best of both worlds

My mother taught me how to make a living.
My father showed me how to create a life to live.
She was deemed responsible.
He was deemed selfish.
… I want to be selfishly responsible from here on out.

SHE CHRONICLES, and so we begin

She Chronicles celebrates the feminine narrative through showcasing Her unique vernacular in literary contributions.  “Women writing about other women responsibly.”

People think this is not a big message, women writing responsibly about other women.  If so, the majority of female stage, screen and television actors would not be placed in story lines primarily due to their relation with children and/or their husbands/boyfriends.  We would have more stories that detail a developed protagonist and her achievements.   There are TONS of stories that have a lead male who has a mission/goal that he goes after ambitiously and then at night returns home to his wife and children or his girlfriend.  This is the massive norm.  The feminine narrative has been bent into shapes over so many years that it is literally unrecognizable.  Her voice sits so politely on the couch or hangs so nicely creased in the closet it appears comfortable and satisfied.  It is not.

I’ve Been Writing

I’ve been writing.
writers write. writers read.

remember

just cause it’s Nikki Giovanni

writing

Octavia’s Note to Self

When I saw the “note to self” (visualization/dream board) of Octavia Butler I became inspired! Butler was the first science fiction writer to receive the coveted MacArthur Fellowship and one of the best-known females in her field. She passed away suddenly in 2006 but for those familiar with her work know that this board came to fruition!

Have you created your visualization/dream board for the new year yet?

20 observances i’m taking into 2016

Well, 2015 is wrapping up here folks and there are some things I want to share along my many discoveries and self reflections.  Here we go:

1. The power of blogging. – Blogging has to be better than buying a website these days!  Blogging is like your own personal newspaper or public journal that links you to like minds.  The connections I have met on wordpress have culminated into several speaking engagements and book sales around the world.  Unlike social media sites, a blog requires work.  You have to put in a decent and consistent amount of writing time and you must network with the audience you are trying to reach.  Building this comradery can yield amazing results!   Your Facebook friends/followers WILL NOT SUPPORT your work on a level that allows you to pay a bill or two.
2. The saying, “Write what scares you” is true. – You take a chance with ordering a new dish at a restaurant.  You take a chance in new relationships.  So take a chance with writing the stories you are afraid to be linked to.  The subject matter of my novel, The Town Dance, has frightened me for years.  At readings, I speak about what I had to confront on a personal level for me to write characters with depth and meaning.  Characters that ‘belonged’ in the story and not just placed there to move the chapters forward.  The Town Dance has had an amazing year!  In addition, my play, Hope’s Return, handles the subject matter of women in the military, a crime committed on base, the government cover-up and a small town African American family dealing with the mental illness of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I took a chance with this material and it has paid off as big as I had imagined in my dreams.
3. I like living in Atlanta.  I must admit, it took over six years for it to happen but there are a lot of opportunities in the arts.  Perhaps in the sense that there is still work that needs to be done for diversity within nationalities, gender and age. (then again, that’s probably everywhere!)  The art funding is definitely geared toward younger poets who are taught slam poetry and older Caucasian writers. The quote, “It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re art”, took me a looooong time to accept that.  But over the past 13-15 months I have grown to like Atlanta.
4. Acknowledgement of women writers still needs to be written in art and historical culture/documentation.  Even the critical and independent male thinking minds are blind to this, or conveniently accept this part of patriarchy.  A recent example I saw of this, there was a Black Lives Matter banner created that spelled out the names of the victims fallen from murder by the hands of the police and only one woman was listed.  Instead of researching women to include, the list repeated with the male names.
5. African American art is viewed as sociology or psychology instead of art.  Instead of being asked on various creative decisions I made for my art, I was asked questions like, “is this due to your community?” “is this a result of your upbringing?”  After reading more on the basic history of African American literature in western culture, the sensitivity of critique or criticism is still not where it should be as the literary giants before me have written the same observances.
6. There is a desperate need for black book stores for all of the above reasons.
7. There is a desperate need for African American book review groups/circles for all the above reasons. (Story Sellers Book Reviews coming soon!)
8. The personal positivity movement has turned into a sensationalistic  movement that is cultivating a strew of motivational speakers and life coaches.  It is imperative for people to understand that avoiding or becoming addicted to a fantasy life of no turmoil stunts growth.  In addition, naming life’s detours ‘negativity’ instead of lessons and self reflection stops/halts life.
9. Ph.D’s do not hold the same creed they once did. Experience and activism can get you on the same panel discussions as PhD’s and persons in academia. In fact, trust is built through personal testimony versus book study (new age wave expectations); same as travel expert equals trusted experience. I believe their in depth studies are still imperative but the panels and workshops I observed over the past year in regards to art activism and community social activism had very few PhDs.
10. The poetry audience is gone. No matter where I traveled, the audience was a unanimous crowd of other poets.  The study of poetry 101 has been replaced with being a champion or being on a ‘winning team’.   Poetry is seen as entertainment instead of art.  In my opinion, the communication aspect is absent from the art form and it is a strategic political move.

For Our Week Ahead :-)

I saw this today and had to share it with my wordpress family! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did 🙂

Just As I Thought

I hear stories. Feel the emotions. And if I’m lucky enough, or chosen. I’m selected to be the writer from the ethos to tell the story.

Sometimes they come as poems, prose, short stories, plays or novels.

I received an email yesterday that the play I had been working on late last year and early this year, will finally get its day on the stage next month.

“Hope’s Return” will make her debut at a major theatre festival. BEYOND THRILLED!

so keep writing. submit with confidence. and then let it go…