool to see the middle-schoolers were doing what we do, and that was just very interesting to me,” Camrynn Lane wrote. “I like how they made really good problems and solutions (in their stories).”

When asked what they liked about those stories, almost every hand in the class shot up. After talking it over with their “writing buddies” in the class, they wrote down their thoughts.

“I like that they took turns reading,” Charlie Bailey wrote in his notebook. Several students wrote that they liked the story about the zebra.

If those young writing students are lucky, they might have Hudson for a teacher in a few years.

“About eight years ago, our English teachers were really overloaded, and that was around the time I was just getting back into writing, being published and missing the classroom,” said Hudson, who is also an award-winning short story writer and novelist. “It seemed to be a good fit, to blend a literature/language arts block of time together with the emphasis on writing.”

She developed the idea for the writing class while a counselor at Fairhope Middle School, calling it “Writers’ Block,” because it emphasizes an intensive writing experience for a block of time during each school day.

She began as an English and Spanish teacher, then got her master’s degree in educational counseling and left the classroom for counseling.

In the mid-70s, she was a student at the University of South Alabama, where she had early success as a fiction writer. Then she stopped writing.

She started again more than two decades later, publishing a short story collection in 2001, followed by two novels.

“Reading In a Temple of Trees makes me sad and even a little angry that Suzanne Hudson laid low for a quarter of a century,” writer Tom Franklin states on the back cover of that book. “Because that’s 25 years she wasn’t giving us novels as wonderful as this one, with characters this rich and complex and and funny and strange. This novel is as bold and brassy as its creator.”

Her students say they feel special and unique to have an accomplished writer for a teacher, who has provided a real-life example for how a writer produces published works.

“Of all the things I’ve learned in Writers’ Block, I think the most important is that I can write about anything at any time and place,” Julia Zambrano said. “Just the smallest experience can be a seed for a great story.”

The experience of writing and reading to an audience like published authors do is just one of several writing experiences Hudson’s class had the past year. They visited and wrote about the “hermit hut” in Montrose, the setting for local writer Sonny Brewer’s novel, The Poet of Tolstoy Park. And they talked about writing with Karen Spears Zacaharias at at the Wolff Writer’s Cottage in Fairhope, where she is the current writer-in-residence.

But one experience may stand out in the memories of those students — and many others — for years to come.

Their writings inspired the creation of an art exhibit at the Eastern Shore Art Center.

Last fall, the students visited the art center during a show of the work of Charlie Lucas from near Selma and Bruce Larsen of Fairhope. The students wrote about the sculptures those artists made from found objects such as old automobile parts, scrap iron and driftwood.

“They were invited to explore the meanings of (their) creations by visually examining the piece, and then going inside themselves to find their own connections to symbols, materials used, and postures of the pieces,” wrote Nancy Raia of ESAC, describing how the “Brothers” art show came to be. “Next they told the ‘story’ of the piece, as their words brought to life the characters as they imagined them living with relationships, emotions, joy and pain.”

During a visit Lucas later made to the art center, Raia read to him from those student writings.

“We are all one big, global family, and we all share our feelings and emotions,” wrote Anne Carter Sasser. “And each and every one of us can reach out and touch others through a chain reaction of kindness … all over the world.”

Lucas was deeply moved by the writings, Raia said, stating that the students truly understood his art.

Larsen was also at the art center that same day and overheard that discussion. It led to a collaboration between the two of them.

The student writings brought those two artists together, who decided to create a show inspired by the writings. The popular show was held over two months at the art center, but the student writings also created other chain reactions of inspiration.

“I just wanted to take the time today to let you know how much your writings have been impacting people,” Raia wrote the students in a March thank-you letter after the February show. “Not only did you inspire the two amazing ‘brothers’ Bruce Larsen and Charlie Lucas, but you have been touching lives with your words”

She wrote in that letter she often sees people standing and staying a long time at an art exhibit.

“This happened frequently throughout this past month, in your Brothers show gallery,” she wrote. “Many were retired teachers who loved your involvement, other were professional artists from other cities who wanted to know how to get the writings of these published poets. They thought you were adults already published, and that we created a show around your ‘book.’

Raia said her point was to let the students know that they were on the right track, using their writings to have an impact on the world.

The inspiration flowed many ways during the experiences Hudson’s class had this school year.

One student wrote a thank-you letter to Lucas, showing how his influence made an impact on her.

“After we left the art center, I was rethinking everything that happened, everything you said, “Lina Tran wrote on Feb. 11. “What really stuck with me was when you said, ‘Everything has a story.’ I remembered that when I saw an old nursery on the side of the road. It was abandoned and overgrown, but what was it like in its prime days? I imagine a friendly lady, walking around, soaking in the beauty of her nursery. I’ve been applying what you said about everything having a story to a lot of things and let my imagination run wild. I never considered it before, and now, it seems like a gift.”

It’s very possible that the true gifts for Hudson are reading words like those created by her students.

“The experience has been wonderful for me,” she said. “Knowing the students ‘get’ it is one of the nicest feelings there is, and I have felt that way a lot over the past eight years or so.”