PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A lot of people talk about chucking their careers and moving to paradise. A former Philadelphia broadcast reporter and public relations professional did just that -- and now she has a book out, chronicling her journey of self-discovery in the Caribbean.
At a crossroads in her life, Margie Smith Holt, who used to be a reporter for KYW Newsradio and Channel 17, booked a vacation in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, in 2004.
“I wanted a break from deadlines. I wanted a break from writing. Maybe I would get a little perspective, but I had no plan beyond that,” she said.
That break turned into a complete life change. She got a waitress job at a Coral Bay dive bar named Skinny Legs. The town's quirky residents came to accept her as one of their own. Some taught her to sail, leading to two transatlantic journeys.
"I just kind of fell in love with the place and came back and quit my job, sold my car, put my stuff in storage and went down to the islands thinking I just needed a little break.”
A cancer diagnosis brought her back to Philly, but after hurricanes Irma and Maria ravaged St. John in 2017, she felt compelled to report on her paradise in ruins and to tell her friends' stories of loss and rebuilding.
“I really wanted to try to explain what it was like in a place a month later, six months later, a year later — what happens to a place and the people after a completely devastating event like hurricanes Irma and Maria were,” she said.
Smith Holt recalls finding a land and people who "were both remarkably resilient and breathtakingly fragile."
“I had certainly interviewed storm victims before. I had seen devastation in other places. But never in a place that touched so close to home.”
Smith Holt's book, “Not on Any Map,” explores the definition of paradise and offers a cautionary tale about the forces affecting our climate.
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