Alice Walker’s The Color Purple has been with me so long that I do not know when in my young life I first read it. Nor do I recall when I read it again before watching the first movie. Celie’s story, and character, were carried by writing so deft it fell away, so penetrating that […]
Hi. I insist that you call me Dudey. You could call me Duderbug, Dudiferous, or simply The Dude. But please, never call me by my fancy name: Kitomaru. That was just hopeful thinking on Mommy’s part. You see, I am part of a long line of grey cats. It’s a tradition that extends to naming.
I think of sales figures as a measure of how many people have been reached by a book’s message. One sale equals one person, or more, with lending. The purpose of publishing a novel is to share a good story with readers. But reaching them, just to let them know the story is available, involves
Whether you have heard of Gullah-Geechee culture or not, you are aware of it and have certainly been influenced by it. From food to music, fashion textiles to language, today its influence is experienced across the world. It was cultivated by enslaved people in the lower Atlantic coast of America, who were largely brought there
When Annabelle Manning’s voice arrived in my head to tell her story, like any living person she had a history. It came with her, part and parcel, impossible to separate, alter, or wish away. In the days when I could not fathom how to write this history, I despaired it as much as I despaired
In the current atmosphere of American politics, many of us are reflecting on what voting means—personally and collectively. I tend to think of suffrage along racial and gender lines, because there was a long period of our history when a large part of the population could not act to elect leaders or pass laws. Because
When I was thirteen, the summer between elementary and middle school did not go well. My friends didn’t exactly turn against me, just yielded to boys who had decided it was fun to come up with names for me, stick signs to my back, and make up stories so the crowd would laugh at me.
“Transcendentalists were courageous in challenging tradition and injustice. Rather than being pushed around by history, they were great souls who instead tried to shape it—toward a more just, hopeful future. The Transcendentalists truly did change American history.” I love this quote. It’s edited so slightly, from Conflagration: How the Transcendentalists Sparked the American Struggle for
No matter what thing is happening in our lives, joyful or devastating, art has the power to cut right through it. Art gets to the heart of everything. Many professional art critics, historians, and aficionados have offered their perspectives on this—perhaps more eloquently than I will—but I want to share with you just how art
When first imagining the story that is still propelling me, I was more moved by inspiration than fiction-writing savvy. So it was full of tangled ideas. Originally titled Founding Fabric, it opened with Annabelle Manning waking to birdsong, in a tent on the plains of what was called “the great American desert,” in what is now Kansas.
