Name of your website?Katrina in Mississippi
Your name?
Gara Gillentine
Your Location (city, etc)
Oxford
Please give us a short summary of your website?
This site is a place to blog news and stories that I come across which relate to Katrina in Mississippi. It provides a place for making aware the ongoing needs and problems concerning the Gulf Coast's recovery. Links for volunteerism and links for Katrina artists are a big part of the site. The main focus is on the towns and communities hit hardest on the coast - Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis, Waveland, and Pearlington. Also included are my personal Katrina photographs, artwork, and journaling.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
After visiting the Mississippi Gulf Coast post-Katrina, I had so much that I wanted to say and so much that I wanted to try to do to help the coast that I needed to have a separate website from my art site. Blogging seemed to be the easiest way to try to bring awareness to those who have no clue about the depth of the destruction and to offer ways for people to volunteer. I wanted to focus on the hardest hit communities that were being left out of main stream news. I want to keep awareness alive. I want people to volunteer and not forget the great need on our coast.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Bluesky Studio was launced in 2002, www.sarabluesky.com, and it focuses on my artwork and poetry. Also included though, are interior sites which focus on my return to Ocean Springs, MS post-Katrina. That Nov. 2005 visit is documented with a photo-journal approach which resulted in two views of the place I love the most: Postcards from Ocean Springs (pre-Katrina) and Postcards of a Different Sort.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Katrina in Mississippi came about because I felt like our state was not being focused on nearly enough in the public news forums.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
I have a mix of current news, stories, personal journaling, art, photography, artists, links for volunteering and making donations and I focus on the areas hardest hit on our coast.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I have a book in mind that I would like to put together from all of my visits to the coast which would include journaling, artwork, photography, and memorabilia. It was my dream to live on the coast just one year before Katrina hit and blew away any immediate possibilities of living there.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I would hire someone to do the site's updates. All I would have to do is send in the info and images and sit back and watch it grow.
What has been your biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge for me is keeping my sites updated. I have taken so many photographs and have created artwork that probably will never get posted. I have more ideas than time and the newest idea will require a lot of scanning in of images and a lot of time to create the layout and text. Life is so full of other requirements that it becomes difficult to sit down for the long periods of time that I need to work on the sites. Also, I have physical limitations due to fibromyalgia and carpal tunnel, but I will get the newest site up an running-- my New Year's Resolution.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
I submit my sites to search engines, especially Google, I use word-of-mouth, pass out business cards at every opportunity, and have links for them in the articles that I write for our local free paper, The Local Voice.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
I have had my art site since 2002 and my blog since 2006 and I plan to keep them going as long as I live.
What excites you most about the internet?
I am continually amazed and excited by the enormous amounts of and kinds of information that I can find on the internet! Once I think I've found the most wonderful tidbit of information, say, about one of my favorite poets or artists, I will come across something even more wonderful buried in some obscure place ... and I will find it after starting a search or just browsing around for something completely off topic! I love when that happens. Always, the surprise of the internet's offerings is a happy event. And I love digging around for stuff and doing the search over and over until I find what I am looking for--such as out-of-print books for a great price.
What is your website address?
Katrina in Mississippi
No trackbacks.
Comments