Tayari's Blog: February 2007
February 27, 2007
Returning to My Natural Habitat
I'm headed to Atlanta tomorrow for the AWP conference. There are going to be quite a few exciting literary events around town, so don't miss out. I'll be at the Margaret Mitchell house on Wednesday night at 7pm. (Get there at 6pm to score snacks.) I'm sharing the stage with Lee Smith (whom I love.) There's a cover charge for that event-- just FYI. On Saturday night,8:30pm, Grand Ballroom, 2nd Floor: I'll be at the Hilton downton giving a headline reading at the AWP Conference. This one is free and open to the public. If you're around, I hope you can make it. I'm reading from my new novel-in-progress. Friendly faces are very very welcome. (Don't make me beg, okay?)
February 26, 2007
M-O-N-E-Y!
So far, I have been delighted with The Artist's Way, but chapter six,"Recovering a Sense of Abundance" has made me uncomfortable. One of the ideas of the chapter is that as artists we need to believe that our art will support us, financially. I am very uncomfortable with looking at my writing as a sounce of income. As Pearl Cleage told me over cocktails, "I want to get paid for my writing, but I don't want to have to write for money."
One of the best things I ever did for my art was to get a day job. When I was living in Arizona, I was living off the advance I received from Leaving Atlanta. I didn't get a huge advance, but my expenses were very low-- my mortgage was less than $400 a month! I must say that I really loved knowing that my creative work was putting food on the table.
However, the money started running out and I was looking to my work-in-progress to pay the bills. My editor and I were not seeing eye-to-eye on the project. I was in a tough spot. Was I going to make changes to earn her approval-- and that check(!)-- or would I stand by my vision and not have money to cover my most basic needs? Luckily, I got an offer to come teach for a year in Tennessee.
Nothing freed me more than not having a relationship between my bills and my work.
I will admit that I have issues when it comes to money. I was reared in a household where it was considered self-indulgent to do anything to pamper myself. In my adult life I enjoy spa days, pretty shoes, and fresh flowers on my work table. But as we all know, those childhood lessons die hard. While I am able to provide myself with small luxuries, I feel a little trangressive while I do so.
Maybe this is why I'm having something of a hard time with all the talk in Chapter six about luxury in money. In a weird way, it feels wrong to tie money in with something as sacred as art.
What do you all think?
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Category:
The Artist's Way
February 24, 2007
We Like The Boys In The Band....
Usually, I make it a point not be be charmed by musicians. Let's just say 
that experience is the best teacher. But when I was thinking of ways to entertain Nokuthula Mazibuko, the World Literature Fellow at GWU. I immediately thought of my favorite D.C. spot: Busboys and Poets. When I looked at the website and saw that PS 24 was playing, I knew I had hit the jackpot.
The show was scheduled to start at 8pm, so I picked Nokuthula up at 7:15. You can see already, that I was tuning out the voice of experience. The show didn't kick off until 9pm.
We were glad we had come early because we got a chance to talk with the band members When I told the percussionist, Jali-D, that Nox had come all the way from South Africa, he invited us to meet the rest of the band. We met Psalm, the lead singer, who hails from NYC and also Waldo, a military kid who has lived all over the world.
I am a big fan of PS 24. I once heard them described as "folk hop"-- which sort of captures their hip hop roots and their conversational tone. I sort of endorse this description although it has the weird vibe of a movie pitch. The real truth is that their music is hard to classify. Yes, I can see the hip hop influence, but I can also see 
something that is unique to this trio of musicians. I think the secret to their sound is in the drumming-- which screams Dee-Cee without becoming go-go. And let us not forget the lyrics. Some are a little bit confessional--"She was like a carrot in front of a jackass..." Some are political--"George Bush is crazy!" And whimsically profound, like the anthem to childlessness.
Today was a long day. Nokuthula and I went shopping and also did hair, but I am so delighted that we stopped into Busboys and Poets to see PS 24. I asked Jali-D the origin of their name. He gave me a few explanations--- there is a school in NY called PS24. The initials could stand for Powerful Secret. At the end of the day-- or the night-- I decided it didn't matter so much. They are brilliant musicians. I don't mind a little mystery when it comes to great music.
And yes, yes, yes... I did take pictures.
Posted at 11:34 PM | Comments (1)
Category:
D.C. Diaries
Nikki Giovanni in LA Tomorrow!
Nikki Giovanni has a new 
book out, Acolytes. When she was in town this week, she was quite excited about an upcoming reading at Eso Wan bookstore in L.A. Why? Well, for one, Eso Wan is a terrific bookstore-- totally commited to African American Literature. But the real reason is that she is going to be reading with her old friend, Frankie Lennon. And when I say old friend, I mean they go way back. Their mothers were in the hospital giving birth to the two of them at the same time-- you can't go back much further than that! So go to Eso Wan tommorrow afternoon at 5pm for a Geminii double-header.
February 22, 2007
Fruit of the Lemon
I am always sort of uneasy with the task of reviewing. On the one 
hand, I feel like doing a review causes me to me lay down my opinion as somehow more valuable than other folks views on a book. I know how important reviews can be-- not only for the "success" of a book, but for the author's emotional health. (I can quote my crappy reviews chapter and verse.) There is a part of me that would prefer not to be part of the whole messy ordeal of putting my opinions in print.
On the other hand, I really think it is important that more folks of color be allowed to weigh in about literature and we should be make ourselves heard in high profile venues. If these reviews are important, then we should be among the tastemakers.
I don't want to get in the habit of thinking of myself as any sort of gatekeeper, so I don't take on too many review assignments. But when I do, I try to give an honest and fair critique of the work that respects the readers as consumers of literature while giving the author the respect that she deserves as the creator of the same.
I reviewed Andrea Levy's Fruit of the Lemon for The Washington Post. You can read it here.
February 21, 2007
"Spirit of No Surrender"
Young South African writer/filmaker, Nokuthula Mazibuko, is the World Literature Fellow here at George Washington University. Last 
night, she screened her documentary film "Spirit of No Surrender."
The film is an examination into the lives of the students and teachers who were at the center of the 1976 Soweto uprising. (There is more information about this historical event here, but in short the black South African school children marched in protest of the inferior education they received and were mowed down by the police. This ignited resistance movements all over the country.)
The subject matter is very personal to Nokuthula (pronounced Nok-TU-la) because one of the brave teachers is her own father. There is much to be admired about "Spirit of No Surrender", and I am most intrigued by her use of subtitles. The subjects of the documentary speak both English and IsiZulu, slipping easily from one to the other. The film maker provides subcaptions in English when the people are speaking IsiZulu and vice versa. The result is arresting. I had to become a more active viewer--sometimes listening, sometimes reading. I really felt myself to be at the lingual-crossroads that was at the center of the conflict.
If you missed last night's showing, never fear. Nokuthula has several other presentations scheduled for her time here in DC. She'll be giving a reading a of her fiction here at GW on March 1. On this coming Monday at 1pm, she'll be at the Library of Congress .
The rest of her schedule is below:
February 20, 2007
Honoring Fannie Lou Hamer
Many of us are on a single-name basis with our heroes. Remember those t-shirts from the 90's that read Martin, Malcolm, Mandela, ME. I think they were put out by Spike Lee. Anyway, I had one. I am ashamed to say that as a teenager, it never occurred to me to ask about the women in the civil rights movement. It is particularly disturbing in my case because I was reared in a household that was determined to give credit where it was due in terms of the struggles of black people all over the globe. (My older brother is named "Patrice Lumumba Jones"; you get the idea.)
The only woman I knew about when it came to Civil Rights was Rosa Parks and even her legacy had been twisted into a nice-girl version of resistance-- the tired seamstress who sat down because she was tired. Who knew of her other corageous and active protests? I was in college before I ever heard the name Fannie Lou Hamer-- thank heaven for Spelman. I can only think that for a person like me to have this disturbing absence in my understanding of the civil rights struggle, the rest of the nation (the world!) must share this historical amsesia.
This is why I am honored to announce the upcoming conference to honor the memory of Fannie Lou Hamer, which is organized by my father, Mack H. Jones. (Conference details are here.)
Scroll down for a little Q&A:
ME: Can you tell us a little bit about Fannie Lou Hamer and why she was important?
Mack Jones (AKA Daddy): In my view, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the most significant warriors in the modern civil rights movement. Through her courage and determination she played a critical role in ending American racial apartheid. When she defied her plantation bosses by insisting on her right to register to vote she gave strength and courage to other oppressed black folk to do the same. When she challenged the racist practices of the Mississippi Democratic Party at the 1964 National convention she exposed the hypocrisy of American democracy for the whole world to see and set in motion the chain of events that eventually led to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and to the end of state sanctioned racial segregation and discrimination in the United States.
And on another level, by rising up from her humble station as an oppressed Black woman sharecropper on a Mississippi plantation to become an internationally known and revered human rights leader, Mrs. Hamer demonstrated the debilitating costs of racial and gender oppression. Her life should be a source of emulation for all of us, especially our youth. We are holding this conference to burnish her legacy, to remind us all of her sterling contributions to the struggle for civil and human rights both nationally and internationally.
Me: What can people do to honor Mrs. Hamer?
Daddy: Even though there are scores of institutes, programs, awards, and other activities named for Mrs. Hamer, we do not yet have a fitting living memorial that acknowledges and sustains the work of Fannie Lou Hamer. We would love to see African American people, women's organizations, anyone who values progress and justice-- come together nationally and commit to building a national institution in her honor.
Perhaps we could build a first-rate secondary boarding school for girls from the rural south, a school that would educate and train young women as leaders who would continue in the spirit of Mrs. Hamer. Such an effort could be led by our churches, sororities and fraternities, professional associations, and the like.
Me: Sounds like plan.
Posted at 06:47 AM | Comments (1)
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Current Events
February 18, 2007
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year. It's a good time to start yourself over-- commit to doing your life right. It's the first night of the first moon-cycle of 2007. January 1, is the start of the solar new year. That's all well and good, but everyone knows that the moon is a special friend to artists.
Take a deep breath and renew yourself! 2007 is the Year of the Boar. It's a time of abundance, but don't be so-- well-- pig-headed that you can't gather up your blessings!
Posted at 09:51 AM | Comments (1)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 17, 2007
Linking For the Weekend
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Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 16, 2007
Like Kids? Like Writing? Like TV?
Here's an opportunity!
Call for Entries: The Nickelodeon Writing Fellowship
Nickelodeon is offering writing fellowships in live action and animated television to culturally and ethnically diverse, new writers. Participants will have hands-on experience writing spec scripts and pitching story ideas.
The program, developed to broaden Nickelodeon's outreach efforts, provides a salaried position for up to one year. The '07 - '08 cycle is tentatively scheduled to begin in October 2007.
The next submission period runs from January 2 - February 28, 2007. Applications and submission guidelines are available at website at www.nickwriting.com.
(thx. mr. reeder)
Posted at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
The Writing Life
February 15, 2007
When Poets Play
This is a big weekend for DC poets. The annual Howard University Hearts Day Conference is this weekend. Poets from all over have swooped 
down on Washington to celebrate Nikki Giovanni, Lucille Clifton, and Mari Evans.
My good friend, Tara Betts, came down from NYC. (My affection for Tara has already been well documented on this blog.) With Tara comes good people. She got to DC around eight and we immediately rushed to Busboys and Poets to meet up with Remica, Derrick, and Alan.
Busboys is a place where it is hip to think. The women of Code Pink are frequent guests as well as other progressive folk. On the way out, we ran into DJ 2-Tone Jones (no relation) who told about the AM Radio project-- it's where visual art meets hip hop.
Although there were a lot of cool people in attendance, our little party was pretty self contained. There was much to celebrate. Remica was in a fine mood as she has just won the 2007 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize for her new book, Conversion. Derrick Weston Brown is the poet-in residence at Busboys. Alan King has two terrific chapbooks and you know all about Tara with her bad self. (And she just finished her MFA. Watch out world!) And what about me? Just a fiction writer in a poet's world. I am happy to say that nobody held it against me.
And, yes, there are pictures!
Posted at 11:39 PM | Comments (1)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 14, 2007
Happy Day, Valentine
Happy Valentine's Day, folks. I was doing my morning pages and I 
remembered a little something from my girlhood. When I was little my mother helped me make a mailbox for Valentines. I took it to school and the whole class used it and I felt so proud.
My mother, Barbara Ann, was my first role model of creativity. She's not a person that you would think of as all that creative at first glance. Her degree is in Economics and she is a Business School Dean. Never the less, she is one of the most creative people I know. She and my brother did all sorts of arts and crafts in the 70s: string art, macrame, hooking rugs etc. She can do everything from landscaping to cake decoration.
When I was about eight, I wrote a book called A Trip To Mars. I stapled it together and found it to be quite nice. My mother took it to her job and had it laminated. To me, this was the highest form of archival presentation. Years later, when I in high school, I wrote a short story called "The Pursuit of Michael Thomas." It was inspired by my crush on a bass drummer in the marching band. My story is a revenge tale, of sorts. My mother went to her office on a Sunday and typed it up for me. (She insisted that I change the names so the people would not be so recognizable.) I have to say that I appreciated the typing, but it's not until now that I understand what it meant for her to go into the office on a Sunday. (A Sunday? No way. I do not even think about the office after Friday, 12pm.)
So, the whole point of this is to say HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY WITH LOVE to my mother, Barbara Ann.
Posted at 07:47 AM | Comments (1)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 13, 2007
Praying To Catch The Bus
We are in Week 5 of The Artist's Way. The theme of this week is "Recovering a Sense of Possibility." There was a sentence that really spoke to me:
This is a really important idea. A lot of times, it's easy to get discouraged about the creative life because you hear so much about "it's all who you know." And there is this disturbing emphasis on the looks of women artists in particular. It can kind of be discouraging because all the factors that made you hate high school so much and maybe drove you into the solitary world of art in the first place, seem to be invading even that sprecial world. It's enough to make a girl put down her pen.
And it's true, who you know is a real part of it. But every time I have gotten a hook-up based on connections, I happened to be running as fast as I could.
Praying "to catch the bus" is when you wish wish wish you could meet someone with the connections to help you find an agent, an MFA program, a publisher-- whatever you need. "Oh please help me get my poor foot in the door," you pray. But here's the thing. If you are not running as fast as you can, what can you do with the opportunity when the universe hands it to you?
Posted at 08:37 AM | Comments (7)
Category:
The Artist's Way
February 11, 2007
Linky-Dink
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Category:
The Writing Life
Bookstore For Self-Published Authors
There is a bookstore opening in New York called New Voices which will sell only books by self-published authors. For a modest stocking fee of about three hundred dollars, this store will carry your self-published titles.
As you all know here, I go back and forth about self-publishing. On the one hand, I love the democracy of it. I love cutting out the corporate middle man. But on the other hand, it seems like there should be some sort of filter between the author and the reading public. (And we all remember what Mat thinks about it.) From what I see from the New Voices website, they do not discriminate against any books. If it is bound, they will sell it.
A telling thing about the website is that it says that the new store is "devoted to self-published authors." I have to wonder where is the devotion to the readers. I think it is a lot to ask of a reader to do the same work that editor's assistants do-- read through the slush pile. I am sure that there are great works amond the self-published titles sent into the store and I am sure that there are some real duds. As a reader, I want to have some sort of vetting system in place before I spend my time and money on a book.
This, I think, is the problem with the only criteria is that the book is self-published. A lot of people have strong feelings about self-published books, but the truth is that it is impossible to have an opinion about such a large category of work. All it means to say that a work is self-published is that the author wrote it. Some people have to interest in traditional publishing. Many have tried and failed. And, we must say that some books don't get published because they are too political, too experimental, too weird, too sexy.. etc. And a lot of books don't get picked up by traditional publishers because they are just too awful. The tricky thing about the concept behind New Voices is that there is no way to tell which is which.
I wish them well, as I support mostly all effort to connect books with readers, but I can't imagine myself browsing thier aisles.
(Thx T.R.O.Y. for telling me about this.)
Posted at 08:54 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
The Writing Life
February 08, 2007
Report From the Road: Hartford, CT
Yesterday, I had the great privilege of giving the keynote address for "The Big Read" program in Hartford, Connecticut. The Big Read is a nationwide program sponsored by the NEA. More than 200 communities will read a book together and host a series of literary events. The wonderful folks at the Hartford Public Library are sponsoring a big reading of Zora Neale Hurston. I love her.
(The Big Read has a blog. David Kipen, the director of the Literature division of the NEA, promised to blog about the Hartford event, but it's not up yet.)
I was really looking forward to the event, so imagine my dismay when I woke up Wednesday morning sick as a dog! Fever, coughing, and (here's the kicker) NO VOICE. I convinced myself that this was the sore throat equivalent of a flash flood. I swallowed a handful of medicine-- natural stuff and old fashioned DayQuil. Feeling sort of high and sort of miserable I boarded the plane.
The event was held in the Mark Twain House and Museum. I wasn't up to taking the walking tour, but I heard all the oohing and ahhing from those folks who got the full treatment. I was just milling around the reception, apologizing to everyone in advance.
The audience was so kind and patient with me as I whispered out my prepared remarks about Hurston and Twain. And they learned forward in thier seats as I read from Leaving Atlanta. (I learned so much about writing folk-speech from Hurston. I felt it was only right to read Octavia!)
After the reading, a tall man walked up to me. "Hi," he said. "I'm William Reeder." I blinked. "William from the 5th grade???" I just love that kind of synchronicity. I hugged him and dragged him around the reception, "He went to grade school with me!" I pointed to the copies of Leaving Atlanta. "He was THERE."
And, of course, there are pictures!
February 05, 2007
When Good Advice Comes Back, It's Even Better
Part of what we're doing in The Artist's Way is figuring out which people in the world are our allies in arts. I've been working hard to weed out my "poisonous playmates", while remembering to value the people who nurture me and my work.
Here's a story:
When I was just finished with Leaving Atlanta, and getting going on The Untelling, I went to my mentor Ron Carlson for advice. I had about fifty tender little pages. Should I send them to my agent? Ron said, "Depends." I said, "Depends on what?" He said, "Do you like the pages? Do you feel like you're on fire? Are you in the zone?" I said, "Yes, yes, yes!" And Ron said, "Then don't show it to your agent yet. She's going to say that she likes it, but.." Then he looked up at the ceiling and started talking again. "She's going to say that she likes it, but she was thinking you should write something with-- I don't know-- civil war reenactors. And then you're going to be looking at your fifty pages trying to figure out where you're going to put those union soldiers."
Of course, my agent has never pushed for me to include the war between the states in my books, but I got the point: Don't invite outside meddling until you absolutely have to.
Apparently, I passed this advice on to my friend, Bryn.
Just yesterday, she passed it back to me in a much shortened form: "NO! Don't forget the Union Soldiers!"
It was just the boomerang I needed.
What's the best advice you ever got from a mentor? Did you pass it on? Has it come back yet?
Posted at 02:42 PM | Comments (4)
Category:
The Artist's Way
, Writing
February 03, 2007
February Festivities!
I've got a lot of things going on this month and I wanted to make sure that I kept folks in the loop.
On February 7th, I'll be in Hartford, CT, participating in THE BIG READ. The event will be at the Mark Twain House. The event is called from Twain to Hurston to Jones. I'll read and talk about one of my favorite writers, the late great Zora Neal Hurston. Details here.
On February 28th, I'll be in Atlanta in a Q&A with Lee Smith. It's called "Crossing The Line" and we plan to talk about everything that matters to us as writers, as women writers, as southern writers.. you get the idea. This event costs $5 for members of the Margaret Mitchell House and $10 for everyone else. Details here.
On March 3, still in Atlanta, I am giving a reading at the AWP Conference. 7pm at the Hilton downtown. It's FREE and I really hope you'll come out. I could use the moral support. I'll be reading from my new novel is progress. I'm nervous and excited. Like Erykah Badu said that one time: "I'm an artist and I am sensitive about my ....." If you can make it, I'd be mighty happy to see you. Details here.
Posted at 11:42 AM | Comments (2)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 02, 2007
Linky-Dink
I'm blogging from an internet kiosk in the Dallas airport. The trip to the Bay Area was golden, but exhausting.
Okay, they are AT LONG LAST, boarding my plane!
Posted at 08:01 PM | Comments (1)
Category:
Travels & Rambles
February 01, 2007
Report From The Road: Oakland, California
On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of visiting Mills College, in Oakland at the invitation of Cornelia Nixon, a terrific novelist and cool individual. In short, I had such a wonderful time. The campus is beautiful, green hills, mountains in the distance, architecture like something out of a romantic movie. But the real treat was interacting with the people.
The MFA students at Mills interact like friends. Most of the time, MFA programs are more like families-- over-run with politics, favoritism, and complicated rivalries. (Remind me one day to tell you about my own MFA experiences, including the time I was accussed of stealing an overhead projector.) But the students at Mills talked shop, and talked life with nothing but respect and genuine affection for one another. The regard crossed racial lines, gender lines, and (gasp) GENRE! (Here's the website for the MFA program at Mills.)
Of course, I have a photo album from my visit. Sadly, I ran out of batteries before we went to a huge family style dinner in Oakland's China Town. I wish I had a picture of the disco-inspired lazy-Susan in the middle of the table. I also wish I could have gotten photos of all the dinner guests. Benjamin's eagle-shirt alone was worth the price of admission.
The visit was wonderful in every way, but there was also a trace of sadness. I asked to check my email and I was directed to the English graduate student lounge which was dedicated to the memory of Amanda Davis, a young writer who passed away four years ago. Time flies doesn't it? (You can read my remembrance here.)
Okay. Enough of that. As Amanda herself used to say, "Back to work, lady."
R.I.P. Molly Ivins
As they said on truthout.org, her enduring message is: "Raise More Hell."
Posted at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
Category:
Current Events