Activism is Art in that the best activism, like much of Great Art, is grounded in honest storytelling by artists/activists. Reading “The Migration Diary of Hala Almasi” by Amit Majmudar posted by JNaz prompted me to write about a recent experience I had as good friends were frantic to get their team out of Afghanistan.
Author: Barbara
Since I wrote a post about Joy Harjo’s book Crazy Brave: A Memoir–which I loved, I thought I’d share a bit of her poetry. It came to me in an e-mail from Kirkridge Retreat Center, a beautiful retreat and study center in the Pennsylvania Poconos. What a lovely Thanksgiving poem. Fall is soon officially here.
After a very gloomy, rain-soaking remnant from hurricane Ida hit yesterday, the sun came out today in my neck of the woods. To remain centered in our world these days, we all need sunshine, good friends, and some laughter. Here’s to the women in our blog. Today someone asked me if I knew you.I laughed
There is so much history I know nothing about. This memoir provided a wild ride through the 60’s-70’s lesbian feminist/gay rights movement from a lesbian feminist perspective. The author lived through it all. She was a student at Columbia University and also spent time in California as this history was unfolding. I found it especially
I thought I would pass on this opportunity. I have not read the controversial New York Times The 1619 Project. It is available for free at: https://pulitzercenter.org/sites/default/files/full_issue_of_the_1619_project.pdf From the New York Times description of the project: “The 1619 Project began with the publication, in August 2019, of a special issue of The New York Times
Amy Sohn is a novelist, but she has also written for Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, The Nation and The New York Times. The Man Who Hated Women is a well researched history of feminist ‘sex radicals’ during The Gilded Age up to the death of Anthony Comstock in 1915 (the man who hated women) and beyond. This
Even though I came of age during the Viet Nam anti-war movement, I realize now that I never really learned much about the country or its history. Reading Ocean Vuong’s exquisite novel opened me up to a desire to read more Vietnamese writers. I was prompted to read the two novels by Pulitzer Prize winner
As I was reading The Night Watchman, the novel was announced as the recipient of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It is well deserving of the honor. The tale centers around a community’s efforts to halt the proposed displacement and elimination of several Native American tribes in the 1950s. The main character, Thomas Wazhashk,
This is a very excellent book written by a real visionary. McGhee has a sharp mind which she uses to combine historical facts with personal anecdotes and stories that she gathered from interviews as she crossed the country from Maine to Mississippi to California. She wanted to discover why it is so common for people to
I was introduced to Joy Harjo through an On Being interview. She is primarily a poet, but she also plays the saxophone both solo and with pulled-together players she often calls the Arrow Dynamics Band. She became the first Native American Poet Laureate in 2019 and will serve through 2021. Crazy Brave is her memoir
