WYTHEVILLE -- W could stand for Wytheville. Or writing. Or WIGs.

Or it could symbolize all three, starting some four years ago when a group of aspiring authors began holding monthly meetings in Wytheville.

Or it could stand for: What's in the Water that makes for so many Writers in the Wytheville area?

Mary Kegley, a Wytheville lawyer and historian who has written so many books on regional history and genealogy that she finally launched her own imprint, Kegley Books, started it all. She has produced six new books so far this year, not to mention having published a novel, "Free in Chains," based on her research about an American Indian woman forced into slavery.

"I've been selling books and running to the bank," Kegley said at the November WIGs meeting. "One library ordered $772 worth. ... That was the biggest order I've ever gotten."

Kegley had organized successful genealogy conferences over the years and, in 2002, thought of offering a day-long writers' conference. She recruited Wytheville writers who could speak on various writerly topics.

But the conference, which would have been called the Writers Institute Group, was not to be. It did not generate enough advance sign-ups to justify renting hotel space for it.

But Pam Newberry, a teacher and science writer who would have been among the speakers, suggested that the writers themselves have monthly get-togethers.

Thus was born WIGs, taking its initials from Writers Institute Group or, as some of its members are fond of saying, from being "wigged out."

Jack Crosswell, a retired ABC agent and former member of the Wythe County Board of Supervisors, had published a mystery in 2001, "Murder of a Brother," which incorporated some of his police experiences and is still drawing good reviews on Amazon.com.

Other early WIGs participants included Sherry Hawthorne, who has edited books by writers in Wytheville and elsewhere, and Belle Neighbors, a retired art teacher whose paintings have been exhibited in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and whose interest was illustrating books.

Floyd County resident Fred First, author of "Slow Road Home -- A Blue Ridge Book of Days," is a more recent attendee.

When the group had used up its own members as speakers at monthly meetings, it sought other area writers to talk on writing topics, including Wytheville residents Wilma Snyder, who reviews books for young readers, and Liza Field, a teacher, environmentalist, poet and writer whose column, "Field Notes," appears in The Roanoke Times.

Other WIGs regulars now include Strother Smith, an Abingdon lawyer turned Anglican priest with a congregation in Wythe County, who pens poetry; Beverly Hoch of Wytheville, who writes from her historical research; and Kim Headlee of Wytheville, who under the name Kimberly Iverson recently published her second novel, "Liberty," featuring a female gladiator in the days of the Roman Empire.

Smith recently had a poem accepted for a British anthology, which looked critically at the state of poetry writing today.

"I was surprised they took it," he said.

Hoch recently published her extensive findings on John Hurt, a Wytheville resident involved in code-breaking activities during World War II, in "Retrospective: The Wythe County Genealogical and Historical Association Journal."

Headlee, who moved to Wytheville in recent years, also published "Dawnflight: The Legend of Guinevere," a co-winner of the 1999 Blue Boa Award for Excellence in Romantic Fiction. She is one of the authors who contribute to "The Fantasy Writers Companion," a book for writers.

She was the speaker at the WIGs October meeting, talking about her trip to the Romance Writers of America annual convention in Atlanta and her writing career. She had been unsuccessful in landing a publisher for "Dawnflight" until she found an agent, whom she read about in Locus, a magazine reporting on the SF and fantasy fields. She checked him out, sent him three chapters and an outline and he agreed to represent her.

She had been marketing it to historical, fantasy and adventure publishers, never having thought of it as a romance. "Guess where it sold?" she said. One romance reviewer had one criticism, though, saying she "missed some opportunities for lust" in the story.

Paul Dellinger has attended WIGs from its start. He has published some 20 short stories over the years in magazines and book anthologies, and co-authored "Don't Look Up!," a light-hearted look at a UFO flap in Wytheville, with Danny Gordon, operations manager, news and sports director at WYVE/WXBX radio, yet another Wytheville writer.