Musings of an Island Girl

While writing columns for the Virgin Islands Daily News over the last seven years, I received much favorable feedback from readers. If an article addressed an issue that was currently in the news, many said that I had put into print exactly what they too had been thinking. Concerning personal reflections on family and life in general, again, many stopped to remark positively on how their lives, if just for a brief moment, were touched by what they had read. Recently, I was reminded of Stepping Out of the Box by an acquaintance who also has a fear of driving on the mainland, and how much she had identified with the article as she read it three years ago!

In my second year of writing, people started to name their favorite column. If none appeared for two to three months, I was stopped regularly on the street and "prompted" to write soon. One year, My Grandfather's Letter was read to a class at a local elementary school during "Reading is Fundamental Week", and, a secondary school teacher once stopped me to relate how Mbube and the Zulu was the topic of discussion one day in her Social Studies class. The students wanted to continue even after the bell had rung! A male reader once sought the Daily News' assistance in contacting me after reading When the Men We Love.Lie - he had a story to share about the opposite side of the spectrum! This consistent feedback over the years motivated me to continue writing about issues I felt were meaningful and informational to the reading public and at the same time, gave me a sense of pride and fulfillment.

For these reasons, I decided to compile all forty articles into one easy-to-read keepsake, with personal photographs, for those who have faithfully read them over the years and who may enjoy reading them again. Personally, I also wanted to broaden my horizon by reaching out to a first-time reading audience, both in and out of the "islands." While some of the topics are of course dated, lively discussions can be gene