Seven Years Since the Oil Spilled

BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded seven years ago on April 20, 2010. I recently did a book signing for Trails in the Sand, my novel that uses the oil spill as the backdrop to the drama unfolding in one family. “The race to save wildlife from tar balls approaching Florida’s beaches runs parallel to a reporter’s

#DeepwaterHorizon-Using Reality in Fiction

  They’ve now made a movie about Deepwater Horizon (Click here to see the trailer). I heard an interview with the director, Peter Berg, and he said he didn’t focus the movie on the environmental impact but on the human lives lost. That’s good because the explosion on that oil rig killed eleven men. This

FLORIDA FICTION – GRAB A COPY FOR #FREE!

Good morning – I’m running a special offer this week. If you haven’t read any of the books from my Florida Fiction series, now is the chance to grab the first two for free. All three books are stand alone novels. Each one has its own cast of characters and political, romantic, and environmental issues facing

CELEBRATE THE EARTH BY REMEMBERING THE PAST

Sometimes an anniversary involves a celebration of some sort. The events marked today are separate, yet inexplicably connected through virtue of their messages. Six years ago today, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven men working on the rig and doing untold damage to the environment and wildlife as

TRAILS IN THE SAND CONTINUES

  I wrote Trails in the Sand in 2013, two years after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the Upper Big Branch Massey coal mine explosion in West Virginia. The two events occurred within two weeks of one another and killed a total of forty men. Both tragedies could have been prevented if safety standards had

Happy #Earth Day – Pay Dirt – #Composting

Happy Earth Day 2015! Celebrating Earth Day is a little bit like giving canned goods to the homeless at the holidays as if that’s the only time the food is needed. Same with Earth Day. We get all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about doing things to help the environment, but then May comes along, and

Five Year Anniversary of #Deepwater Horizon Disaster

Five years ago today I sat in bed reading the morning papers and listening to Good Morning America. A little passing news story took up less than a minute of air time to let us know that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico had caught on fire. No big deal. Until it was. Eleven

#BP Oil Spill Four Years Ago – Let Us Not Forget

BP’s oil spill in 2010 still haunts us today as scientists study the lingering effects of the millions of barrels of oil that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico. At the time of the spill, I worked for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as a public relations director. Immediately, our agency became watchdogs

#BP Oil Spill Four Years Later

Almost four years after Deepwater Horizon caught on fire and opened up the well that gushed millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, some of the long term effects are being felt. BP’s oil spill may be with us for many decades to come. Let us not forget the lessons learned. Safety

#Florida Fiction – Celebrate #Earth Day 2014

Florida–surrounded on both sides by water–is vulnerable to the changes inherent in the world today. Sea level rises, beach erosion, and increased intensity of hurricanes leave the state open to natural disasters. Add to that the unmitigated sprawl of developers to the Sunshine State for its landscape and warm weather, and all the elements for