The Motivation Behind Writing this Novel
I wrote Katrina Wedding for two main reasons:
- To tell my personal story of what it was like to come home after one of the worst natural disasters in United States history.
- To document a Katrina story that was about the Mississippi Gulf Coast and detail what happened here.
It has been six years since Hurricane Katrina came across Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, then went north right around the Mississippi state line and continued halfway across the continent. Since then, I feel like Mississippi has been all but forgotten by those not from the South. If it weren't for TV celebrities like ABC's Robin Roberts, a Coast native, I wonder how much follow-up attention we would have gotten at all. For example:
- In August 2010, marking the five-year anniversary of Katrina, the New York Times wrote an article called On Anniversary of Katrina, Signs of Healing. The word 'Mississippi' does not appear one time in the story. It's entirely about New Orleans.
- Also in August 2010, CNN ran a Katrina anniversary story in which Mississippi gets a brief mention as it focused on the city of Waveland, but that doesn't come until the middle of the article and then everything before and after it was about New Orleans. CNN did at least get its information correct about Mississippi being hit first and worst.
- In June 2009, ABC News ran a story which pointed out how President Obama's officials have made more than 20 visits to Louisiana, but only five to Mississippi. A year later, on the five-year anniversary of the storm, he only visited New Orleans.
I didn't write this book to politicize what happened after Katrina, but I do think it is important that this story be told someone who lived in the area before and after the hurricane. I am a ninth generation Mississippian and direct descendent of the state's first congressman, Dr. William Lattimore. In fact, I'm named after him. The rest of the world needs to know what it was like in Mississippi after the storm, because I don't feel like they will get the full story so long as New Orleans keeps getting all the attention.
In conclusion, I invite you to read this excerpt from a chapter in Katrina Wedding about New Orleans, as it summarizes my point:
Many Mississippians, especially those on the Coast, feel like the majority of the media attention on Katrina had been focused on the city of New Orleans. We felt ignored and left out almost every time there was a news story. I’ve personally read many articles on news websites such as CNN or FOX News where the article was about Katrina, and it was nothing but ‘New Orleans this’ and ‘New Orleans that’ and maybe an ‘…and Mississippi, too’ addition at the end.
I’ve spoken to many people on the Internet who were not familiar with the Gulf Coast and had no idea how much damage Mississippi had taken from Katrina. Like so many others, they thought Katrina mostly impacted New Orleans. I certainly don’t want to discount what happened to the people of New Orleans, because they took as big a hit as the Mississippi Gulf Coast did. I just want my readers to understand that they took a different kind of hit than we did.
Where to buy Katrina Wedding:
The ebook is currently available at Amazon.com for Kindle readers, Barnes & Noble for Nook readers, iTunes Bookstore for Apple iPhone/iPod/iPad users, and Smashwords.
The printed book is now available from Amazon.com, Lulu.com, or direct from the author. It is also available in the following stores along the Mississippi gulf coast: Bay Books in Bay St. Louis, Pages Bookstore and More in Ocean Springs, Mississippi Made Mississippi Proud in Gulfport, and Landers Fine Art and Framing in Gulfport.
If you would like to pay by check or money order, please print and mail this order form.
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