By Brandon Brady

With so many trees and critters everywhere, the woods could be a frightening place for someone just 5 years old. But that's the age when RON ELLIS was taken on his first rabbit hunt. It was a source of incredible joy, though memories of that excursion are fleeting. 'I remember that he carried me out on his shoulders,' Ellis says.

That day had a lasting effect on Ellis' life. It was the start of something bigger as Ellis began to accompany his father regularly on excursions into the woods around Maysville, Ky. Hunting, Ellis explains, was simply the vehicle that took them into the country. The trips, though, forged a bond between father and son, as well as instilled a love of nature in Ellis.

It was something he wanted to capture for others. The result was Cogan's Woods, a fictionalized account of the many treks Ellis shared with his father.

The idea for the book swam around in Ellis' head for years. When his father was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Ellis was prompted to move forward on his writing. '(My father) was very pleased that I thought so much of those days that I would want to write about it,' he says.

In 1998, with 25 pages of his book written, Ellis was accepted into the University of Montana's Environmental Institute. His father died soon after. 'He died unexpectedly. Š The timeline was much longer,' Ellis says. 'I had really hoped to have much of the book written.'

Writing Cogan's Woods while coping with his personal loss was both a difficult and healing experience for Ellis, who will sign and discuss his book at 2 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble in Newport. 'I think that it was cathartic in that I was dealing with his death in several passages,' Ellis explains.

His father did more than just inspire Ellis to write Cogan's Woods. While going through his father's belongings, he discovered a box of shotgun shells. There were notes rolled up inside each one of them, personal memories his father had written. Ellis transcribed his father's words for one of the chapters in Cogan's Woods.

'My dad always wanted to be a writer, and that I'm sure of,' Ellis relates. 'I changed only the timeline, and perhaps the names of the characters. All the rest of the words are his.'

E-mail Brandon Brady

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