Hey, it’s Shark Week, that time of year everyone gathers around their TVs to watch great white sharks fly through the air!  So then it’s probably a good time to read IN DEEP, my contemporary romance novel which champions sharks, isn’t it? “No,” I can hear you say, “they’re horrible man-eaters.”

Not so fast, shark-hater. These ancient predators, which predate dinosaurs, are essential to ocean health, keeping coral reefs clean as well as balancing populations of other marine animals.  If they go extinct (a possibility with certain species!), there will be ripples throughout the food chain that will affect every single one of us.

Surprised?  Yup, it’s true.  These are the facts you learn when you’re fascinated with sharks, as I have been since I was a young girl.  I cannot explain why exactly other than I find them transfixing. What I can tell you is that my passion to protect them is fueled by the “who cares” attitude of the general public when the world has slaughtered 90% of shark populations.  Think about that.  Ninety percent! It’s staggering.  That this ever occurred and that the media/entertainment industries still insist on demonizing them and sensationalizing each encounter with humans is crazy.

With that, I ask you to please enjoy Shark Week with a newfound respect and appreciation for sharks.

As a writer, I feel I get to know my story’s characters intimately.  They begin to fill my every thought: what they look like, what they want to say, the conflicts in their lives, and the emotions they feel.  Conveying all this to paper, however, so a reader will know them as well as I do, is the challenging part. Unlike a story told in a conversation, a reader cannot stop me mid-sentence when something doesn’t make sense to them or they need further clarification.  Writers only have one chance to draw these characters.  It’s especially important that they connect with the story’s protagonist, the main character.

Think back to your favorite story character.  A character you were sorry to see go when you turned the last page of the book.  Who was it? Why did you connect with them so deeply?  What about them resonates with you to this day? I’m hoping to perfect my story writing by creating protagonists so engaging you won’t be able to put the book down.   I would love to hear your answers to these questions.

If historical fiction helps us learn about history in the form of an entertaining story, environmental fiction offers to do the same about the environment.  And, gosh, there is a lot for us to learn: factors influencing climate change, threats to wildlife, recycling options, renewable energy. Need I go on?  It seems we can’t escape the changes; they are the front page of nearly every media source.  Even the Pope is making it an international priority.

The difference between historical and environmental fiction, however, is environmental offers the opportunity to educate us on ways to prevent or change our behaviors before things get worse.  Heroic protagonists take us to the extremes of these issues-makes us aware and invite us to join them in making this planet a better place.  The reader is given a superhero cape to wear at the end of the last page.  The choice to don it is ours.   But as film director, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, says about her award-winning documentary, Blackfish, “Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it.” The same is true for reading.

Environmental Fiction offers a wide canvas for writers today and new stories for readers.  Have you read a book that you’ve enjoyed in this genre? 

Susan Allison-Dean’s novels include issues affecting dolphins and whales. Order them today at your favorite online bookstore.

#environment #AmReading #books 

If a local restaurant were giving away your favorite meal, for free, would you go?  Yup, me too.  And so would quite a few of your family, friends and neighbors.  The restaurant would be packed.  People might start getting cranky waiting online.  Your mouth would start to water in anticipation.  Maybe so many people would come that the restaurant ran out.  Then what?

The recent shark bites in North Carolina is indeed tragic.  My prayers go out to the two teenagers who both lost limbs just hours apart while enjoying the ocean.  But before we go on a shark hunt, lets take a deeper look at that day.

I have been to several beaches along the North Carolina shore.  They are exquisite-warm, not too rough, on a calm day they can almost mimic the Caribbean waters. People of all ages take surfing lessons, couples stand up paddle a mile out, thousands of people cool off from the sweltering heat. I’ve seen sharks swim right along the shore.  Last summer, in fact, while watching dolphins fish out in the distance, a large shark about 7 feet long swam in the crest of a wave right in between people bobbing in the water.  
           
“Did you see that?” my friend sitting next to me exclaimed as a middle-age woman fled the water and silently mouthed, “Shark!” to her husband.

“Yeah,” I replied as the shark meandered on, the other swimmers completely oblivious.

Truth is, that those of us who love the ocean may have had a shark pass by at some point.  If you watch the tagged sharks on Ocearch, you may very well see large great whites coming near your favorite beach.  I know I have, several times. Twitter sensation @MaryLeeShark is a frequent visitor to the North Carolina waters where I go.

So what went wrong on June  off of Oak Island?  A perfect storm.  According to local ABC11 EyewitnessNews,  fisherman were shark fishing off a local pier, inviting sharks to feed with bloody chum.  It was late in the afternoon.  Perhaps the water was a bit murky.  Those sharks were most likely pumped up to eat and they feasted on what was in the water. 

The Raleigh, North Carolina area is booming.  Forbes and other magazines have rated it the number one city to find a job.  And guess where those relocated people go to relax-the North Carolina shores.  Once again, man versus nature and it’s complications is in front of us.

Knowing North Carolina, there are probably local residents who have been shark fishing on those piers for generations.  It’s not easy to just end a common practice.  Hopefully, the local leaders and residents can work something out with shark scientists.  Luckily, there are some really good ones now.

In the meanwhile, we can take the advice of shark researchers this summer.  A brochure is available from @SeaGrantNC and @NOAAFish_SERO put together these tips.

What are your thoughts? Will you be swimming in the ocean this summer?

Update: A seventh victim of multiple shark bites In North Carolina was reported yesterday, July 1st.  Here is the latest from shark experts via Ocearch: link.


Susan Allison-Dean is a writer and dolphin/whale advocate. Her women's fiction novels include issues affecting marine life.
#sharks #NorthCarolina 

     Ahhh….summer.  The smell of fresh cut grass, tomato sandwiches followed by cantaloupe so sweet and juicy it drips down your chin.  As the temperatures go higher, we all seem to go slower.  The perfect time to chillax in our favorite spot-an Adirondack chair on the back deck, poolside in a chaise lounge or a towel sprawled across the sand.  The sound of chirping birds, kids screaming with delight or waves thrusting themselves onshore serenading us.
     Having this uninterrupted time to indulge in a good book, undisturbed, in no hurry seems a luxury these days for many of us.  This coveted pause in life is treat, my favorite time to read. For me, a good beach read is one that I feel I get to know the characters intimately.  Perhaps they take me to a time, a place or situation I’ve never experienced.  It’s a book that makes me not want to leave the beach even though the sun is starting to set.  It’s a book that makes me feel an emotion, be it laugh, cry or occasionally fear. 
     The hallmark sign of a great beach read is, of course, when we share it with a friend after we’ve finished it.

 What makes a great beach read for you?

 Love Women’s Fiction?  Fill your summer bag with signed copies from 6 authors this season.   Enter to win here: Contest

#BeachRead #BeachBook 

“When you look into their eyes, you know somebody is home.” -John Jett, PhD., former Seaworld trainer featured in the movie Blackfish.

Do you have trouble believing what you don’t see with your own eyes or experience for yourself?  Me too.  It’s not that I don’t believe stories that other people tell me, but there is something inside that just doesn’t fully accept it until I know it to be true.

The experience of being with a whale or dolphin, so close that you look eyes to eye, is transforming.  It’s almost as if you saw an alien in your backyard, alone, by yourself.  It connected with you, the two of you have ‘a moment’ and then it disappears.  You are left bewildered.  Did that just happen to me?  Perhaps you don’t tell anyone for fear they will think that you are crazy. Then you meet someone else who also saw this other being.  He or she also felt the same way and was left changed as well.  In time you find others and they validate your experience. Yet no one can truly explain it. 

When I asked someone else who had this experience, “What it is about seeing into the eye of a cetacean (scientific term for dolphins & whales)?”

She said, “They look inside of you and touch your soul.” 

I could not explain it better.  Personally, I have found the experience so humbling that I wonder if we really are the most intelligent species on planet earth.

Intrigued?  Like my Facebook page, I will be posting actual human-cetacean stories this week. Have you engaged with a cetacean?  I hope you will share your story.

My debut novel, I Know You’re There, includes a true story of a human-humpback whale encounter.  You can pick it up at most book retail sites.


Photo credit: Copyright: Jay Sergeant, 2010. Visit her website: www.http://www.jojoandjay.com

For those of us who now seem to live in Siberia, spring can’t get here soon enough.  The calendar says it’s just seventeen days away, but looking out the window we know there’s no way daffodils are going to spring through the mountains of snow out there.  Before you pull a Jimmy Buffett, and shoot two holes in your freezer, why not try some of these spring appetizers?

1.     Go buy yourself some cut tulips, arrange them in a simple vase or mason jar and put them where you will most enjoy them; your desk, kitchen table or living area.

2.     Get dreaded appointments out of the way.  Dental, yearly preventive health check up, mammograms, taxes-think spring/summer/ fall.  Do you want to be sitting in these offices once mother-nature turns the thermometer up?

3.     Print your favorite photos.  Have you noticed that in this digital era, you lose or can’t look at precious pictures because the technology to access them changes so rapidly?  Make a ‘favorite photo’ folder on your computer and start putting your favorites in there.  Then go online and have them printed at your favorite photo store.  You can even make albums.  Maybe buy a cheery frame or repurpose one with an outdated photo.

4.     Shift your home theme into spring!  You don’t need to spend a lot.  Sometimes just a flowery candle in the bathroom, new pillows on the couch, or purging the winter clothes that you never wore this season.

5.     Gather gardening ideas.  Make a list of the vegetables you want to grow this year.  Get some gardening books from the library for inspiration.  Start a pinterest board for your outdoor landscape.  When I’m not writing, I’m running the Garden Shop at Naturescapes.  I specialize in container gardens.  Check out the container garden board I’ve started.

6.     Isn’t it special when someone remembers you on your birthday?  Write down all the special people in your life and add their birthdays to your calendar.  Take your list and visit the local card store.  Pick out cards for them now and store them in a folder.  Get a pack of stamps and put them in there.  Maybe even address the envelopes now.

It’s easy to get dragged into the blahs after the thrill of the first snowfall has turned into a grey heap streamed with yellow streaks.  Just remember, this too will melt.  And when it does, you’ll be ready to seize the sunshine!

Please feel free to add your ideas below. :)

Enjoy gardening? Check out my novels, where I include snippets of my passion with horticulture.

I’m often told my strength is descriptive writing.  Sometimes, however, words get in the way.  Too much chatter.  Even I know when to take a seat and let another work of art speak for itself.  So, I share with you photos from today’s southern snowstorm.  May you enjoy them in pristine quiet the same way they were taken.

The sun rises bright and dazzling, filled with promise, just as we do the day we are born.  Beings of light-with potential and purpose.

As the day goes along, do we allow clouds to get in our way, storms to overtake us?  Or do we radiate our best and shine through?

When the day ends, do we set quietly unnoticed?  Or do we blazon shades of color so arresting that people stop to notice all our glory?