DALLAS: Although Vicky Pratt Keating hails from the Washington, D.C. area, her "acoustic pop" stylings have so endeared her to the locals here that she's now considered an "honorary Texan." Keating, who has been likened to the Suzanne Vega/Nanci Griffith genre of singers, really has a style all her own, and therefore prefers the "acoustic pop" tag rather than folk designation. While many of her songs take on a melancholy feel, she intertwines elements of hope into her words and her guitar melodies. Her performance at Borders Books and Music here reinforced both that style and her songwriting abilities. D.C. is also noticing her talents: Keating recently won two "Wammies," Washington, D.C.'s music awards, in the best female vocalist/contemporary folk and the best recording/contemporary folk categories, for her release, Blue Apples. Says David Dennard, head of Dragon Street Records, "I discovered her at a demo listening panel at last year's South By Southwest, and her CD blew everything else we heard away." Dennard currently is shopping the recording to major labels. The release is composed entirely of her own music--with accompaniments of bagpipes, bazouki, and mandolin--and her thoughts. Keating's poetic turns also are evident in "Sylvie," a tune she says she penned while "reading a little too much Sylvia Plath." Keating, who began her musical career 10 years ago in a rock band in D.C., now lives near Charlottesville, Va., and performs frequently in New England, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Texas.