We write for a target audience. Readers differ in their demographics as well as their literary tastes. When my novel, Never, was published, I began meeting with book groups, and they were all baby boomers like me. I realized I’d written a book for my own generation. Never is a coming-of-age story that takes place in the segregated south. Folks my age (I’m turning seventy) can remember Martin Luther King and the turbulent sixties. Southern readers have shared with me their memories of growing up with a Black maid, often articulating a version of the bewildered … Continue reading Writing For A Generation by Joel F. Johnson →
In the summer of 1967, the year of my high school graduation, the Newark, N.J.-adjacent town of Plainfield, where I grew up, exploded with race riots. I was in Washington, D.C. when it happened, working as a G-2 clerk-typist for the U.S. Post Office. I didn’t witness the events in my hometown, where an incident in a diner escalated into full-blown violence in reaction to police brutality against people of color. Fifty-one years later, as an officer handcuffed me for attempting to drape the crown of Queen Isabella of Spain with a foot-square piece of … Continue reading Then We had Ice Cream by Isabel Wolf Frischman →
Mexican-American. Latino/a. Are the hyphens and slashes connecting these forces more like borders or bridges, separating or unifying to the touch? Why can’t I superimpose Mexican and American so that they Rest upon each other like stacked hands, and then maybe we would see transparently, the redundancy of those two worlds. I cannot occupy entirely one or the other, so I live within that hyphen, on that see-sawing slash. I become the bridge, a body split, but connected as one. For years it was a contemplative space of confusion. With age I have created a … Continue reading Mexican-American by Amanda Rosas →
Much has been going on in the blogger’s back-of-the-blog life, compounded with news of the nation. And frankly, I have been mulling for well over a week on how to say what I want to say; or how to say anything, for that matter. There are times in the life of a writer when said writer recognizes the limitations of words. Also: words can be dangerous—inflammatory, distracting, powerful, persuasive, false, painful, hurtful. People get defensive at words they feel are “aimed” at them. Aimed, a weaponized word. I have had people (okay, white people) tell … Continue reading Just Speak by Ann E. Michael →
When whales and porpoises beach themselves en masse, people react and mobilize in response to the tragedy. The sight of cetaceans dying from dehydration or drowning, and the inevitability of their slow, suffering death can lead to outrage. Some people arrive to pour water on the whales and provide relief. Some coordinate an effort to drag them back into the surf, but then the whales beach themselves again. Marine biologists take blood and tissue samples (why waste such an opportunity?) yet after generations of deaths of innumerable pods, science still offers no more than theories … Continue reading Beached Whales by Spriggan Radfae →
Discussion about multiculturalism can have a polarizing effect on people and it often slides into train wreck conversations or initiates a war of words. People tend to pick sides based on affiliation and then drown out the opposition. You’ve probably seen this happen on any number of news discussion shows. I recently witnessed such an encounter: two white men in a small group listened to a talk about social privilege during an organization’s diversity training class, and an argument ensued afterwards as the men refused to acknowledge the impact of social privilege on others and … Continue reading Difficult Conversations of Multiculturalism →
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