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Weekly reading 4
Image from the japantimes.co article “Japan’s men and women must stand together against the scourge of sexism,” which is mostly depressing but does use the awesome word “womenomics.” • “What It’s Like...
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May (triptych)
Countess Szechenyi at Twin Oaks garden party, ca. May, 1926. Photo from modern farmer.com i. In the ink-blue dusk when everyone hurries home the flower moon blooms. ii. The garden trembles as a...
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Weekly reading 5
The post is late but the material is still worth a read… Untitled, 2009 by Kerry James Marshall. Acrylic on PVC panel61 1/8 × 72 7/8 × 3 7/8 in • “University Students Want Free Tuition For Blacks As...
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Weekly reading 6
A vintage photo of African-American bikers from the story “Soul on Bikes & Black Chrome: The History of Black America’s Motorcycle Culture” at salvedgeyard.com. An interesting read as we go into...
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Weekly reading 7
“Skull House, Mississippi, 2014,” by Rachel Eliza Griffiths You guys. I love Junot Díaz and really love both this writer’s use of a Díaz quote and just where he’s coming from in general. • “Dragons Are...
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Arts, equity, and the whitewashing of Riddle Fest
I learned something this week: There are no artists of color performing at the upcoming Riddle Festival, an annual event celebrating Lesley Riddle. What you need to know here is that Riddle was an...
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The squirrel knows but isn’t telling (micro fiction)
Photo from society19.com There’s a house on Kimberly Avenue. There are many houses, but this one in particular is the kind of house that exudes style and dignity and the kind of manicured calm that...
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Of Faulkner and polar bears
Image from endangeredpolarbear.com A writer who I don’t know but follow on Twitter posted this William Faulkner quote today: “The only thing worth writing about is the conflict in the human heart.” And...
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By a hare
A retelling of an Asian rabbit myth, excerpted from a longer poetry cycle on which I’m working. 1830s-era French natural history print Black-naped hare, meadow creature, keeps his language secret. No...
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Music venues shouldn’t be white spaces. Not even accidentally.
What is the responsibility of venue bookers, music promoters, club owners, and festival organizers to create a platform for artists of color? It’s a tricky conversation to introduce, because there are...
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Danger comes easy
The best beer I ever drank was a Sol tallboy from a styrofoam cooler in a neighborhood park in Merida. It was Carnival in Mexico but that particular block party could have been simply someone’s...
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REGENERATION
There’s a candy wrapper and an unused match on the bathroom floor. A covert picnic, abandoned. I’ve come here to press my face against the cool white tile. Summer is ruthless today in its death...
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THE SHORTEST DAYS
“October black birds and cornfields” by Linda Storm Because I am so happy for you and the life you made beautiful from the scraps of what we were given. What we thought were scraps but maybe was our...
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Sponsor me during Mountain of Words
Now through Nov. 17, I’m participating in the fourth annual Mountain of Words, a Write-A-thon to support the work of Asheville Writers in the Schools and Community. I’ll be writing like a madwoman. You...
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Why writers need community, Part 1
It’s well established that writing is a solitary art form. It takes discipline and focus to forgo the social events and TV shows in order to slowly compose and polish a poem or short story or essay....
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The Literary Circus Rides again!
Join us at the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. The Literary Circus will stage two performances of Flying Clothes & Prose — two sets of spoken word pieces inspired by clothing, complete with costume...
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Why writers need community, Part 2
This is a myth we often buy into as writers: that it’s solitary work. The stereotype is romantic — the novelist or poet locked into a small room, hunched over a typewriter, pouring inspired verse onto...
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Asheville’s non-white literary scene
“In a lot of places in the United States, you can still get a degree in English literature and not have to study any people of color,” says poet, author and educator Frank X Walker. This postcard of a...
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“Catching Out”: 2016 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize-winning story
At long last my short story, Catching Out, which won the 2016 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, has been published. You can read it in the 2018 edition of the The Thomas Wolfe Review or, more immediately,...
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Observer in residence
I was invited by online arts and culture magazine HOLLER to be an Observer in Residence for a week in January. It was an fun challenge to post a photo and up to 300 words describing what I was thinking...
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