HURRICANE SPECIAL! "Hurricane Lilly" 1996 (right) Photo by Bruno Dittmar, Hobby Photographer and Chef, Stella  Maris Resort, Long Island, Bahamas www.stellamarisresort.com

WELCOME

Welcome to another issue of The Bahamas Writer (TBW) - "a source of inspiration for writers worldwide". This "Hurricane Special" is a "bumper issue" as there will be no TBW newsletter in August. The Bahamas Writer will be on vacation! 

Submit your articles, stories, poems, writing tips or market news for inclusion in upcoming issues.* There's no payment for submissions to The Bahamas Writer, but it's an excellent way to promote your writing worldwide (we'll include your email address and a link back to your web site).

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From June's beginning to November's end, the time of energized winds and their potential harm to human life and private property becomes a national and regional concern. Hurricanes have proven deadly and damaging throughout the region over the years, and The Bahamas too- has had its share of casualties and other related costs.

Generally, the season of violent winds and sometimes accompanying heavy rains- has been a sparing visitor to the islands. In recent memory, an attitude of hurricane curiosity, excitement and plain casualness has spread like wild fire throughout the Bahamian communities. Islanders for the most part enjoy hurricanes, because they can cause unceremonious holidays.

Information relating to hurricane watches and warnings are readily available nowadays. In the age of satellite technology, the movements of any system in and toward the region are as accessible as fry fish or chicken, but the deadly mentality: "…it's just another passing storm", dilutes the purpose of having crucial data available to ensure that lives are saved and property secured in a timely manner.

Education and the campaign of hurricane preparedness are ongoing during the storm seasons, and the island's population for the most part is well informed. Each year- the possibility of a major storm hitting The Bahamas increases, but that doesn't stop the love and appreciation of an island life and the rich existence of God's sunshine, crystal clear and multi colored seawaters, and the precious ocean sands of varied shades.

Hurricane readiness is the goal of all countries in the storm regions. In The Bahamas like everywhere else, "Be prepared", is the calling cry. Taking heed to those words is ceaselessly the wise thing to do.

Copyright ©2002 Dennis Arthur Dames

Note: You may distribute this Newsletter. Feel free to post it to your website or BBS if you like. However no part of this Newsletter may be reproduced in whole, or in part, without keeping the links within this newsletter active.

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Joanne Hoople drew our attention to George's poem "Hurricane". She was particularly taken by its "tone and urgency".

Web site: www.tarpumbay.com Email George at gmajor.1@netzero.net

HURRICANE by George Major

I
Hurricane is raging
Lofty seas rise to new prominence
Bayfront houses in jeopardy
Of losing their lives
The gentle peaceful atmosphere
Disrupted by the panic
Of drunken men 
On company trucks
Their hearts filled with expedient
Emergency,
They reclaim themselves 
Through such community affairs
As hurricanes
No one judges on hurricane days
If all days were the same
We'd have a good society
Bundled nerves and anticipation
They rush out 
To discover the needy
Saving lives with their valiant efforts.


II
I am here chasing girls
Her wild sensual majesty
Milk white and lucid
Caring as no other
How can I forget her wet kisses?
The gentlest of hearts
In a woman
She rolls with Hurricane men
Lending all that she might
New home, new places, new people
With great love, beauty
And such great admiration
As Hurricane men 
Have ever know
Me, I was not prepared
But in my heart I knew
Everything was gonna be alright.


III
Let all valiant hell break loose
In the wild wind
I closed my door to the dark days and nights
Good God help us in the rain
And tragedy of a violent hurricane
The land shaking mass of wind
Will soon be here
This accepted occurrence
This wrath of a violent wind
This freak of nature
So strong
Unleashed like magic
On the winds of days
"This suckers comin,
Ya better batten up tight!"

Copyright © George Major

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It's good to welcome back again Canadian writer and TBW forum member Art Montague. Art rediscovered this article that he wrote some years ago.

Web site: http://amontague.homestead.com Email Art at arts-place@rogers.com

"HURRICANES" by Art Montague

Hurricanes kinda jump out attya, and stay. Cloudbursts that don't stop. Forget tornados and cyclones -- whoosh, they're gone, but hurricanes have an obdurate relentlessness. They have attitude! I adventured through one as a youngster in Toronto, in the mid-nineteen Fifties. Hurricane Diane, the weather bureau called it. I was too busy delivering groceries on my bicycle to call it anything. 

Hurricane Diane came in Friday night, wind gusts and rain, but too late to bother me because my last box of groceries was delivered by six. 

Next morning I had to push my bike to work. The wind was up and the rain was in sheets -- when it wasn't, it was nearly horizontal in your face, blunt as Thor's hammer. I worked through to six that day, same as every other Saturday. But this was a much different day. This was a test. At least I saw it so. No pass/fail; no judges; no rules, and dammit, no crib sheet either.

I was soaked to the soul that day. Mostly I had to walk my bike, with the wooden box of groceries in the carrier. Nature was humiliating this twelve-year old big-time. In Toronto of the day, bike grocery deliveries had more status than bike newspaper deliveries. Here I was, King of the Hill, having to push my bike. It may as well have had square wheels. But I still one-upped the paperboy wimps. That day newspaper deliveries were suspended. I didn't learn that until Sunday though. Meantime, I ate humiliation, especially a few times when I had to cling to a large post to avoid being blown ass over teakettle down the street.

Not that I was a Boy Scout, but by noon I was helping older citizens do things like get across the street ankle deep in water because I'd figured out the timing of the winds. Mostly though, every bit of my eighty pounds of bones, muscle, sinew, and stubbornness went head to head with the wind. I didn't win, I survived.

Somewhere in Toronto, people died that day because of Hurricane Diane. I'd already delivered my groceries in blizzards and in humid summer heat. Diane was just another job hazard. People do what they have to do, according to their lights.

Copyright © Art Montague 

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We are delighted to welcome university professor/writer and TBW forum member Ann Dean, who lives in High Falls, New York. Ann teaches courses in autobiography and education and says: "Writing has always been an important part of my life and I can trace the interest back to early childhood when my father and mother (both British) read classic English children's stories to me. I 'wrote' and illustrated little books about mice, rabbits and cats and read them to my dear old Gran."

Ann shares her memories of Hurricane Betsy that hit the Bahama islands in September 1965, just a few weeks after she arrived in Nassau to teach (this is an excerpt from Ann's autobiography "Teacher Under My Skin"). Ann's email: deana@newpaltz.edu


"HURRICANE" EXCERPT FROM "TEACHER UNDER MY SKIN" by Ann Dean

Soon after school started, word came that Hurricane Betsy would make a direct hit on the Bahamas. We had eight hours to prepare for the storm. We scurried to board up the windows and doors of St. Francis School, the church and priory offices, the German doctor's clinic and the tall, wooden building where the priests lived. Finally, we turned to "The Bungalow" where the lay missionary teachers would stay. 

For two days and three nights, thirteen of us lived together, crammed into two rooms with no electricity and no running water. We subsisted on tinned sausages and peas. We kept sane by tracking the storm's path on a hurricane map. The radio signals, broadcast from the Miami Weather Station, were picked up sporadically on our small, battery-powered transistor and were our only connection with the outside world. During the driving winds and rain of the squally weather, we slept or played cards by candlelight. The Bungalow was musty, dark and frightening.

Then, during the seven-hour, dead calm of the "eye" of the hurricane, we ventured out to see what had happened. On West Bay Street giant palm trees were bent double, smaller trees completely uprooted and thrown haphazardly about the beach. The monstrous waves had pushed three feet of sand up on the road in front of the Ocean Spray Hotel and a small Triumph convertible sat upended, as if it were a toy car abandoned by a child. We stood on The Esplanade and stared at the grey, rippleless water, impressed by its incomprehensible, dormant power. Soon it was time to return to The Priory to "batten down" for the tail end of the hurricane.

When it was over, the island was whistle clean. The wooden shacks, abandoned cars, oil drums, old lumber and garbage that had been piled up in people's yards had vanished--sucked off the island's surface and sent out into the atmosphere by Betsy's powerful winds. The Bahamian people rallied and in a few weeks New Providence Island was restored to reasonably habitable condition. We were grateful for the return of drinking water, lights and indoor plumbing. Many of the Out Islands suffered irreparable damage and loss of lives. 

Copyright © Ann Victoria Dean

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Congratulations to Richard Krzemien (TheWriterAtWork.com), who has a comic
published in this month's issue of "The Writer"
- Page 11: "Survival tip #3".

Richard is a member of the Writers Guild
of America and he's in regular contact with TBW.


He says: "I'm proud that The Writer at Work comic has been published in a prestigious magazine like 'The Writer.' I'm also very happy they printed it in color, since color is funnier than black and white. Then again, Charlie Chaplin did okay and he lived at a time when the world had no color. So never mind!"

The Writer at Work comic can also be appreciated (Richard says "some people say loved"!) in Canadian Screenwriter Magazine. 

Richard's T.V. credits include Star Trek:The Next Generation; The New Twilight Zone; and "War of the Worlds"

You can view the comic at: www.TheWriterAtWork.com Email Richard at TheWriterAtWork@aol.com


LINDA ADAMS (U.S.A.)
Photo by Sears-Roebuck

Congratulations also go out to writer and TBW forum member Linda Adams, whose story "Clarity" will be published in Let Us Not Forget, an anthology about veterans.

The book will have a foreword written by Sen. Bob Dole and an introduction by Sen. Bob Kerrey. The anthology is scheduled to be published by iUniverse in September 2002.

Linda's web site: www.hackman-adams.com Email her at garridon@att.net

ART MONTAGUE (CANADA)

Congratulations to writer and TBW forum member Art Montague. Art's murder mystery "Gourmet Takeout" has been accepted for inclusion in Michael Bracken's anthology HARDBROILED, to be released Spring 2003. 

Art's web site: www.amontague.homestead.com Email: arts-place@rogers.com

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Woman's World say: "Get to know us: Please familiarize yourself thoroughly with our romances and mini mysteries before submitting your work."
Guidelines for "Woman's World" can be found in Writer's Market.com

TAKE A BREAK (submitted by Joanne Hoople):

"Take a Break": They are looking for stories of about 1,100 words to fill their 'Coffee Break' fiction slot: sharp, succinct with good plots and a 'twist in the tail' ending. Keep the number of characters to a minimum (certainly no more than four) and make your main character a woman. Submit to: Norah McGrath, Take a Break, 25-27 Camden Road, London NW1 9LL. Tel: 0207 284 0909.

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RODERICK McKENZIE (BAHAMAS) 

TBW has been happy to recommend ways Roderick might adapt his writing for international markets. TBW forum members have also posted their comments and marketing tips.

Roderick's email: roddie30@hotmail.com

LINDA COUSINS (U.S.A.)

Writer/Educator and TBW forum member Linda Cousins of New York wrote TBW about the review by e-book columnist, Julie Amari-Bandele, of Linda's e-book ("the first multimedia book on Junkanoo") - SELAH, PAPA LOU2, AND JUNKANOO! 

Linda said: "The work features a family's travel to Nassau where they enthusiastically connect to Junkanoo, Junkanoo culture-bearers, and Bahamian culture (and cuisine!) in general.

The e-book is enlivened by Junkanoo music, poetry, and graphics as well as a brief video clip and Junkanoo slideshow." 

Linda said Julie Amari-Bandele e-mailed her:

"Dear Linda,

"I really enjoyed your book! When I clicked on the different links my 
daughter actually abandoned the tv for once and ran over to the computer. 
It was great since the only toy that she usually will choose over the tv is 
her miniature goombay drum..."

Julie Amari-Bandele's review can be read at http://sellwritingonline.com/colpierc1.html

Further information on SELAH, PAPA LOU2, and JUNKANOO, Junkanoo history, and Junkanoo contributors can be found at: www.ancestraltravels.com 
Email Linda at Akan@aol.com

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