DeBlieu, Jan

A resident of Roanoke Island, North Carolina, Jan DeBlieu is also the author of Meant to be Wild: The Struggle to Save Endangered Species through Captive Breeding.

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Not until all the {Loggerhead} eggs have hatched will the turtles begin to dig out of the nest, and then they will come in a burst. Nature's New Voices, 1992

The sand below was writhing with life. Tiny flippers appeared from all directions and sank beneath tumbling grains of sand, rising and squirming in a wild attempt to break through to the top. Ibid.

Where I live, on the North Carolina Outer Banks, the days cannot be defined without wind. The roar of the surf would fall silent as the ocean grew languid as a lake . . . We would go about our lives in a vacuum, as content somewhere else as here. That is how it feels on the few moments when the wind dies: ominous, apocalyptic. As if the world has stopped turning. American Nature Writing 1994.

Wind is culture and heritage on the Outer Banks; wind shapes earth, plant, animal, human. It toughens us. It moves mountains of sand as we watch. It makes it difficult to sleepwalk through life. Ibid.