Drop a rock in water and watch it sink. The ripples going out are the only evidence that it was ever there.

Writing has been that rock for Kathy B. Steele, whose love for the written word and good storytelling has culminated in three books, including her publishing debut, Rocks That Float.

Mrs. Steele will have a book-signing Saturday from 7-9 p.m. at Augusta's Borders Books and Music .

"This (book) is essentially about a community," said Mrs. Steele, an Edgefield, S.C., resident, who wrote the book about a mill town and the members of the rural neighborhood who populate it.

Written over a period of eight years, Mrs. Steele said, she formatted the work as a series of character vignettes, which weren't written in chronological order, each connected by her central character, a geologist, as a way to express her characters' voices.

"I wanted each character's story told," she said.

Underneath the main story line, in which her lead character moves to a neighborhood that has decided to live by its own rules and regulations rather than those dictated to it, is the essential theme: survival.

From a restaurateur who doesn't have a license to sell his barbecue or beer and operates a "gift shop" instead, to an unemployed man still living in the house his ex-wife owns, all the characters are trying to do the best they can in a world that has changed around them.

What they haven't done, Mrs. Steele says, is let the world change them.

They are like pumice, a rock that floats, and they do whatever is necessary to keep their heads above water.

Mrs. Steele said she has always valued the chance to tell or read a good story.

"Storytelling has been around since man evolved. Storytellers were how we passed knowledge along," she said. "There's still storytellers among us. And we still need stories. They reflect our life and how we live and answer questions of how and why we do things. They reflect our culture."

About 70,000 words into her newest story, Mrs. Steel said she doesn't see demand dying down for the sort of answers and entertainment modern storytellers and authors, particularly of fiction, can give readers.

"There will always be a market for it," she said. "Of course, we read fiction for pleasure; it's just fun."

Rocks That Float, from John F. Blair Publisher, is available at bookstores and online for $22.95.

IN WRITING HER first book, Augusta author Pamela J. Lee said her goal was to make sense of some of the outrageous events that occur.

"There's so much craziness in the world, the violence and the sex ... . Even though it's part of our life, I thought I'd write about the lessons that could be learned from it all," she said.

What evolved was the novel Choices: Of the Head/Of the Heart, a story of a young couple and the sacrifices as a result of the decisions each made.

Billed as "the sweetest, saddest love story of its kind," the book offers readers a no-nonsense narrative about life, love and the situations found in each.

Ms. Lee said she couldn't have written the book, which took about two years to complete, any other way.

"I really had a story to tell with kids nowadays and making choices," Ms. Lee said. "The consequences, they don't seem to care about them and see what choices could affect people's lives."

Through her characters, Ms. Lee confronts death, jail, physical abuse and other social ills with the realism she says they deserve.

She also presents the character of a black man doing positive things, she said.

"My main character, the male, he's awesome. A lot say he's too good to be true, but he can be true; he exists in a lot of our men," she said. "It's just that in our media the negative always get more attention than the ones who do the good."

A lifelong writer, Ms. Lee said the chance to get published has been something she's looked forward to for years.

"God gave me a lot of imagination and the ability to put it on paper," she said. "It's something I've always wanted to do. (A story) is something that's in you. You write it or you burst. You got to get it out. Even if I only sell one book, then it's out."

Choices is available in paperback for $21.75 at www.authorhouse.com.

ALSO OUT FROM authors with local connections:

Blossoms in the Wind: Human Legacies of the Kamikaze, by M.G. Sheftall.

An associate professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, Mr. Sheftall, an ethnographer, has written a book that presents a story from World War II that often goes untold.

Referencing historical data and survivors of Japan's fighting units, who used suicide as a weapon, the book provides a glimpse at kamikaze culture and how those who survived either from mechanical failure, cancelled operations or other circumstances, view their place in history.

The son of Augustan George Sheftall, Mr. Sheftall has lived in Japan since 1987 and began his research after the Sept. 11 plane hijackings.

Told with a sense of perspective and respect, the book adds another dimension to the knowledge of kamikaze and other soldiers.

Published by the New American Library, Blossoms in the Wind retails for $24.95 at most major bookstores and online.

Reach Kamille Bostick at (706) 823-3223 or kamille.bostick@augustachronicle.com.