September Sightings

Hi all,

I would love to see you this September. I have a ton of activities. Please join.

September 3

Sunday Jump, 5-7pm

Pilipino Workers Center

153 Glendale Blvd

LA  CA  90026

September 16

Book Party, 3pm

Skylight Books

1818 N. Vermont

LA  CA  90027

September 25

Canisius University, 5:30pm

Andrew L. Bouwhuis Library Learning Center

Buffalo, NY 

September 26

PEN America Reading,7pm

Earth, Wind, Fire, Music:

A Celebration of New Work.

Second Home

1370 N. St. Andrews Pl.

LA  CA  90028

Heart Center

 I had the pleasure of doing a reading at Spoken Interludes. I read a new piece called Heart Center, touching on Buddhist topics like impermanence, the suffering of death, and Kuan Yin, goddess of compassion. 

Speaking at Spoken Interludes on March 7

 When Delaune Michel invited me to do this event on Sunday, I actually got real emotional. I remember when I was asked to do this legendary literary salon almost 20 years ago. I was younger and knew that Spoken Interludes was a REAL big deal. 

It was validating to be asked, considering that there were many others who DIDN'T ask. I changed a lot. I'm reading an essay on leading a Buddhist death ritual for a friend who was passing away. The essay will be the first time I'd read it out loud. Reading something publicly makes a piece of writing real for me. It's not just tucked away in a computer or in my mind. It's a living, breathing being. It becomes alive somehow.

Please join us. It's FREE. Register HERE. 

WRITE EFFORT at Beyond Baroque

I am absolutely thrilled to be working with the fine literary institution Beyond Baroque. I became familiar with them in the 1990s as I began my literary career. I am over the moon that I can teach WRITE EFFORT: Creative Writing Through a Buddhist Lens. Classes begin via Zoom on May 23.

Ritual in Literary Spaces

When news broke that Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison passed away, I slipped into pastor mode. I took a class in divinity school on rituals.  Rituals are an important part of life.  Marriage, graduation, birthdays are all forms of rituals.  Rituals mark transition.  Rituals are important.

I felt Toni Morrison's passing required some kind of ritual.  On my Facebook feed, I saw people lamenting her death.  The literary community that I circle in was truly mourning.  So, I organized a tribute, asking some awesome writers to participate (photo above, starting with back row: Jervey Tervalon, Gary Philips, Nina Revoyr, Lisa Teasley, Michael Datcher, Terry Wolverton, Lynell George; front row: me, Dana Johnson, Natasha Deon).

At Skylight Books, we discussed the work of Toni Morrison and what she meant to us, then we read passages from her novels.  It was an awesome turnout.  I was thrilled that Walter Mosley (Devil in a Blue Dress) showed up.

At the end of the reading, I did feel a sense of closure. I don't know about anyone else, but I felt this literary ritual was an important one to have.

Beloved Toni Morrison

I read Beloved, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby and Sula within two years. There was something about her voice that inspired me.  There was a rhythm and a style in her work that transported me. Her dedication to exploring African American life was a model for how I would explore various communities that I identified with.  

In 1993, when I first started studying writing, my writing teacher Ayofemi Folayan was ecstatic.  

"Toni Morrision won the Nobel Prize!" she said.

"Cool," I said, but I was hiding the fact that I was unfamiliar with her and her work.  If she won the Nobel Prize, I guess I should know who she is.  I started with her master piece Beloved, the tale of a black woman who kills her children rather than have them become slaves. 

I didn't know such story telling could exist.  I became a different person, a better writer because of her. Thank you.

Remembering Ayofemi, Remember Why

Ayofemi Folayan passed away recently.  She was my first writing teacher, and I owe her a tremendous amount of gratitude.  In the early 1990's, I was a few years out of acting school, and not acting.  Creativity had always been a strong tool in dealing with the world, and I needed to be creative.  As any actor will you, you're never acting enough and you're usually waiting for someone's permission to act. 

I started her writing workshop, a space she had for LGBT people of color.  She wanted space for young writers to say whatever they wanted to say.  She encouraged writing exploring issues of being a double minority.  I had been in creative spaces before--I had a degree in Theatre.  However, her class was different.  She asked us to travel deeply within ourselves, uncork our thoughts on truly difficult themes: racism, homophobia, immigration.  She helped me become a person who could comfortably speak my mind--with tact and generosity.  She helped developed my Voice. 

One day, she said she was selling her computer for a newer one.  I bought it.  And still have it.  I typed out stories on this old clunker.  I dug it out to look at it and remember my joy of writing in the first place. 

It's been twenty years, and I may have become a little jaded.  I'm being asked to consider "the market" when I write.  Can I sell whatever story I'm writing.  I must confess I had been having some frustration with my current novel.  I feel like my Voice had been muddled.  I'd been choking on what to say.

With Ayofemi's passing, I'm reminded as to why I started writing.  I wanted to do something honest and true.  I wanted to put something out in the world that was valuable.  I wanted to be the kind of writer Ayofemi would have been proud of.  And I still do.

 

 

Thank you, Ayofemi, for your service.

Hope and Inpiration at Jury Duty

Last week, I had to be at the Van Nuys courthouse by 10am to report for jury duty (JD).  I've done JD many times.  I was usually assigned a courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.  The drive into the San Fernando Valley on a weekday morning was not something I looked forward to.  However, I wanted to do my civic duty.

I brought stuff to read.  I brought my laptop to the jury waiting room.  I'm doing rewrites on some creative projects.  The work never seems to be ready.   

I was prepared for a long and dreadful day.  Then I saw a stack of New Yorkers.  I used to be an avid reader (when my boyfriend subscribed to it).  I hadn't been with him in many years, but always enjoyed an issue when I saw one lying around, say in a doctor's office. 

On this day, there was a stack of them.  Thanks to the kind soul who left New Yorkers around for jurors to read--Good Housekeeping was not something I would have picked up for reading material.
 

I believe that things happen for a reason.  If sending me to Jury Duty was the only way the Universe would get me to read the April 29, 2013 issue of the New Yorker, I offer prostrations to all of the Gods in Heaven.  I stumbled across John McPhee's "Draft No. 4," which can be previewed here. 

The article basically talked about getting the first draft done of any writing and how the fourth draft usually looks like the most presentable.  It was this letter to his daughter, that inspired me.

Dear Jenny:  The way to do a piece of writing is three or four times over, never once.  For me, the hardest part comes first, getting something--anything--out in front of me.  Sometimes in a nervous frenzy I just fling words as if I were flinging mud at a wall.  Blurt out, heave out, babble out something--anything--as a first draft.  With that, you have achieved a sort of nucleus.  Then, as you work it over and alter it, you begin to shape sentences that score higher with the ear and eye.  Edit it again--top to bottom.  Chances are that about now you'll be seeing something that you are sort of eager for others to see.   And all that takes time.  What I have left out is the interstitial time.  You finish that first awful blurting and then you put the thing aside.  You get in your car and drive home.  On the way, your mind is still knitting at the words.  You think of a better way to say something, a good phrase to correct a certain problem.  Without the drafted version--if it did not exist--you obviously would not be thinking of things that would improve it.  In short, you may be actually writing only two or three hours a day, but your mind, in one way or another, is working on it twenty-four hours a day--yes, while you sleep--but only if some sort of draft or earlier version already exists.  Until it exists, writing has not really begun. 

Ouch!

I love a good literary fued and this writer is starting a war. He lists 15 of America's Overrated Writers. Click here.

Your thoughts?