Phil Gerard sat down and wrote, by kerosene lamplight, the original version of "What They Don't Tell You About Hurricanes," during and in the immediate aftermath of the long, hot, scary hours of Hurricane Fran, that hit his home in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1996. The essay rises from the ashes of loss and depression he felt over the destruction to his community and the loss of his boat. "I was surprised how afraid I was. I was surprised how devastating psychologically it was to see the damage, the unsightliness that goes on for months and months. How awful it was to have your sleep disrupted for months afterwards with the chainsaws and for weeks afterwards by the generators. But the biggest surprise of all is that it never seems to be done with, no matter how much preparing you do, and even when you get into the next season you aren't done. We've just finished rebuilding our whole harbor for the second time."

Gerard originally thought that the essay would be for radio, because at the time he was writing for public radio. NPR already had a hurricane piece and in general it was too long for the radio. It also was very "hot," so in the process of reworking it, he tempered the emotion and the pain, and finally "cooled it down enough not to offend my audience."

"It was very much like a war zone around here. And the fear and the aftermath of that fear when the adrenaline finally drains out of you and leaves you totally exhausted and sick in your stomach, is all part of the composition [of the essay]. I do hope that some of that passion and sense of loss comes through, but I hope I have gotten out the stuff that makes readers uncomfortable."

When I asked him what that "stuff" was that makes readers uncomfortable, he replied, "I think that what I have to do as a writer and what writers do, is capture that strong emotion that you go through in anything, in life, but in such a way that the reader doesn't feel somehow embarrassed to go through it with you. They share it but they are sharing something that they have a right to share and you are not letting them dig too deeply inside."

Gerard pulled much of the factual information in the essay from local papers and news. "To me that was an important part of the context, because I didn't want it to be about me. I wanted there to be a sense that there was a huge community of people that was affected."

His deliberate and constant use of the phrase "What they don't tell you" also stems from his passion about the hurricane. "I wanted there to be a sense that it was an almost anti-how-to essay in that in a how-to essay you kind of get a step-by-step of what they tell you to do. ... If you have ever lived in hurricane country all the things in the newspaper or on the broadcast is a list of things you are supposed to do: fill your car with gas; get your pets on a leash or if you have a kennel, get that ready; fill your bathtub with water so when the water goes off you have fresh water; get your candles and flashlights ready; board up your windows; find an escape route. There is a whole checklist of things that is fine as far as they go, but in effect once the thing hits no checklist does a world of any use to you." The power and omnipotence of the hurricane seemed to inspire a reverent awe in him, and in a sense the essay was written for the people in his community who got caught off guard, and no checklist was going to help with that.

A second deliberate use of technique was to use the image of the sunken boat in the last paragraph, as a way to impact the reader with what was for him and his community a devastating image. A picture of his boat, impaled by a piling, was the image of destruction used by CNN for weeks after the hurricane. "Every time they showed a clip on any news station around the country, our boat was in it."

One of Gerard s passions is big public issues. He is halfway through writing a new book that will be published by Story Press, called, Writing the Big Book: Great Ideas, Public Subjects, and Universal Themes. One intent of the book is to help a writer who wants to approach a large subject-war and peace, or crime and punishment, or other public issues-work in a meaningful context with his or her subject. He aims to help a writer approach a big subject and locate his or her position in its framework. "Part of it is attitude and learning how to anticipate what the cliché is going to make you expect and how you get away from that; recognizing that in any great public debate there is not going to be two sides, there is probably a dozen or fifteen sides, and it is allowing yourself to be muddled by the complexity of the thing that helps you from being pro and anti to being something more interesting in between." The topic has allowed Gerard to reflect on much of his own work, as well as go back and reexamine some of his favorite works of literature.

 The book will look at successful writers who have worked with large themes and memorable characters, and have been able to make a social impact. It examines what the writers did that made their book memorable and the relationship between the subject they chose and the success of the book. It tries to answer the question: "If you choose the right subject does that get you half way home?" Something all writers wonder.

Gerard writes novels, screenplays, poetry, songs, short stories, and creative nonfiction. He believes that to be good in one genre, a writer must not only read from other genres but must practice writing those genres as well. "If you're 25 years old, how do you know you're not going to be a great poet when you're 70? You may not start writing poetry until you are 50." He advises keeping all doors open and to write thoroughly in several disciplines. "You read that way don't you, if you read only novels or only poetry you'd be pretty limited in a hurry."

The most challenging form for Gerard is the novel. "It is the most comprehensive and elusive form in a way. It is hard to find two novels that share anything but the most superficial format or structure. It's almost by definition something that flexes and changes. Even though at the same time that that exists, there is also a three axe story that you almost always find in novels - so the paradox is that it is different but the same all the time and trying to work with in that I find tremendously challenging - plus there's a whole lot to make up. "

 He is pleased with the way "What They Don't Tell You About Hurricanes" turned out. It was a long, emotional evolution. "It is silly," he laughs, but the closure of the piece is that I was able to able to put in the bio notes that I got a new boat. ... It finally stopped hurting to read the piece."

Gerard's last advice to writers is this: "You have to do it. You have to practice it. You need to get very very good at it, and the way you get good at it is that you read a lot and you write a lot."

Corinne Platt