Write On Southern Belles.

This is the tale of two gifted Southern belles whose voices ring loud and clear in this issue.

First, Savannah-born Karen T. Bartlett, our newest columnist and author of Naples, A Photographic Portrait, due out this fall. She's fearless, relentless and professionally nimble enough to have been at one time or another a founder-president of an ad agency, a photographer, a writer and an editor.

How far will she go for a story? Her assignments have taken her from the savannas of South Africa to the temples of Bali, from the medieval cities of Tuscany to the jungles of Belize. She's been deep-sea fishing with former President Jimmy Carter, earned a reindeer driver's license in Finland and photographed ostrich mating rituals in Aruba.

And how determined is she to get her stories right? Determined enough to step into the alligator pit at Everglades Wonder Gardens (in Bonita Springs) to photograph the insides of a 'gator's jaw. Determined enough to let swarms of termites crawl over her hand in Venezuela's Orinoco Delta so she could report on them as an exotic delicacy (the verdict: crunchy and tasty). And brave enough to climb to the top of the spooky castle ruins of the Marquis de Sade (in France) and to check out the even spookier churchyard where Bram Stoker wrote Dracula (in England).

More? Says Karen, "I have been salted, iced, mud-packed, dipped, stretched and mineralized, switched with birch branches, buried, levitated, steamed and slathered in everything from honey to grape seeds to lava ash in spas from the Dead Sea to the Arctic Circle."

So Karen brings all this character and seasoning to the writing of our new column, Here & Now (p. 26). The idea is to capture the mood of the Gulfshore for the coming month, provide insights, amusements and service regarding our paradise-and generally set the table for the other treats to follow. Dive in. I think Karen will get you into the June tempo here and leave you chuckling over a zoo story.

Next, tennessee's tracy Jones, our senior editor and lead staff writer. She's a natural storyteller, going back to the days when she wrote three romance novels-The Fiancé Thief, Maddie's Millionaire and Frisky Business. And has she got stories to tell in this issue. By a quirky convergence of assignments, she had to (1) sample and report on five high-end spas, (2) taste her way to finding the seven best places for your hometown foods, (3) listen to the confessions of a therapist for the very rich and (4) collect all the recent juicy gossip about the Gulfshore's social scene.

Readers will get keen perception, entertainment and keys to better living from her writer's tour de force. Tracy confirmed her new age-y reputation-after all the spa pampering and products-by admitting that the guided meditation at Marco Ocean Beach Resort was "the coolest thing I ever did for a story." She says she got to a place of absolute silence and ease. And she tells us she discovered the best bagel on an Internet search and found the best cheesecake by premonition. She just stopped off at Gabriello's of New York and the Manhattan Bar & Grill, discovered it was closed, but believed enough in her instincts to come back the next day to find that it was the winner. Maybe she should have asked therapist Richard Capiola about all these mental phenomena, but she was fascinated enough with his take on the troubles of the Gulfshore affluent and his explanation of how they differ from those of his previous patients in Los Angeles and New Orleans.

As for the social scene here, Tracy says, "There's no such thing as a bad party along the Gulfshore. Whether it's intriguing personalities, striking fashions, foodie trends in action or over-the-top theme décor, there's always something that gets people talking. I have that Southerner's fear of letting a silence fall and will thus force someone to have a conversation. People feel they can tell me things." Turn to p. 224 for the latest.

-David Sendler