For years now I’ve been saying that I think I’m going to move into film…and then last year I got a Macbook and I thought, “This is it!” A month later I made a trailer for my YA novel, and thought, “Yes! I’m on my way!” And then….nada. This morning I spent some time editing my trailer; once the new edition of Wish comes out, all the old cover images will have to be swapped out…and yesterday at the Mosaic Literary Conference I saw an awesome film made by Intercultural Alliance of Artists and Scholars members Nikita Hunter and Gabrielle David for their phati’tude Literary TV Show. Nikita had been on a Fulbright to Japan, and returned to her middle school art classroom determined to teach her students about Japanese art while also encouraging them to write. Gabrielle filmed Nikita and her students in action, and voila! A film is born. I would LOVE to film a group of teens reading and discussing A Wish After Midnight. If they made art related to the novel, even better! I’ll have a page at my new publisher’s website, and they’ve encouraged me to upload video content. Sounds like this is my chance to dive in, borrow a camera, and start filming!
Thanks to the small, but very engaged group of writers and educators who attended my workshop yesterday; I always appreciate the chance to try out a new workshop, and realize I need to budget more time for discussion…you never know what will come up when you bring a group of people together to talk about slavery, identity, hybridity, and more! Thanks also to Ron Kavanaugh for ALL his hard work; pulling a conference together takes a lot of time and effort, and I truly appreciate his determination to generate opportunities for authors and educators.
Lastly, there are some amazing films on PBS this month. I’ve just watched two: one (Standing Silent Nation) about the White Plume family’s struggle with the DEA to grow industrial hemp on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota; another (March Point) about three Swinomish teens who were ordered to make a documentary about conditions on their reservation after being arrested for drug use…give a kid a camera and you can change the world…Check the Independent Lens website for more films, like Power Paths about how transmission lines run over Native American land yet many Native families live WITHOUT electricity …
