Whew! Your JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival anonymous Selection Committee had some really tough decisions to make, winnowing 54 great writer applicants down to a pool of 30 fabulous readers for the festival to be held on November 16, 2019. Fueled by grit, determination, and an overstuffed cookie jar, they made it through the ordeal.
Congratulatory (and consolation) letters will be sent next Wednesday, August 21st, so watch your inboxes for an email from scribbler.finch@gmail.com, if you applied to read at the festival.
To see a short history of the festival and to learn what’s new for 2019, pick up the Wednesday, August 21st editon of Folio Weekly, which will also feature a list of this year’s selected writers for JaxbyJax, at your favorite newsstand. This edition of the magazine will showcase area writers and, no, your Scribbler doesn’t know who was selected for the magazine; I’m as curious as you are! Can’t wait to read about our fellow ink-stained wretches.
Your Scribbler is thrilled to announce that Katy Yocom will read and sign books from 2-4 p.m. at Chamblin’s Uptown Bookstore (215 North Laura St., Jacksonville, FL) on Sunday, August 11th. In addition to being a brilliant author of an exciting debut novel, she is simply one of the top ten people on the planet. Come meet her!
Brad and Darlyn Kuhn will also host a barbecue in Katy’s honor at River of Grass, (8472 Concord Blvd. W, Jacksonville, FL) starting at 4:30 p.m. Let’s all get to know one another, and talk about TIGERS!
A coach wouldn’t be much good if they always agreed with you. Lynn Skapyak Harlin has been punching writers in the face to make them better since 2001. She likes to talk about how “mean” she is, but that’s not how workshop participants describe her. And that’s certainly not why they keep coming back, year after year. Jacksonville’s favorite literary curmudgeon, The Shantyboat Lady, ties the ghost of her dear, departed shantyboat up to the dock at River of Grass, for an hour of poetry and tough talk from a tender heart.
Richard Vaux has done his share of dirty work, but nothing like this. His employer, Trans World Airlines wants him and a crew to sneak into Beirut, Lebanon, at the height of a civil war, to reclaim an airplane hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. TWA can’t say, for sure, whether the plane will fly, or whether it has been wired to explode in flight. And that’s assuming they aren’t attacked by one or more of the rival militias who pass the time shooting at each other across the tarmac, but only because there haven’t been any Americans to kidnap in awhile.
“On June
14, 1985, terrorists associated with a newly-formed Shiite Muslim militia known
as Hezbollah, or “Party of God,” hijacked TWA Flight 847, which was traveling
from Athens to Rome with 139 passengers and eight crew members.
The terrorists first diverted the flight to Beirut, Lebanon, where they
released several passengers in exchange for fuel, fruit and sandwiches. The
plane departed the next day for Algiers, where more passengers were released
before the plane returned to Beirut and one of the hijackers shot U.S. Navy
diver Robert Stethem, and threw his body onto the tarmac.
Lebanese authorities, sympathetic to the hijackers’ demands for the
release of more than 700 Palestinian POWs held in Israel, allowed the murderers
to leave the plane, and replaced them in the middle of the night with a team of
twelve proxy hijackers, with closer ties to the government.
The plane made another lap over the Mediterranean, flying again to
Algiers, where it shed even more passengers, and then back to Beirut, where the
remaining thirty-nine were removed and ferried away to secret locations.
Negotiations continued for another two weeks before the last of the
hostages were flown to Germany on July 2nd. Shortly after the last
hostage was released, Israel released the Palestinians.
For two months, the plane, a Boeing 727, sat on the apron, tattered and
bloody, surrounded by militias shooting at each other across the airport. News
coverage moved on to other events. Hezbollah moved on to other planes.
TWA officials bided their time, relying on contacts at Beirut-based
Middle East Airlines to monitor hostilities and identify a relatively safe
extraction window. On August 13th, they got the call.
