Got an email today saying they are offering a 10% coupon for Pomegranate Stories as a special summer promotion. So if you ever had the inclination to get this collection of eight stories by me, now is a good time to do just that.
Here’s the Lulu link: Pomegranate Stories by Gay Degani, regularly $9.99, on sale now with coupon for $8.99. Enter coupon code: SUMMERREAD303
I wrote this post in 2006 after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Given the continued abuse by nature and man (most recently as we all know by BP and their inability to deal with disaster), Louisiana is even more in danger of disappearing than ever before. I thought I’d repost this review of the excellent book by Michael Tidwell, Bayou Farewell.
According to Michael Tidwell, in his book Bayou Farewell, twenty-five miles of Louisiana coastline disappear each year. That’s 25. 2-5. And this statistic may be more dramatic in the wake of Katrina and Rita, yet most of us are unaware of what is happening in the estuaries of Southern Louisiana.
The state’s rich supply of wildlife, animal, marine, and avian, is threatened by the advance of the Gulf of Mexico into the wetlands. It’s turning fresh water into salt, drowning native grasses, oak trees, cemeteries, and small towns. Changes in the fragile chemistry of the wetlands endangers oysters and crabs. Eventually the migration route for the white and brown shrimp will disappear. The people of this area are in retreat.
Louisiana fishermen supply “an astonishing 30 percent of American’s annual seafood harvest, measured by weight.” When the wildlife is gone and the people are relocated to higher ground, we all lose.In recent years, many of us have experienced the unique culture of “Sout’ Loosiane” by traveling to New Orleans and perhaps cruising down Bayou Black or Lafourche.
Many of us know Louisiana through movies like The Big Easy and books such as Heaven’s Prisoners by James Lee Burke. And most of us have fallen in love with the food, the shrimp okra gumbo, the blackened red-fish, the crawfish etoufee. Would there be the BAM of Emeril without Cajun food? What’s Cajun food without Louisiana shrimp, red-fish, oysters, and crabs?
The state’s plight is everyone’s problem and Tidwell’s book takes you deep into the heart of the swamp.Writing before Katrina and Rita, Tidwell relates his journey through the wetlands via shrimp trawlers, crab boats, and oil-company supply ship. He hitch-hikes down bayous and canals, meeting and talking with Cajuns, the Houma tribe, Vietnamese settlers, and the environmentalists who are trying to wake up America to this continuing tragedy.
Author and Louisianan Burke says Bayou Farewell is “The best book on Louisiana I have ever read…stunning, beautifully written,” and I have to add that it’s a jolting call to arms for the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico.
It reminds me of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a book length essay about man’s responsibility to the planet and to ourselves. Silent Spring changed the way we think about our custodial duty to the environment and Bayou Farewell admonishes us as to how we have forgotten that duty.
Over thousands of years, the Mississippi has built the delta that makes up Southern Louisiana. The estuary and its wildlife developed because of the river’s constant deposit of sediment at its mouth. This natural process has been interrupted by man and levee system which now takes that sediment and dumps it over the continental shelf and into the Gulf of Mexico. In other words, Louisiana wetlands are being starved of its nourishment of dirt, mud, silt, sand. As the sediment is denied into the area, the salty waters of the Gulf are filling the void, moving farther and farther inland. The end result is the disappearance of the land, the creatures that inhabit it, and a unique way of life.
There are solutions to help rebuild the coastline and estuaries, but Tidwell warns us to take action now. At the rate of twenty-five miles per year, that gives us maybe thirty years before it’s all gone.
I urge you to read Bayou Farewell and tell others to read it. Send it to your congressman. Your senator. President Obama. Thanks for your attention and time.
Every Day Fiction publishes a fresh flash fiction story for each day of the year.
Here’s the May Table of Contents
May 1 / timothy l jones /In America There Is Food
May 2 / Patsy Collins / Enchanting
May 3 / M. J. Rafferty / Through Grady’s Door
May 4 /Heather Holland Wheaton / Rain
May 5 / Fadzlishah Johanabas / Yana
May 6 / Scott W. Baker / The Drake’s Eye
May 7 / Ev Bishop / On the Wall
May 8 / Donna Steiner / Exit
May 9 / Kip / Saving Darth Vader
May 10 / Wayne Scheer / The American Dream
May 11 / JR Hume / High Road
May 12 / Deborah Winter-Blood / Stampede
May 13 / Zena Greene / A Message for Me
May 14 / Robert Swartwood / Multiplicity
May 15 / Blaise Lucey / The Elevator
May 16 / Stacey Py Flynn / Letter to a Stranger
May 17 / Oonah V Joslin / Stranger Still
May 18 / Stef Hall / Promise
May 19 / Douglas Campbell / Hollow Jake
May 20 / Joyce Chng / Cog-work Cat
May 21 / Ariane Synovitz / What Is Left
May 22 / Belinda Rees / Resolution Drive
May 23 / Bint Arab / The Sight
May 24 / John P. McCann / Fresh Ideas
May 25 / J.C. Towler / Warning Belles
May 26 / J.L. Smith The White
May 27 / Tanya Byrne / Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
May 28 / Shaun Simon / Snowman
May 29 / Aaron Polson / Cookies
May 30 / Grace Andreacchi / Destination: Happiness
May 31 / Adam Armour / Given Hindsight
Congratulations to the first place winner of the String-of-10 TWO Microfiction contest. Read “Salvation at Every Day Fiction here: SALVATION • by Ann M. Pino Every Day Fiction – The once a day flash fiction magazine.
Then read the interview with author Ann Pino at Flash Fiction Chronicles here:
Today launches String-of-10 TWO week. Today at Flash Fiction Chronicles we feature an interview with Sharon E. Trotter, last August’s first place winner with her story “The Haircut.”
Next week, we publish John Towler’s “Gypsy Flour” and Brittany Soder’s “Good Morning, Susan” along with interviews with the second place Towler and third place Soder.
On Friday, Every Day Fiction will publish Ann Pino’s “Salvation” and we at Flash Fiction Chronicles will carry an interview with Ms. Pino.
In the following weeks, we’ll feature another String interview with Joel Willans, guest judge of the February competiton as well as an interview with Gaius Coffey, author of the Top Read story at Every Day Fiction for March.
Personal News:
I have a new story up at Short Story America: “Wounded Moon.” It’s so cool how they do it. It’s like it’s own little book. You may have to join in order to read it, but probably not.
Other recent pieces include:
Okay You’re Writing: How to Keep Track at Flash Fiction Chronicles
What’s Next at 50 to 1
Madeline in Her Coffin at Referential Magazine
I’ve posted a way to keep track of stories and subs over at Flash Fiction Chronicles. However, it’s one of those iffy propositions. I may not be the right person to actually make recommedations.
I also wanted to let people know that the resolution of the String-of-10 TWO Contest is approaching (the climax being the announcement of the winners. I feel a blog post about three-act structures coming on—be gone be gone!!!)
Here’s how things should unfold:
Friday April 9 or April 19th
Interview with Guest Judge Joel Willans by
new FFC assistant editor, Tanya SchofieldMonday April 12
Third place winner “Good Morning Susan” published at
FFCInterview with author Brittany Soder
Wednesday April 14
Second place winner “Gypsy Flour” published at FFC
Interview with author John Towler
Friday April 16
First Place winner “Salvation” published at Every Day
FictionInterview with First Place author Ann Pino at FFC
Okay You’re Writing: How to Keep Track « Flash Fiction Chronicles
April brings us another 30 flash pieces to read from Every Day Fiction including the Flash Fiction Chronicles String-of-10 Microfiction contest winning story “Salvation” by Ann Pino.
Apr 1/James Bloomfield/Telephone Call
Apr 2/Tommy B. Smith/Mr. Philpot
Apr 3/Manuel Royal/Birthday Troll
Apr 4/Christopher Floyd/Insight
Apr 5/Mickey Mills/The Newly Dead of Winter
Apr 6/John Wiswell/Computer Education
Apr 7/Joshua S Walker/Open-Minded Gentleman
Apr 8/Kaolin Imago Fire/Fading
Apr 9/Jon Bland/Damaged Goods
Apr 10/William Knight/Electric Smiles
Apr 11/Patrick Perkins/Speed Trap
Apr 12/Jenny Schwartz/After Midnight
Apr 13/J.C. Towler/Dour Cutler
Apr 14/Jan Melara/Covered Dish Supper
Apr 15/S.J. Higbee/A Drop of the Hard Stuff
Apr 16/Ann M. Pino/Salvation
Apr 17/R.F. Marazas/What’s In A Name?
Apr 18/James Hartley/Priorities
Apr 19/Rhiannon Morgan/Sucka for Punishment
Apr 20/Peter Charles/Slurpy
Apr 21/Chad Redden/Building a Sparrow
Apr 22/Maureen Wilkinson/The Cool Bag
Apr 23/Stacey Py Flynn/Tryst
Apr 24/Giles Turnbull/Winner of the Regional Best Chip Shop Award, 2006
Apr 25/Oonah V Joslin/Cider Sunrise
Apr 26/Ruth Imeson/Turning the Tables
Apr 27/Ladonna A. Watkins/Chocolate Milk
Apr 28/Lorette C. Luzajic/Shrinking
Apr 29/Fadzlishah Johanabas/Secrets
Apr 30/Aaron Polson/Blue Collar Boys
And if that isn’t enough to read, here are some things by or about me out there:
Review of Pomegranate Stories by Jackie Houchin
Writers in Residence Interview by Jacqueline Vick
Podcast of The Breach by me, read by Robert C. Eccles
Addicted to Flash by me, at Flash Fiction.Net
Recent Story Publications:
Madeline in Her Coffin at Referential Magazine
Heartland and What’s Next at 50 to 1
Complicit at Smokelong Quarterly
Gay Degani 
