Author: Barbara

Every year our local women’s help center, Centre Safe, raises funds by screening Lunafest short films at a local theater. When COVID closed the theaters, the event became available online. The films are all made by women and the ticket sales support women filmmakers and women’s groups. The tickets are $15 plus a small fee.

The Secret to Superhuman Strength is a graphic memoir. It’s the first book I have ever read by Alison Bechdel. She’s a wonderful cartoonist who became well know through her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008). She went on to produce two previous graphic memoirs, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and Are You

I subscribe to Jenni Monet’s online newsletter, Indigenously. It’s a great resource for information concerning Native American issues. She often makes suggestions for further reading. Based on Monet’s recommendation, I read Ada Blackjack. Her story is a page-turner about early exploration in the Arctic. In 1921 four young men and one Native American woman, Ada

I first learned about Michele Goodwin on a zoom program sponsored by the Beverly Hills Bar Association and Writers Bloc, “The Future of Reproductive Rights in America.” The conversation included Alexis McGill Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and moderator Jessica Mason Pieklo, Editor at Rewire News Group. Goodwin is the

This is a very moving documentary about the women survivors of Chernobyl who refused to leave their homes after the area was legally condemned because of the danger of radiation poisoning. The film was made in 2015, but I did a bit of research, and I think some of the women are still living. I

I watched the Academy Award nominated documentary Attica which is free as part of Black History Month. I knew about the 1971 rebellion inside Attica, but I never realized how brutal it truly was. It is extremely hard to watch; the film is a very graphic history lesson. It certainly deserves an Oscar! A warning–it

I was surprised to discover that Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor has written children’s books. Her latest is Just Help. Out of curiosity, I signed up for a live zoom conversation between Justice Sotomayor and America Ferrera about writing the book. The Justice especially impressed me when she responded to three children from the audience who

I attended a zoom program with Pádraig Ó Tuama, Poet Laureate of OnBeing. He did a close reading of Tracy K. Smith’s poem Unrest in Baton Rouge. The poem is a response to Johanthan Bachman’s iconic photograph taken at a protest in the wake of the shooting by police of of Alton Sterling and Philando Casitle.

Every year since 2017, I have loved the The Universe in Verse. This year there is a new iteration: “For four seasons, it remained a live gathering — thousands of embodied universes of thought and feeling, huddled together in a finite space built in a faraway time when Whitman’s living atoms walked the streets outside.

Here’s an article for poetry lovers. Ari Banias’ book, A Symmetry, was published in October, 2021. https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/ari-banias-interview/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%2012.30.2021&utm_term=daily