Welcome to Writing the Hurricane: A Class Blog

In fall of 2005, New Orleans was vaulted into the limelight of national and international news due to Hurricane Katrina. Within days, every aspect of New Orleans culture had been picked apart and analyzed by social commentators, news journalists, professional writers, artists, and authors. From this intense scrutiny of our city emerged numerous human interest stories due to the natural disaster that will remain forever etched in our collective minds. Furthermore, New Orleans itself acted as a reflection of the many social ills and environmental hazards that have beset many American cities while retaining its own indelible culture that sets itself apart from the rest of the nation. As someone I know who lived in New Orleans for years and moved away from the city recently said, "When I left New Orleans, I crossed the border back into the U.S."

For many of us affected by the storm, our own particular view/image/experience of Hurricane Katrina may or may not have been part of the national story which emerged or it may have only been the tip of the iceberg or it may have been misrepresented or not really understood. It is for this reason that I began teaching a non-fiction writing class called Writing Hurricane Katrina: Natural Disaster and the North American Psyche when the University of New Orleans restarted its fall semester in October 2005.