Photos by Rebecca Barnett | The Roanoke Times

Charles LeMone of Ferrum stands on what he calls the "long, winding road" that leads up to his house. LeMone wrote a book at his home, called "Corner Pride," which has been sent into its second printing by Ferrum College.

"Corner Pride" will be required reading for an African-American literature class at Ferrum College this year. As for the cover, "I wanted it to be bright, like the story inside," author Charles LeMone said.

Philadelphia native Charles LeMone has worked as a cook, a longshoreman, a photographer and a laundry list of other unrelated jobs.

During two decades in California, he owned a dating service and drove a taxi.

Now LeMone is a full-time writer on a secluded mountaintop in Franklin County, and for the first time, Ferrum College students will study the book he wrote less than a mile from campus.

"I feel so honored that something I wrote is going to be studied," LeMone said.

"Corner Pride" was published in 2009 and is a coming-of-age story about boxer Barry "Bear" Brown and aspiring writer James "Curly" Wylie in a gang-infested neighborhood in north Philadelphia.

The book is semiautobiographical, the "Curly" character modeled after LeMone's childhood and dreams, he said.

The story is one that Ferrum professor Melvin Macklin read and enjoyed so much that he added it to the curriculum of his African-American literature class for the fall semester.

"I was from that era," he said. "That's one of the rare books that really portrays that era of the '50s and early '60s. I lived through a lot of that, even though I was in Illinois."

The class will study three other books that cover slavery to present day including "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou and some excerpts from Toni Morrison's works.

"Corner Pride" will help Macklin explain what life was like during that time period. He hopes the book that LeMone says is about learning to love will teach students that "sometimes what we do today comes out of our history," Macklin said. "When they can make a link, see something that's going on in their lives that they can link back to, their lives have more significance."

LeMone, who is no stranger to the college campus, will speak to the class about his work. He has spoken to classes before about writing and had a book signing there earlier this year.

"He is a dynamic speaker," Macklin said. "He gives them a sense of belonging."

Ferrum's students have even loosely served as inspiration for some of his writings.

In "Moonshine Madness," a screenplay he's written, a cannibalistic moonshiner wreaks havoc on a small college town.

LeMone, 66, said his life is a lesson in synchronicity.

He always had dreams of being a writer, but he said it was his young daughter handing him the book "Becoming a Writer" by Dorothea Brande after another one of his businesses failed that gave him the kick he needed.

He moved to Ferrum in 2002 after caring for an aunt who left him the 13-acre Ferrum property when she died. She told him he would get some of his best writing done there, LeMone said. And it was there that "Corner Pride," a story he had thought about and dabbled in for decades, came together.

For nine months he lived in hotels while he worked to construct a road to the landlocked property off Rock Hill Lane referred to as the Story Creek property.

"It's so peaceful and tranquil up there," he said. "I live on a dirt road off a dirt road so far back in the woods, bears get lost."

LeMone continues to write and recently finished a sequel to the first book he had published, "A Dance in the Street." He's looking for a publishing company for the sequel as well as someone willing to turn some of his works into movies.

"Mine is more a career of determination and perseverance than success," he said. "But I'm happy where I am."