You're Invited: Poems & Previews - Jimmy's No 43 (43 East 7th St), Thursday May 30th - 7pm

Join Minda Magero, Ayesha Harruna Attah & me for an evening of poetry and previews of new work.

The Writing Waiting Life

At a reading for Chimamanda Adichie's latest book Americanah

It's been almost a year since I made the decision to go full-throttle with my career as a writer and author   i.e. quit my full-time gig and figure out how to live off of my writing. I thought the move would be about cutting the corporate cord and living a life of freedom and writing, and to a large extent it has been -- but mostly this new life has been about waiting.

Waiting for checks to arrive. Waiting for word from editors, agents, clients, book store owners, educators, freelance staffing agencies... Waiting to get to a place where I'm not on the way, but have actually arrived, you know?

I knew writing required patience. I pitched agents for four years before I got one, and when Powder Necklace was sold some two months later to Simon and Schuster, I waited two years for the book to be released. As I wrote my second book, I waited throughout my sleep for morning to come so I could repeat my ritual of writing on the bus on the way in to Manhattan, then writing in the library till I had to log off and go to work.

But it wasn't until I left my day job that I had a "mirror moment" with the level of patience required. It turns out my job offered more than a steady check; it kept me sufficiently distracted from how much I need to write. It kept the stakes relatively low. Now, everything has changed.

This change is for the better, I know. But better is hard work. As is waiting. Thank God for the sign posts along the way, those moments, that indicate I am on my way.



This weekend, I attended an amazing brunch Ebony.com hosted for its contributors. Even though the voice of insecurity (and the multiple glasses of wine I'd drunk at a get-together with friends the night before) had me doubting whether I really belonged amidst the group of fiercely intelligent, purposeful, powerful women in the room; I reminded myself that all the years of pitching editors who would ignore my queries, all the free articles I wrote back in the day, the credits I slowly added to my byline had led to that moment of pause and celebration. Those moments bookend the work. And the waiting.

Totally unrelated (though it's all related, I believe), I attended a conversation Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie had with her editor in promotion of her fourth book Americanah. It was so inspiring to see her mainly because I think she's a good model for how to be when you do "arrive". As she notes in the video, you remind yourself and others that you worked for it, you acknowledge the privilege, and then you get on with the work.

I share my thoughts on Chimamanda at the 11:20 mark.

Pictures from Imagenation and Telem Center for the African Child Readings

Me, Imagenation founder Moikgantsi Kgama, & Ayesha Harruna Attah

Imagenation founder Moikgantsi Kgama, Ayesha Harruna Attah & me

Saturday April 6, 2013 marked the third anniversary of the release of Powder Necklace and I got to start the celebration a week early on Saturday March 30th in a joint discussion on African Writing with fellow author Ayesha Harruna Attah. Imagenation founder Moikgantsi Kgama moderated the conversation in her Rawspace Gallery with questions ranging from a tribute to China Achebe's work and impact, to how to define "African" writing with writers like me and Ayesha living and working in the Diaspora. Ayesha and I shared the mic at my first ever reading of my book and we have done several events together. I think we make a great team. 

Ayesha reading from her upcoming book

Ayesha reading from Harmattan Rain

The Imagenation event was a great gathering, made even more exciting because Pariah actress Adepero Oduye was in the house! (If you haven't seen the film, you should know that Oduye turned in an effortless performance that garnered the praise of none other than the grand thespian herself, Meryl Streep.) 

Reading at Telem's Fundraiser

Singer Azania, Telem board member Veralyn, me & Telem founder Diana

This past weekend, on the actual birthday of my book, I read at the Telem Center for the African Child's "Taste of Africa" fundraiser. It was an amazing event featuring Sierra Leonian, Ethiopian, Moroccan, and Haitian bites (among others!) as well as South African, Ethiopian, and Moroccan wines. Sierra Leonian soul singer Azania warmed the gathering with her live vocals. I left full of food and mirth.

The last three years have been an incredible journey. I look forward to many more years, and books under my belt.

Me

Me, Diana & Telem board member Judy

You're Invited: Fiction Forum at the New School

Glen Finland

Deborah Henry

Join Glen Finland, Deborah Henry, and I in a Fiction Forum moderated by Jeffery Renard Allen:

TUESDAY APRIL 16, 2013 AT 6:30PM
NEW SCHOOL UNIVERSITY
ALVIN JOHNSON/J.M. KAPLAN HALL - ROOM 510
66 WEST 12TH STREET, 5TH FLOOR
NEW YORK, NY
$5 Admission (Free to New School students, faculty & alums)

In Celebration of National Poetry Month: An Ode to the Library

April is National Poetry Month. Founded by the American Academy of Poets in 1996, the monthlong celebration presents multiple suggestions and opportunities for experiencing poetry including attending a reading, sharing your favorite poem on "Poem in Your Pocket" Day, and reading your own poetry at an open mic. In celebration, I've written a poem in honor of the library, one of my favorite places to write. Please share your favorite poems and poets in the comments section.

A Library is
By Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

A library is
A choir
Of voices hallowed and profane
Whispering cheers and subversions
Preserving stories like griots
Like songs
Making sure you remember
So we never forget
Put your ear to the shelves
Not a spineless one

A library is
A federal reserve
Bullion bars of research and data
The keeper of theories proven and debunked
Hoarding relics and memories
Of the way we thought and think
The way we were
On rolling carts in musty stacks
On oak tag cards and rubber stamps
Broadband connections churning centuries of words and ideas

A library is
A shelter
The fallout from earnest and wicked shrugs about what to do with our homeless and mentally ill
See the line that stretches in the morning
Before the doors open
Men and women ragged from roaming the streets of their minds
Waiting for a warm, quiet place to be crazy
Where others go to be sane
From the craziness at home
And for the wi-fi

 A library is
A junction
Where race, class, and generations converge at the intersection of homework, research, and resume triage
A free after school program
A NICU for concepts and dreams that need more time to develop
A daycare for the over-qualified
A place to go and feel productive
While you wait for the call Because you will get the call

A library is
A luxury
Of a nation so rich
Not only the rich are entitled to a library
A necessity
Of a society committed to a future that builds on the wisdom of the past
A safe house for learning
A beacon
On a neighborhood block

Rest in Peace, Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe's A Man of the People is one of my all-time favorite books. It's a slim novel set in what I assumed to be Nigeria, and it follows an idealistic teacher named Odili who begins as a staunchly incorruptible character right after the end of colonialism. Slowly, he concedes his moral high ground. It's an unflinching observation of human nature, and it is funny.

It is the first book I read about Africa that made me laugh. A Man of the People didn't make light of the corruption that helped derail the promise of many West African nations in the wake of the wave of Independence that started with Ghana in 1957; it looked it in the eye. In "Man", before the characters were African, they were human. This seems like an obvious observation, but, perhaps because I grew up hearing Ghana romanticized by my immigrant parents, the story resonated deeply with me -- more so than Achebe's best known novel Things Fall Apart.

But as a writer of African heritage, I know it is Things Fall Apart that is globally recognized as the benchmark for the African story. African writing is rarely mentioned apart from Chinua Achebe and this book. For many readers, "Things" is the first and only novel about Africa / by an African that they've read. It is taught in so many universities and high schools; and has been passed from my parents' generation to mine. I and my peers will likely share it with our own children. It is canon.

So when I heard Achebe died yesterday, I cried because the man who wrote "Man" and "Things" is gone; and because I felt the weight of a new responsibility to this writing craft. He has done his part and now he rests, leaving it to the next generation to pick up where he left off.

In Her Words: Emerging African Writers in the Diaspora

Ayesha Harruna Attah (she wrote Commonwealth Writers Prize Finalist Harmattan Rain) and I invite you to join us in discussing our experiences writing about Africa, while living in the Diaspora.

African Literature is global. It's African-American, Afro-Latino, Afro-European, Afro-Asian... as much as it is African. Like the "duckoonoo" and greens the Africans that made the Middle Passage found and reinvented in the Americas, Africa's literature has traveled with many of its authors; evolving into new narratives. But, can a literary work borne in the Diaspora claim authentic African identity? Are there specific characteristics that make literature African?

We'll be having the conversation at ImageNation's rawspace Gallery, an amazing venue located under the umbrella of the ImageNation Cinema Foundation. The Harlem-based media arts organizaton was founded by Moikgantsi Kgama "with the goal of establishing a chain of art-house cinemas dedicated to progressive media by and about people of color."

COME:
Saturday, MARCH 30, 2013 3-5PM
ImageNation rawspace Gallery
2031 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. (7th Avenue between 121st & 122nd)