Word, Rock, & Sword

I’m so excited and honored to be included in this festival! Along with award-winning authors Jacqueline Woodson and Rita Williams-Garcia, I’ll be reading on 9/22 as part of an evening we’re calling “Great Women Were Once Great Girls: An Evening of Strong Girls in Fiction” (8-10pm at Outpost Lounge in Ft. Greene, BK). More details [...]

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agony & ecstasy

Roots & Blues, Part 2! It’s been a long time coming, but I guarantee you this interview with illustrator R. Gregory Christie is worth the wait! If you missed Part 1 of this series, do take time to read poet Arnold Adoff’s thoughtful responses regarding the inspiration for his latest book of poetry. ZE: It [...]

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3K

I should be exhausted, but I’m not.  I’ve written more than three thousand words today, and I’m not done yet!  All week I’ve been trying to write, and every night I would fall asleep on the couch, wake at 4am, and unsuccessfully try to fall back to sleep in my bed.  On Wednesday I woke [...]

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thank you, Katrina

Sometimes it’s hard moving between worlds.  It was good for me to come back from NOLA and go straight back into the classroom; I was able to stay in that “zone” for a little while, but today I’m back to my own reality.  I think it might be time to head back into the academy; [...]

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merci, Mariam!

Mariam and I met in 1997 when she came from Paris to spend a year at NYU.  Yesterday we sat in a cafe on campus and marveled at how much has changed—on campus, in our lives.  We’ve both lost our fathers; we both want a transnational life; we both cherish moments of solitude.  I spent [...]

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stuck

If I were trying to be poetic, I would say instead that I’m enthralled.  But stuck works—obsessed, fascinated, fixated.  I can’t get this song/video out of my head, and I can’t thank Shadra enough for posting it on Facebook earlier today.  Serendipity?  Or a sign… Earlier this week Jenn on the Carl Brandon Society list [...]

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six degrees

So I’m reading Efrain’s Secret right now, and realized I need to follow up with Sofia Quintero about doing an interview…then I go to Facebook and Sofia’s posted two awesome links: 1.  My Brown Baby ~ author/mom Denene Millner asks why she can’t find books that feature black children on the shelves of her local [...]

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RIP Lena Horne

Lena Horne passed away last night here in NYC; she was 92.  I have to say, I think I first heard of Lena Horne when I was a kid watching The Cosby Show.  And when she finally appeared on the show, I couldn’t understand why Cliff Huxtable thought she was such a great beauty.  But [...]

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woman’s work

Thanks to Claudia for posting this link on Facebook: Pop Culture Shock blog shared this link about Nicole Mitchell, a Chicago jazz musician and composer who has written a tribute to Octavia Butler…. Also, a lot of people have defined her, as well as jazz musician Sun Ra, as “Afrofuturists”–people who took this idea of [...]

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