SEPTEMBER 2001 EDITORIAL
12th September
World Trade Centre RIP
All of us at Hackwriters send our best wishes to the surviors and their families and our condolences to the bereaved.

---

• New York under attack, the Pentagon half destroyed, the World Trade Centre destroyed. My God, this is war. Only, in a war you can see the enemy. Who are they?

Bin Laden says no but it looks increasingly likely it was planned by him. The Palestinians say no, but someone planned and coordinated this. We know more now as passengers on the hijacked planes were able to call people to tell of men with knives taking control of their planes.
With 50,000 people working in the World Trade Centre and hundreds in the Pentagon, almost all of New York and Washington will know someone in the targeted buildings and they'll be mourning for a long while. I just heard the people I know in New York are alive, but for literally thousands, it isn't so. Another day that will live on in infamy. The age of innocence is over for America and their relaxed lifestyle may go forever. This has the scent of mankinds most terrible curse, the religious war. All war is terrible, but religious wars are the most unreasonable and lethal.

Questions will be asked about US intelligence procedures. They have already made arrests in Boston and Florida. Arabic language flight manuals have been found, but nothing will bring back the dead and a special kind of peace and way of life has also been murdered here. Americans will recover from their shock and then be very angry. A lot of mistakes can be made when people are angry and we hope that the facts will be gathered first before Presdent Bush acts. he will act, he has to.

The world watches and at last count it's four planes, one car bomb, the world economy teters and many thousands are dead of all nationalities. This is a scary moment in history. We must all bow our heads and pray for reason and for the lives of those lost. Pray too that the consequences don't lead us to something we might all regret. All our prayers are with America.

---

September on Hackwriters

The end of August us a very sad time for some. Summer comes crashing to an end, mothers force kids into Woolies or Marksand Sparks or Ambercrombie and Fitch if they are lucky for new school kit, whilst regret and recriminations stalk the lives of those who have managed to miss out on the good weather or a decent summer relationship; or at the very least a monumental hangover.

But for Hazel, Oliver, Nathan, Stuart, James, Jess and Jim the end of August brought blessed relief. At last their screenplays are complete or the novels done and they can run skip and hide for the last of the summer rays. Now they must find jobs and given the fact that the newspapers bleat on how no one is actually hiring anymore, it's a bit sobering. Of course these are the same papers that were only last month encouraging everyone to take out mortages at six times your income to get in on the housing boom. No doubt they will be documenting the mass of repossessions later this winter.

So how have our writers done? Hazel has completed her exciting Highwayman novel and it has great promise, Oliver has written something amazingly witty that deserves attention from Hollywood, Stuart completed this environmental love story set in the Australian outback, Jim gives us a morality thriller about the Four Horsemen who have taken an interest in genetically modified food and James puts an original spin on the Falklands war. Nathan meanwhile has written a wonderful kids' TV series about an ancient briton in our strange world. As you can see, an abundance of talent lurks at Hackwriter inc. Oh yes, and Scriptshop.co.uk have put another one of my screenplays on their site, so hopefully some producer will be taking a look at that when they are back from their penance cruising the Med.

Hazel is leading the pack at the moment, freelancing for the 'Irish Times' and Stuart is following up close, starting editing for 'The Builder Group'. Just like Big Brother, I will bring you updates as our writers secure jobs or resort to robbing banks, whichever comes first.

We are lucky, later this month Jayne Sharratt returns to give us 'Holly - the loneliest child in the world' which we will be serialising on Hacks. Jayne is currently writing a new novel and has high hopes for this one. Certainly 'Holly' deserves publication and we hope exposure like this will help it along.

There will be changes over the next couple of months- more of this later and we also hope to bring you news of new developments later on, but first we shall wait to see if it happens. Don't worry, you'll be first to know.

THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE

James Skinner on Argentina. Just why does the IMF have to keep rescuing a country so rich in resources?
Oliver Moor has finally popped the question and then goes looking for a diamond ring. Had he know then what he knows now, a silverplated ringpull would have looked great.
Stuart Macdonald has promised us his article on Prague, but then again, we were promised it last month...
Nathan is the lone voice in praise of 'Planet of the Apes' and Sam goes for 'At the Height of Summer' a wonderful film from Vietnam.
Lisa Scott shows us how to live the lie and Barry Mitchell is here to rant and rave, something he is pretty good at.
Tabytha went to San Francisco and all she came back with was this T-shirt. I think we should write and complain. Did she see nothing? Speak to no one? We should be told.
Check for stories too on Nepal, a new piece by Finn Grant 'Just another breakdown', review of Black Tiger and more

There will be more. And if you want to write for us we look forward to hearing from you.

all the best

Submissions

© Sam North - Managing Editor

© Carine Thomas - Publisher - A Brighter Image Company

 

< Back to Index
< About the Author
< Reply to this Article