FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Editor’s note: Writers’ Workshop is an occasional series about writing and the writing arts in and around Fairhope and beyond.

While all working writers must wrestle with the blank page or computer screen alone, most have a circle of friends or network of supporters who encourage their work.

But few have been as tireless or effective in creating such a true community of writers as has Fairhope novelist and editor Sonny Brewer.

Founder of a local bookstore, annual literary conference, short story anthology, and writing arts center, Brewer has been the hub, at the center of a vibrant literary community in Fairhope. Through that work, he has contributed significantly to the reputation of a city already well-known by some accounts as home for more published authors per capita than just about anywhere in the country.

He is expected to bring that same energy and entrepreneurial spirit for the promotion of the writing arts to his new job at Faulkner State Community College.

“We welcome Sonny Brewer to Faulkner State as writer-in-residence and creative writing instructor on the college’s Fairhope campus,” said Dr. Maria Willis, chair of the language arts division in Bay Minette. “We are truly excited about his expanding community interest in creative writing, and we look forward to the Visiting Writers Lecture/Workshop Series.”

On the job less than a month, Brewer initiated that new series on March 17 when Baldwin County native Christopher Schultz, current writer-in-residence at the Fairhope Center for Writing Arts, read and discussed his work during two appearances that day at the Fairhope campus.

“In my role as writer-in-residence here, I want to work with the Fairhope Center for Writing Arts,” Brewer said during an interview in his new office last month. “We have a common purpose, and that’s to bring notice to Fairhope’s literary tradition and history.”

Among the authors who have called Fairhope and the Eastern Shore home are Winston Groom, W.E.B. Griffin, Rick Bragg, C. Terry Cline, Judith Richards, Jimmy Buffett, Tom Franklin, Suzanne Hudson, Frank Turner Hollon, Joe Formichella, Clarence Darrow, Sherwood Anderson, Upton Sinclair, Monroe Thompson, Mark Childress, Fannie Flagg, Everett Capps, Sidney Thompson, Jennifer Paddock, Tom Kelly, Brad Watson, Brewster Milton Robertson, Jack Kerley, Michael Morris, Ben Erickson and Roy Hoffman, according to Brewer’s Web site.

“The big thing we are going to do is workshops and lectures,” said Brewer, who will also teach a creative writing class this fall. “We’ve got so much talent right here in town, but we also have so many big name writers who come to town for book signings at Page and Palette. Some will do a lecture and others will do a workshop.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Rick Bragg, who owns a house in Fairhope, has offered to come once in each semester and give a workshop, Brewer said.

“Whether it’s Rick Bragg at the lectern or (best-selling novelist) Pat Conroy, who has also offered to come, there would be some tuition involved for the workshops but the lectures will be free,” he said. “But all these lectures and workshops will be open to the public.”

Although Brewer was well known to local residents for years through his work as former editor-in-chief of Mobile Bay Monthly, editor of the anthology series Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe, and owner of Over the Transom Bookstore, it was the publication of his first novel in 2006 that introduced him to a larger audience.

Based on a true story, “The Poet of Tolstoy Park” is set in the 1920s and fictionalizes the life of Henry Stuart, who moved to the Eastern Shore and built by hand a small round house that still stands atop a hill in Montrose.

Although fallen into disrepair when Brewer discovered it behind a real estate office, that unique round house became the inspiration of his first novel. In the course of working on his book, he and his family and friends restored Stuart’s house.

When it was completed, Brewer revised his novel in the refurbished hut, which now serves as a kind of museum for writers and dreamers of all kinds with a lamp always burning in its window. A guest book signed by thousands is testament to the novel’s fans who have traveled from all parts of the country and world to see if that place was indeed real.

Since then, Brewer has written two more novels and a largely true account of the loss of his dog, Cormac, and his successful efforts to find and bring him home.

He’s currently editing a new anthology set for an October release called “The Railroad as Art: Southern Writers and Day Jobs.”

“My next novel will be written in this office,” said Brewer, sitting behind his desk in his upstairs office on the Fairhope campus. “There will be people come by here and that’s okay. Distractions are okay. But if the distractions get too many, I’ll put that sign on the door.”

He points to a sign an employee used to set in front of him at his bookstore to indicate a writer was at work.

On the walls of his new office hang posters from his novels, along with pictures of friends, family and influential writers such as Thomas Wolfe, Mark Twain and John Steinbeck.

And pressed behind glass is a rare handwritten letter from Harper Lee, dated April 4, 2006, giving a blurb for his second novel, stating “In A Sound Like Thunder,” Sonny Brewer holds the reader close with a memorable story in what was a magical place to live.”

Everything in his office has a special meaning, Brewer said, lifting an object and turning it over in his hands.

While explaining the story behind the “eight-day clock” his father took from a World War II airplane, and saying he would soon be taking it to a local jeweler to get it working again, he looked out his office door.

“Through the glass on my door I can see that giant oak tree with benches all around it in a big circle,” he said. “What a great place to go have a cup of coffee and think up a paragraph or two. Maybe even go ‘old school’ and take a pencil and piece of paper.”

Several years ago, Brewer was on a writer’s conference panel with Groom and Griffith, he said.

“What we all agreed about was this odd compulsion to put words on a page,” he said. “We all shared this odd compulsion to write a page to describe a scene, to create a character, and how you just can’t seem not to do it.”

It’s exploring that writer’s world that Brewer said he looks forward to sharing with others in his new job.

“To be in company with other writers, to learn from each other, and to give something back to people who also want to write, in this role as writer-in-residence at Faulkner State, is an honor and a privilege,” he said. “It’s exploring this whole world of writing and getting to share with all who have an interest, like that student who just walked past my door, that makes this such a wonderful opportunity. And I am grateful.”

For more information, contact Faulkner State at 800-232-3752; the Fairhope campus at 990-0420; or visit Brewer’s Facebook Web site at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fairhope-AL/Sonny-Brewer/137413709153.