Those of you who have read my memoir, When Katie Wakes, know that the unconditional love of a Labrador/German Shepherd mix named Katie helped see me through the dark days of being a battered woman.

On St. Patrick’s Eve—nine years ago today—I lost my dear Katie. She is buried just steps from me, in the backyard, facing the bay, under the shade of a palm tree. It was where I could find her on most any sunny day.

She was with me for 18 years.

As I buried her–it was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon–a soft rain began to fall; the sky did not clear until morning. My other dogs stayed by her grave, throughout the night, refusing to come in despite the weather. I think they were watching over her soul as it transitioned to some place we can’t yet know.

I find grace in the fact that as I write this, a spring shower has just arrived. I cannot shake the feeling that Katie brought the storm on as a cosmic kiss.

I miss her everyday, but on this anniversary of her passing, with the scent and sound of rain engulfing me, the loss is fresh, new, overwhelming. Yes, indeed, a remembrance is in order.

Katie: a black dog with a white heart, ticklish feet, eyes that left no doubt she was an old soul.

Katie: a wild child who smiled with a largess that escapes even some humans; she showed all her pearly canines.

Katie: she had a sense of humor, knew I was going to cry before I did, and never suffered fools.

Katie: the Houdini of Dogdom, defying the laws of science, escaping through cracks in a fence she couldn’t fit through.

Katie: cow-barker, cat-licker, wind-chaser, sun-bather, lover of the McDonald’s drive-thru.

Katie: Cuban sandwich thief, perceptive, smart, snorer, understood that the dressmaker down the street was just crazy enough to be avoided.

Katie: full of hope, full of light, full of unrepentant dog love.

Katie: died in my arms, not in my heart.

Katie: a patient girl who put up with me singing into her dense coat, “KkkKatie, kkkKatie! You’re the only ddddog that I adore!”

Katie: she loved her Guinness.

Katie: what a good dog she was!

On this St. Paddy’s Eve, if the spirit stirs you, tip one back for Kateland, The Wonder Dog, knowing that there is goodness in this world and that sometimes it arrives on your doorstop with four paws, a wet nose, and a soulful bark.

Around Tally-Town

If you’re in Tallahassee this month, you can find me reading at two Florida State University-sponsored events.

March 21:
A Florida Writers; Book Fair
sponsored by
The Florida Book Awards Program
Kleman Plaza
Challenger Learning Center Courtyard
10 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

March 30:
6 p.m., FSU, their Women’s History month finale.
Student Services Building, Room 203 on the Florida State campus

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

To celebrate this monumental moment in our history, I have asked two special guests to join me in reflecting on this day when we, with one voice, inaugurate our first African-American president.

The writers with whom I share today’s blog are guys I am deeply proud to roll with. I have known Pete Ripley for sixteen years and Julian Chambliss for five. They are decent and good; smart as hell and walk the talk. I can think of no one I’d rather share this space with than these two men.

Of C. Peter Ripley’s nine published books, seven are on African-American history. He taught at several institutions, ranging from Yale University to a federal prison. In his essay “Historical Memories and Hopeful Visions,” he tracks this country’s racial struggle and his own journey toward hope.

Julian C. Chambliss is assistant professor of history at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. His research focuses on urban planning, race, and popular culture issues in the United States. His academic writings have appeared in Journal of Urban History, Studies in American Culture, and the Georgia Historical Quarterly. He is Co-Chair of the Social Science History Association Urban Network, a board member of the Society for City and Regional Planning History and a past-president of the Florida Conference of Historians. His essay “Obama Nation: What Does It All Mean?” provides a historical, and at times funny, perspective on what it means to us as a people and to the world at-large that we have elected to the presidency an African American.

And with that, here are our reflections on a day when Americans celebrate two things about us of which we should be very, very proud: Democracy and the election of President Barack Obama.

REFLECTIONS ON MY FATHER
By Connie May Fowler

In 1925, the great poet Langston Hughes wrote:

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed –

I, too, am America.

But by 1965, the hopeful note Langston had struck had became a song of anger and despair:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun
Or fester like a sore—

And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Today, America, the dream explodes but does so in the most amazing, long-prayed for manner. We are inaugurating Barack Obama, an African-American male, as our 44th President.

I am not sure that I, a woman who smiths words for a living, can fully express what this moment means to me. I am of mixed race, although I do not look like it. However, the familial stories, our class, and the neighborhoods we lived in more often than not never let me forget that I was the Other. We were desperately poor and violence was the norm in my household. So was a brand of twisted hypocrisy that haunts me to this day.

My father’s mother was Native American. His first wife who bore him two children, my half-siblings, was Minorcan. Yet my father, a rabid racist was rumored to be a member of the Klan.

I will never forget the events that took place in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964. Lincolnville was the black neighborhood, the neighborhood my father grew up in, the neighborhood where my grandmother lived, the neighborhood I thought of as home, and from there the black community organized a series of high profile displays of civil disobedience and protest called The St. Augustine Movement. Racist whites beat the black citizens, the sheriff made mass arrests of black citizens, and whites were never prosecuted. The situation had grown so desperate that by May, Martin Luther King came to town to inspire, organize, and effect change. An assassination attempt was made on his life. In addition to the crimes being committed against black citizens, reporters were harassed and beaten.

The Old Slave Market became ground zero. Blacks, along with a few white northerners, staged marches there, as did the Klan. Commenting later, SCLC march leader Dorothy Cotton said of the St. Augustine situation, “This was about the roughest city we’ve had—45 straight nights of beatings and intimidation. In church every night we’d see people sitting there with bandages on. Some would sit with shotguns between their legs. We marched regularly at night. We kept being ordered not to march, especially at night because it was so dangerous. We sang before we went out to get up our courage. The Klan was always waiting for us—these folk with the chains and bricks and things. Hoss Manucy (St. Johns County Sheriff L.O. Davis was a committed segregationist who was good and public friends with local KKK leader “Hoss” Manucy) and his gang. After we were attacked we’d come back to the church, and somehow we’d always come back bleeding, singing . . .”

On May 28, 1964, the Klan held a March at the Old Slave Market. My father put my sister, my mother, and me in the car and drove us there. He behaved as if we were going to a Fourth of July parade. He stuck a Confederate-flag-on-a-stick in my hand and told me to wave it out of the car window. I did. A CBS news crew shot footage of it. I was in the first grade. My mother, who was not a racist but who feared my father, snapped at me to put the flag down and the jeering crowd of white men who had gathered around the car urged me to keep waving it.

Less than a year later, my father was dead. My mother, having learned at the hands of my father, became more violent toward her children. What her hands could not destroy, her words did. We lived in squalor. We lived in fear. When I heard Rev. King speak, I felt as if his words were meant for me. I felt likewise about the words of folks like Rev. Joseph Lowry and Andrew Young. I thought I understood Malcolm X’s anger. And to some extent, I did.

On the night Barack Obama won the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, I was sitting in a suite at the Casa Monica Hotel at the corner of King and Cordova, across the street from The Old Slave Market. I looked out the window, tears streaming, and realized I was gazing at the exact spot where, forty-seven years prior, I waved a flag my father was proud of. For me, it was a remarkable confluence of events.

I do not know how to wash away my father’s sins and am unsure if I will ever come to terms with his self-hatred. But I do know that this country has, for hundreds of years, needed a reckoning and a healing.

I think in Barack Obama, we have a chance for both. His multi-racial background reflects who we are as a nation. He is a symbol of what we hold most dear: that we are a melting pot whose strength is our diversity.

I do not think I have ever loved my country more than I do on this day. I will watch the inauguration and I will weep. They will be tears of hope and joy and reconciliation. But before I do that, I will go into the recesses of my closet and find the American flag that draped my father’s coffin and I will unfold it, and remember, and I will display it proudly.

Oh happy day!

HISTORICAL MEMORIES AND HOPEFUL VISIONS
By C. Peter Ripley

This moment it so filled with historical memories and hopeful visions it is difficult for me to grasp, to find a place to start, to know how to begin. But I, like so many others, cannot resist the impulse to fall into a cliché—I never thought I would live to see this day. Nor did I ever think I would live to feel the national promise that Barack Obama brings to Washington on this day.

I spent an adult lifetime researching and writing African-American history—the wickedness of the slave trade, the brutality of slavery, the jubilee of emancipation, the civil rights struggle and the decades of false proclamations and failed starts that characterizes American race relations. On one occasion, I spent 4 months in the National Archives reading federal correspondence dealing with the end of slavery and the start of emancipation after the Civil War, thousands of letters that had not been touched since they were filed away by a military clerk over a century earlier. Days passed, weeks passed, and as I read on and on I could feel myself being dragged through the sharp-edged failure of liberation and Reconstruction. I grew morose, emotional, depressed; I drank more coffee, smoked more cigarettes, did more drugs, and awoke from countless nightmares created by what I had read that day, by what anonymous black people had endured each day, and the days that followed. Our national sin.

That was in the 1960s, when the metaphoric journey from the archives to the streets was short and fierce. By then the black-led movement of the 1950s was gaining momentum and white participants. As we joined in, we learned a new song, “We Shall Overcome”, with its words of hope, of faith, of determination, a song that became both a rallying cry and a demand for national redemption. Each time we met in a church, a hall, or a home, the evening always ended with everyone standing, clasping the hand of the person on either side, swaying to and fro, and singing—promising—“We shall overcome, yes, I do believe, we shall overcome some day.” Through beatings, arrests, murders, riots, humiliations, and lost futures, the song and the movement continued. And despite our fears and uncertainty whether that day would ever come, those moments of standing hand and hand with comrades and singing that anthem are memories as fresh and sharp as any I possess today.

Yet more important than memories, those movement days gave us a set of standards, of values, by which to measure ourselves, the world around us, and our place in it–the gift of a lifetime. But that gift often led me to be harsh and judgmental—of myself, my work, my friends, my colleagues, but most of all my country. Even after the Civil Rights Bill and the Voting Rights Act, we felt that wasn’t enough, that America had betrayed its best promises to its citizens, had failed to redeem itself, had failed to overcome.

And as the drive for civil rights broadened into opposition to the War in Vietnam the anger and loss of faith could be seen in the faces at Grant Park in August 1968 during the Democratic National Convention and the next year at the Washington National Mall when over 250,000 demanded an end to the war. But the war continued, as did poverty, illiteracy, inequality, race violence, poor health care, inferior housing and schools, and on and on went our list of despair. Many of us took that national failure as our own, as a sign that we had not done enough, that we had not lived up to the pledge that “We Shall Overcome.” And worse yet, it appeared as though no one cared. The time has passed.
Our sense of failure, of leaving work undone, persisted until Barack Obama came forward leading a new generation, and renewing an older generation. He brought forth a new way of thinking and speaking about old problems, about America’s unfinished redemption. He avoided the old slogans, the old bromides, the old anger, the old frustrations. He gave us hope that he could lead us forward to change a nation; a heady thought and an unfulfilled promise—to change a nation.

For me, in my 6th decade, the look on the faces of the people once again tells the essential story. Where forty years ago the grainy black and white photos showed faces twisted with anger and disappointment, in August 2008 the faces in Grant Park on election eve and at the Mall on Sunday were joyous, hopeful, filled with the teary promise of national redemption. And when Barack Obama told that election-eve crowd, ‘I promise you, as a people, we will get there,” for the first time in my adult life I shared that teary moment of patriotic hope and optimism.

OBAMA NATION: WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
By Julian C. Chambliss

Wow, President Obama is moving into the White House. It is “wow” because honestly, I didn’t think he could do it. I know, I’m African-American, I should have believed it, but I didn’t. During the eternity leading up to the election, you know back in 2006 when Hilary and a ton of other people started campaigning—I thought, like everyone, the former first lady would be the Democrat’s pick and they would lose the election. At that point, I thought to myself, I would leave the country. Now, this was profound, because I love the United States. I know, African-Americans are somehow not suppose to love the U.S., but let’s be honest; whatever stupid racist notion that pops up any given day—there is little (in recent memory at least) in the way of ethnic cleansing, honor killings, or Frenchmen to give me pause. There is racism and it runs deep in the hearts of some, but not all. There is inequality and it robs people of opportunity. There is prejudice and it injury people painfully. These are problems that are not solved by the election of a black guy (sorry African-Americans). Moreover, Obama is not Jesus. I know some people who think he is Jesus or at least Jesus-like. I’m a historian and I have studied Chicago’s political and social life and I can say with absolute certainty that no politician from Chicago can be Jesus. Not that they must be a devil, but deification is out of the question. If you remember that scene from the movie the The Untouchables—the one where Sean Connery explains to Kevin Costner’s Elliot Ness how to get Caponee—that applies to Chicago politics. He brings knife, you bring a gun—escalate and repeat.

None of that matters because Obama won and it is the dawn of a new age. As a historian, I know, “new age” is not true. On election night I realized this was a profound moment for the United States and the world. Despite, the damage done to our standing in the world over the last eight years, people still look to the United States. Obama’s victory put much of the developed world in its place—none of them can claim a racial minority elected to executive office. In the developing world, there is hope the Obama will bring . . . greater concerns for their perspective. Both shifts are profound as they open the door to a new dialogue between the United States and the rest of the world. Yet, I do not believe Obama will abandon policies that have been the benchmark for the United States for a century. We may adjust our practices—more money to African Aid (something President Bush did, but got little credit), greater effort to be seen as a honest broker in the Middle East (a position that will likely take eight years to prove and get little solved) and more cooperation with the developed world on global issues like climate change, human rights, and crime (which would be good, but the average American often doesn’t . . . care). For all the profound impact represented by an Obama presidency, the way Americans judge the man and his administration will be simple. They will look to the government to do things to make their lives easier. So, Obama will be judged by the average American by the domestic agenda he forges. That is not the stuff for the creation of a new Pax Americana. The new president inherits problems both domestic and foreign that do not offer easy solutions. Yet, despite the challenges ahead, every American seems excited and the reason seems to be linked to race.

The obvious questions at the beginning of the Obama campaign was would race matter in the election. For many Americans the answer was yes. Some could not fathom voting for a man (or woman) of color. Others, by contrast, seemed eager to embrace the symbolism represented by an African-American President. While neither side would say race-based thinking drove them, I believe race played an important part. For those who could not vote for him—they worried about his qualifications or they didn’t have a good feeling about him or the liked someone else better—very few would say they feared the world would end when an African-American was in charge. On the other hand, Obama supporters did not focus on a notion of racial ascendency. Obama, himself, made one speech on race and wisely ignored the issue. Yet, in his person and his outlook, Obama represents a shift in racial reality in the United States—a shift that does not mean a revolution, but the continual evolution of the United States based on the ideas that we hold dear. Whether you voted for Obama or not, you cannot resist feeling a sense of pride that the United States is electing a new president who represents the idea that our founding fathers talked about but failed to deliver. His election means our experiment in Democracy still means something. At the end of the day, this is a new beginning that pushed the United States forward in the hearts and minds of many people around the world. We don’t know if he will be a great president or just okay, but we do know he will be president. Wow.

This week, one of our national literary treasures celebrates its silver anniversary. The twenty-fifth International Miami Book Fair takes place under the auspices of Mitchell Kaplan (of legendary Books and Books fame) and Miami Dade Community College. This year’s many authors include old friends Russell Banks, Nathan Englander, Sandra Conroy King, Esmeralda Santiago, John Dufresne, Les Standiford, Andrei Codrescu, Rick Bragg, Roy Blount, Jr., and Anthony Bourdain. I’ll be there Saturday, reading at 2 p.m., in room 7128. If you’re anywhere near South Florida, the book fair is an experience you will never forget. For the full slate of writers, check out the MIBF website.

A Sad Adieu

This is my last week at Wichita State. I leave brimming with that old happy/sad duality . . . happy because of the friends I’ve made, sad because I am leaving them behind. My students are exemplary: bright, hardworking, talented, funny, creative, and generous. I already feel a swell of pride as I spy the future and catch the glimmer of their successes: books, films, lives lived abundantly. I have made deep and long lasting friends among the faculty, as well. Peggy Rabb and Jeanine Hathaway, poets supreme and warrior women of the highest order, you have been so welcoming, so nurturing, so much fun! I guess what I really am trying to say is that the people here in the MFA program–both the students and the faculty–have enriched my life, provided me enduring memories, and reminded me anew about the importance of community in the lives of artists. Thank you is not enough but for now it is all I have.

Greetings from Wichita! For four weeks I am serving as the Distinguished Visiting Writer in Residence at Wichita State University. They have a FANTASTIC MFA program. The faculty is brilliant and engaged; the students are vastly talented and hardworking. No doubt, you will be reading some of their work in the future.

And as for the future, for those of you living anywhere near the Wichita area, I am giving a reading this Monday evening at the Wichita Art Museum. Here are the particulars. Hope to see you there.

CONNIE MAY’S READING
Monday, November 3, 2008
Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Wichita Art Museum
Street: 1400 West Museum Boulevard

BARACK THE VOTE ON NOVEMBER 4!

Life, I have to say, is pretty good. How can it not be? I just returned from a month in Greece, teaching writing at the Aegean Arts Circle’s annual conference and scoping out possibilities for next year (Yes, a Paros Project might be in my future . . . bye bye St. Augustine? Maybe. I’ll keep you posted). Anyway, by the time I left, my English was getting worse and my Greek was getting better . . . I could say one whole sentence: The sea is blue. Lorenzo, one of the owners of the FANTABULOUS Lefkes Village said, “What good is that sentence going to do you? You need to learn to say, Where is the soulvaki stand?”

Anyway, Athens was crowded but amazing: a dreamscape where the very ancient rubs against the ultra-chic, as if history is a dazzling, dizzying, and dangerous set of tectonic plates. Andros, with its mountain cliffs plunging nearly vertically into the sapphire Aegean sea, is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And Paros—especially the ancient village of Lefkes—provided me with some of the happiest days of my life. Conference director Amalia Melis and I spent hours exploring Byzantine trails and getting to know the locals, many of whom are potters, weavers, jewelry makers, and painters of the first order. We were delighted to meet George Pittas, the other owner of Lefkes Village, and a man who has spent much of his life studying Cycladic culture. Two of his books, Paros, A Journey into Space and Time and Marks of the Aegean are must reads for anyone interested in the history, people, culture, and future of the Cycladic Islands.

By the way, dear Andros crew–Andrew, Maryle, Miriam–I miss you!

To check out photos of My Big, Fat Grecian Adventure (and the astoundingly successful St. Augustine Project), wander on over to flickr. I’m adding more images daily.

Coming Home. . .

Upon my return, I reconnected with my old friends, Jack and Anne Rudloe. They run Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratories in Panacea, Florida. For those Floridians among you, even if you’ve been to the lab before, go again! You won’t be disappointed. Bring everyone—including children—who need to remember or learn why this state is worth fighting for. Jack and Anne are legendary warriors in the bid to save Florida from the wrecking ball. The lab, itself, is bigger and better than ever. The petting pools are phenomenal. But my favs are the octopi. They are smart, flirty, and make sweet goo-goo eyes . . . gee, sounds as if I’m talking about the perfect date.

Celebrations . . .

Rane Arroyo’s The Buried Sea: New and Selected Poems will be available in October through The University of Arizona Press. Matt Rothchild’s first book, a memoir titled Dumbfounded (Crown) hits bookstores August 12. Laura van den Berg’s first collection of short stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, will be published by Dzanc Books in late 2009. Robert Walker’s poems are getting published everywhere, it seems. And good friend John Dufresne’s latest novel, Requiem, Mass. was just published by Norton in July.

As for me? I am deep into the revision/polish/curse/and hope phase. How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly is getting shinier and more complex by the moment. I’m hoping that’s a good thing. Also, check out my culinary column (this time it’s on Haitian food) and my article on Edwidge Danticat in the forthcoming issue of FORUM. And if I may toot my own horn for two seconds longer . . . I just received a Telly Award for my televised interview with Russell Banks (thank you Bill Suchy and Orange TV!) and I was recently named the Distinguished Visiting Writer-in-Residence at Wichita State University. I’ll spend four weeks this fall at WSU, teaching a select group of their writing students.

Well, the thermometer just hit 106 degrees. Here, in my little shack by the sea, in the deep heat of this long afternoon, even the cicada song is muted. So, as they say in Greece before retreating for their siesta, Yassas!

Traveling Shoes . . .

Dateline: Tampa, Miami, St. Augustine, Greece.

In Tampa, I was deeply moved by the commitment of that community to heal the children they serve. Joshua House is one of the finest organizations I have had the privilege to speak to. The love and care that Joshua House exhibits to children who have experienced the unspeakable is something that I hope one day will be replicated in every community in this country. Being among those folks made me proud of my Tampa roots.

In Miami, I taught an eclectic, brilliant group of writers at the Florida Center for the Literary Arts at Miami Dade College. In four short days we bonded, learning all over again why we love the written word.

In St. Augustine, we held our first annual Below Sea Level Writers Conference and what a time we had! Dorothy Allison and I spent seven days teaching, laughing, sometimes crying, and celebrating the talents of twenty-one deeply gifted writers. We hosted New York literary agent Joy Harris, rising literary star Laura van den Berg, and WordSmitten editor Kate Sullivan. Our writers left St. Augustine and the gorgeous Casa Monica Hotel exhausted but filled with The Muse. Check out conference photos at flickr.

In Greece, well . . . Greece is the future. Who knows what adventures, what stories, what deep bonds we will discover. If you’d like to join us, contact Aegean Arts Circle director Amalia Melis.

Offshore Drilling in Florida? An Open Letter to Governor Crist

June 18, 2008

Dear Governor Crist:

Okay, in the spirit of full disclosure, let me say flat out: I didn’t vote for you. But I admit, you surprised me. At least, up until yesterday. Before then, I could say that while I didn’t agree with everything you did, I understood why some of my more forgiving friends ventured that you might be a Democrat in Republican raiment. Tuesday, you proved them wrong.

Last week (as late as Monday, June 9, according to the Associated Press), you reiterated your position that there should be no oil drilling off the Florida shore. Yesterday, after Senator McCain flip-flopped, thus morphing into Big Oil’s mouthpiece (oh how far away the 2000 campaign truly is), you betrayed us. Citing the “suffering” of the Florida people, you mimicked the senator’s flip-flop with all the fury of a bully who desperately wants to be picked for the team and who doesn’t care who he hurts or betrays in the process. In the faint but hopeful light of being one thrombosis away from becoming the President of the United States, offshore drilling is suddenly a groovy idea.

Forget that oil derricks sprouting like metal vultures from the blue waters of the Gulf and new refineries mushrooming in toxic glory in our marshlands would toll the death knell for Florida’s $60 billion recreation and tourism industry.

Forget that we are on the cusp of truly seizing alternative energy sources that will not only make offshore drilling passé (an environmental Marquis de Sade joke) but might very well save the planet.

Forget future-think; go ahead: drag us into the mistake-riddled past where we say no to forward thinking, choosing to remain dependent on fossil fuels and, in the process, break Mother Nature’s back.

We know the truth. Even if we began drilling offshore tomorrow, we wouldn’t see it effect energy prices for seven to ten years. Drilling in ANWAR will gain us even slower results. Let’s be optimistic and roll the dice at seven. With the proper inspiration (which $4+ a gallon gas truly is) and sound policies (investing in new technologies), surely we will develop those deeply needed alternative energy sources. Why say no to foreign oil when we should be saying no to oil, period?

We know the truth. Senator McCain changes his mind like a child who can’t decide if he wants the red gumball or the green one. Three weeks ago in a town hall meeting in Wisconsin he stated that offshore drilling was not the answer: “ [W]ith those resources, which would take years to develop, you would only postpone or temporarily relieve our dependency on fossil fuels. We are going to have to go to alternative energy, and the exploitation of existing reserves of oil, natural gas, even coal, and we can develop clean coal technology, are all great things. But we also have to devote our efforts, in my view, to alternative energy sources, which is the ultimate answer to our long-term energy needs, and we need it sooner rather than later.”

We know the truth. Senator McCain is misinformed when he tells us that offshore drilling is an accident-free endeavor. According to the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, between 1997 and 2007, there have been 242 spills from tankers, combined carriers and barges (acts of war not included).

We know the truth. People in Iowa or Nebraska or Kansas might not care as much as Floridians and Californians do about devastated shorelines thanks to offshore drilling, but how does Senator McCain think he’s going to win the election without Florida or California? By becoming Big Oil’s Big Brother, how do you think you’ll snag a second term as governor if the senator passes you over?

We know the truth. Smell the air in Texas City and tell us that refineries do not turn the air we breathe into a lethal stew.

We know the truth. Much of it resides in Dana Milbank’s June 17 Washington Post column. I’ll hit a couple of highlights:

“During his last run for the presidency, in 1999, McCain supported the drilling moratorium, and he scolded the ‘special interests in Washington’ that sought offshore drilling leases.”

Special interests in Washington? Again, how long ago that 2000 campaign.

Milbank quotes, Holly Binns, field director for Environment Florida, as saying, referring to Senator McCain’s Big Oil stance, “This is a state where if you don’t understand how deep the connections are to our identity and our culture, you could step on a land mine. This could be one of those cases.”

We know the truth. Your decision to throw our state to the oil-drilling wolves means you have lost your way, sir.

But change is in the air. After all, if Senator McCain can flip-flop like a beached mullet, why can’t you?

Governor, step away from Holly Binns’ metaphorical land mine. Do not turn your back on the Florida people in favor of Big Oil. Do not abandon rational thought in your hell bent desire to be Senator McCain’s running mate. I beg you, do not betray the people you took an oath to serve. If you do, I fear for your legacy, our children, our planet.

Most sincerely, a proud Floridian,
Connie May Fowler

Here are a few lists I jotted while I wait on spring to unfold in all her glorious decadence.

Reasons to Celebrate

I have finally marched my way through to the end of the first draft of How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly.

There is a ringed-neck turtle dove AND a red-headed woodpecker at the feeder outside my studio window.

It’s not going to be cold again until December.

I am learning to fish–really and again.

The kayak is clean and ready for her first trip of the season and I will not care how cold the water is come April 1.

Reasons to be Awed

My pup taught herself to knock on the dog door when she wants in.

The white squirrel in my yard.

I-Phones.

Last night I dreamed I was a pigeon.

The sky.

The Wire is over.

My kitchen needs a new floor.

My carpenter won’t return my calls.

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly needs my undivided attention but the world has other plans.

The fish are stoned from all the freaking pharmaceuticals we’re flushing down our toilets. Just say no, Nancy Reagan!

Travel Plans? (not exactly a list, but important)

Come to Greece and eat, drink, dance, write, and be merry among the ancients and moi. I will be there this July teaching at the Aegean Arts Circle annual writers conference on the beautiful island of Andros. Join me for seven days—July 7-14—while we explore your writing and the astonishing beauty, history, and food of Greece.

CMF: Where She Wanders

The Sanibel Public Library, March 14, 2 p.m.

Wordsmitten Writing Workshop Series, March 22, University of Tampa.

Joshua House, Child Abuse Awareness Luncheon, April 25, Tampa, the Marriott Waterside at ll:30 a.m. Tickets can be purchased by calling 813-263-3469.

Below Sea Level: The St. Augustine Project Writers Conference, June 1-8, Casa Monica Hotel. The conference is full, however there will be a public reading the evening of June 7 with myself, Laura van den Berg, and Dorothy Allison. Details to come.

Aegean Arts Circle on the beautiful island of Andros. July 7-14.

And One Other List

Being a fallen Catholic, sin fascinates me. So, of course, I am tickled a loose shade of scarlet that the Vatican is adding to their already exceedingly long list of no no’s. The Pope and his Boys in Red evidently have just caught on that amassing glutinous wealth and polluting with all the vigor of a flatulent, pork-n-bean eating King Kong should buy a soul a layover in Purgatory (or did they get rid of that too?). Anyway, I’m all for the super wealthy and the super polluters (aren’t they members of the same country club?) going straight to Hell. But I’m disappointed that they didn’t ask for public input. However, in the off chance that the Pope–as he lounges in his silk kimono, listening to Coltrane on the IPod–will turn on his MacBook Pro and surf on over to this website, I offer a few suggestions.

Connie May’s Addendum to The Sin List

The following shall spend eternity frying:
1. Anyone and everyone, including priests, who prey on children.
2. Anyone and everyone, including health insurance executives, who believe a corporation’s profits have more value than even a single human life.
3. Anyone and everyone who contributed to the Katrina tragedy. The Army Corp of Engineers, Brownie, Bush, Nagin, and FEMA come immediately to mind.
4. Anyone and everyone who lied about there being WMDs in order to catapult us into war (and don’t start on me; yes, I support the troops; no, I don’t support the war).
5. Anyone and everyone who, claiming to be a journalist, utters one more word about Paris Hilton, that Kardashian chick, or any of their drunken friends (p.s.: showing your coochie is NOT a talent).
6. Anyone and everyone who thought that twenty (count ‘em: 20!) primary debates was a good idea. God help us come September.
7. Anyone and everyone involved in making my home state of Florida look like the Dumbass State rather than the Sunshine State thanks to playing politics, yet again, with a presidential election.
8. Anyone and everyone who had any hand in developing the voicemail systems we find ourselves trapped in when we call nearly any company, anywhere. Do you suppose hell has voice mail?
9. My third grade teacher.
10. The Head On commercials: actors, writers, stock holders, grips, and gaffers.

So, tell me, what’s on your list?

Happy New Year, everyone!

For me, 2007 was a year of intense change–quit my day job, moved from Florida to Kentucky and back to Florida, lost my dear Atticus but gained the wonderful puppy Murmur Lee; discovered the digital worlds of MySpace, Facebook, and flickr; and love blessed me (can I get a hallelujah on that one!).

As for 2008, it promises to be a period of polishing and finalizing much of what ‘07 threw atcha girl. I will put the finishing touches on How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly (yippee and finally!). In fact, ‘08 will be all about writing—I am so happy about this. Not only will my novel finally be finished (pub date to come), I have several other book projects I can’t wait to get started on and my food column in FORUM launches in a couple of months (more on that soon).

So with all that in mind, here is a brief look at what’s coming up (don’t miss the St. Augustine Project deadline!).

Wishing you the best year ever!
cmf

The St. Augustine Project

The deadline for applying for The St. Augustine Project is January 15, so don’t dawdle! I have had a few people say they don’t think they are good enough writers to apply. NOT! By “serious writers” I mean folks who are serious about their writing—simple as that. I do not mean that you already have an agent and a contract. So don’t be shy. If you want to work for a week with me, Dorothy Allison, super agent Joy Harris, and editors from Ploughshares, Redivider, and WordSmitten Quarterly, then send that manuscript! For further details, log onto www.writingbelowsealevel.com.

SPECS

Some people have written me, asking specific questions about submitting manuscripts to SPECS, the new journal/brainchild of my friend Vidhu Aggarwal at Rollins College. I’m not involved in the day-to-day workings so I can’t answer your questions. Please send all inquiries to editors@specsjournal.org.

The Aegean Arts Circle in Greece this Summer

Thanks to Amalia Melis and the Aegean Arts Circle, I will be teaching at the AAC in Greece again this summer. The dates haven’t been firmed up yet (it will be after The St. Augustine Project Writers Conference) but will be soon. For more info, visit www.aegeanartscircle.com.

Other Dates

March 14, 2008: The Sanibel Public Library
April 25, 2008: The Friends of Joshua House Foundation in Tampa

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly: Another Profoundly Flawed, Early Draft Excerpt that Probably Won’t Make the Final Edit

He cocked his head to the left, then the right. His handsome face was crinkled in concentration.
“Why you want this car?” he asked. He turned to her. “I mean . . .” he tapped his index finger on the dash, “this car.”
“You’re supposed to try to be selling me. Not interrogating me. ”
“You a lady. This is a man’s car.”
“Then why did you show it to me?” Clarissa, deep inside, felt as if her imaginary fall from the Sears Tower was about to end on a positive note.
He laughed. “That’s right. I show it to you. But you want it. I mean want it, the way a man wants. Why?”
Clarissa looked at him—his face was open and beautiful—and then back at the road. Dead Oak lay just ahead in the glimmering distance. She knew the answer, and the knowledge made her light-headed; it was the same feeling she experienced in the old days when she was writing and writing well, when she knew the next word she typed would not simply be an okay word or a good word but the only word in all the English language that would do.
Still, she took her time, not answering immediately, allowing herself the luxury of experiencing the totality of the El Camino, feeling the engine’s power radiate up through the drive shaft, steering column, the tiny bones of each finger. She listened to the truck’s pitch perfect rumble the way a jazz aficionado listens to Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” She saw the yellow hood gleaming, a few stray clouds reflected in its polished shine, and thought that there was nothing mundane about power and utility combined. In her mind, she sat down at the keyboard and began typing, clicking the letters that would form the perfect word. Click, click, click: everything—the alphabet and all its sounds—lined up as if they were charmed and she was their wizard.
She knew Raul was watching her, and she liked that. She looked over at him. His brown eyes were patient, intent, hungry. Hunger for a woman, for air, for life—that was something she hadn’t seen in her own husband in months. Or was it years? Raul was the kind of man, she knew, who if he ever did cheat on his wife would impale himself with guilt and shame. He might even confess and Clarissa hoped that if any of that actually happened, his wife would forgive him.
“You want to know why, really why?” Clarissa asked.
“Si. Yes.”
She caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror. She was sweaty. Dirty. Unafraid. “Freedom,” she said.

The St. Augustine Project . . .

So I’m out here on the coast, basking in 80 degree temps, watching the dolphins frolic and the osprey soar . When I’m not jamming to the tropical vibe, I’m staring into the computer screen, conjuring Clarissa Burden, figuring out my heroine’s next move. Betwixt all that, I’m writing my first food column for FORUM which is due just before Christmas.

This is why I haven’t yet pestered you about applying for the St. Augustine Project, A Seven-Day, Workshop Intensive, Writing Conference Featuring moi, the legendary Dorothy Allison, literary agent extraordinaire Joy Harris, and vastly talented writers and literary mag editors Kate Sullivan (WordSmitten) and Laura van den Berg (Redivider and Ploughshares). The deadline to apply (including sending your application manuscript) is January 15. For all the delicious details, click here.

Speculate . . .

I’m on the editorial board of a new literary magazine SPECS, which is the brainchild of my friend Vidhu Aggarwal. We’re accepting all kinds of stuff–as long as it meets our exacting standards. Here are the details:

Specs is a journal of contemporary culture and arts at Rollins College that aims to create sympathetic interfaces between artistic and critical practices. The editors invite submissions of creative and/or critical work for the annual Fall 2008 print and web issue. We seek works of fiction, non-fiction, cultural criticism, artwork, poetry, and pieces that blur genre boundaries. The editorial board consists of writers and academics from various fields. The editors are excited by specialty, an excess of detail, fragments, narratives, meta-narratives, and more. The deadline for poetry, creative non-fiction, fiction, and art is March 3, 2008. We accept simultaneous submissions of creative work, as long as we receive prompt notice of acceptance elsewhere. Please limit prose submissions to under 6000 words and poetry submissions to 10-12 pages. Email submissions as word attachments to editors@specsjournal.org. Remember to include a brief cover letter indicating whether you wish to be considered for the print edition, the web edition, or both. Please be advised color artwork with heavy graphics will only be considered for the web edition. Artwork for the print edition is limited to black on white work (4 x 7 dimensions). Please also indicate the type/genre of submission in the subject heading (Poetry, Fiction, etc.). We are also seeking visual art, fiction, poetry, and critical work that limits itself to one-page pieces for ONE/OFF, a special interactive section of Specs. In this section, we hope to force interactions between the print and web edition. Please visit our website at www.specsjournal.org for more details.

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly . . .

Here is a morsal from my novel, but don’t get too comfortable: it probably won’t make the final cut:

Clarissa looked beyond the rag tag line of graves that surrounded her, feeling certain there were plots without headstones, that bodies had been dumped and abandoned, that she was walking on the graves of women and their children who had been long forgotten. A sadness as thick as the fetid air descended on her. These were her sisters, sisters who had been considered disposable, unclean, unworthy. Maybe it wasn’t a yellow jack cemetery at all. Maybe it was a Potter’s Field for women who spoke their minds or whose sexuality was considered too obvious, tempting, dangerous, evil—bad women spawning bad seed. Maybe she had stumbled onto her own private Salem.

Namaste and Happy Holidays!
cm

THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER RETURNS