Book Readings in the Los Angeles Area
Looking back on my past two months attending book readings in Los Angeles, I’m inspired and energized by the manner in which these gatherings create community!
New York, Ten Years Later
Attending the inaugural New York Black and African Literature Festival in September was the perfect excuse to revisit Harlem after ten years. And the three-day festival organized by author and poet Efe Paul Azino continually served literary vibes during my stay.
Art During Crisis
In turbulent times, art won’t save us; but it can serve as a guide.
That is the message of the two art books that are bookends for my summer.
The LA Opera and Memories of Fascism: Federico Garcia Lorca, Neruda, Hemingway
Would you flee a fascist state?
Given the current state of US political affairs, I was left to ponder that question as I watched the LA Opera production of “Ainadamar” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillon downtown.
AWP vs Los Angeles Festival of Books
Los Angeles hosted two large book events within two months, and I attended both. Was one better than the other? I think not. They both focused on their audience and did so quite well.
My Interview at Write or Die Mag
Last month I was featured in the Write or Die Magazine Newsletter. Write or Die Mag is on Substack, and they have a huge following of more than 11,000 subscribers. They publish short stories, essays, and interviews.
Why Samuel Beckett: A Black Writer’s Perspective
Studying Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett during junior year at UCLA was the final straw that pushed me towards mental and emotional exhaustion. I had overextended myself academically by taking too many classes during spring and summer quarters.
The House on Mango Street and a Garden in Watts
The House on Mango Street in a roundabout way helped me buy the garden in Watts. The garden wasn’t just the purple fountain grass and Mexican feather grass protected by weed fabric and surrounded by wood chips at the side of the house.
Creative Writing Meets Fashion Design
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending the 15th Annual Ankara Festival in Hollywood, CA for my third or fourth time. I enjoyed taking in the African fashion created by designers from Ethiopia, South Sudan, USA, Nigeria, Congo DR, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon.
Can I Really Pitch This Book? — Black Writers Weekend, Atlanta
I recently returned from Black Writers Weekend (Aug. 1-4, 2024) in Atlanta where I participated in their Pitch Fest. My biggest takeaway was that I needed to embody my logline – that one-sentence synopsis of my hybrid memoir that reveals the central conflict in the manuscript. Embody how, you might ask?
Kendrick Lamar, LA Street Culture, and Memoir Writing
During the week of the Kendrick Lamar Pop Out Concert scheduled for Juneteenth in Inglewood, I was busy reviewing my research on the history of Watts. Watts figures in the penultimate chapter of the hybrid memoir I am writing because I owned a home for five years – 2004 until 2009 –in that unincorporated area of Los Angeles.
Lost in Los Angeles
I center the beginning of my memoir on my feelings of alienation from Los Angeles during my youth. Given the reflective impulse of memoir, I now realize that one reason I felt alienated from my city of birth was because I didn’t know its hidden history.
A Dizzy-Tizzy Day at LA Festival of Books
I prepared well in advance for the Saturday book panel titled Politics and History: Roots of Black Resistance. Like last year, I purchased my tickets the night before…
Cop Brutality: @Memphis and Nigeria’s #EndSARS
MY MEMPHIS TRAUMA REVOLVES AROUND THE UNIVERSE OF WILEY BENTON WHO WAS ONE OF TWELVE CHLDREN BORN TO MY MATERNAL GREAT GRANDPARENTS, BUD AND LETTIE BERNETTE BENTON. THE BROTHER OF MY GRANDMOTHER, DOLLIE, A YOUNG WILEY LEFT HOME TO RUN AN ERRAND…
How to Do a Book Reading Like a Jazz Musician: On Fannie Lou Hamer
The book, Mama Fannie, evolved into a musical instrument as her daughter simultaneously read from the text and addressed the live audience…
Harriet Tubman, Twitter, and Freedom
After the murder of Nia Wilson, I’d chosen Tubman (for my profile pic) because as both a runaway and an abolitionist, she symbolized freedom…
Vanishing Bookstores and Black Spaces in Los Angeles
I imagined myself buying several books at Eso Won bookstore in Leimert Park during their final sale. Rumor was the Black-owned bookstore would be closing after thirty-six years in business…
The Civil Rights Movement and the Haitian Revolution Never Ended
The Civil Rights Movement, like the Haitian Revolution, never ended. This idea crossed my mind as I read the essay, “On the Marvelous Real in America” by Cuban writer, Alejo Carpentier…
Our Sleepwalking Towards Death with Gabriel Garcia Marquez
At eighteen, with my first year of community college completed, I flew alone from Los Angeles to Mexico City. After several days of scouring bookstores, I brought back a suitcase full of novels, poetry, and history books…
Disparaging Black American Culture in a Vague Economy
In his recent article, “Black American Culture and the Racial Wealth Gap,” Columbia undergrad Coleman Hughes argues that activities which he regards as Black-American cultural traits such as conspicuous consumption and a lack of financial education result in Whites having economic wealth that is ten times that of Blacks.
Haiti and the US-Mexico Border
I wanted to leave Los Angeles and go to the US-Mexico border. Not 25 miles away, more like 120. I’d read about the Haitian migrants who’d made their way to the border after walking from Brazil.
Descarado Brazil
Entre maneras menos flagrantes para matar a Marielle Franco existía la posibilidad del suicidio de sus antepasados Africanos. Durante su esclavizada travesía marítima, ellos podrían lanzarse a las profundidades del Átlantico en forma de cadaveres de alga marina y la semilla de Marielle nunca se hubiera establecida en tierra brasileña.
Blatant Brazil
There were less blatant ways to kill Marielle Franco. Foremost being before her African ancestors made their captured voyage to shore, they could have simply jumped ship into the depths of the Atlantic as seaweed carcasses,and her seed would have never settled in your soil.
Black Women Won’t Save the World
Despite pronouncements to the contrary, Black Women won’t save the world. Notwithstanding the circumference of the Cradle of Civilization in South Africa nestled in a locale from which all human beings originate; regardless of the excavations in Ethiopia of both Lucy and Ardi marking the evolution of homo erectus and what that signifies to the world in the evolutionary flowering of life, the act of waiting 27 years in a Mandela-like manner is far beyond the dexterity of even the most steadfast amongst us.
Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, and Controlling Black Bodies in the Americas
In 1770 the Municipal government of the Louisiana Territory then under Spanish rule stated it was permissible in the Territory for the Europeans to trade tobacco for African slaves. On July 17, 2014, in the formerly-liberal now neoliberal bastion of New York City, money capital of the overdeveloped world, and once the prime destination for Blacks leaving the Reconstruction South, there was no law permitting a black man to sell individual tobacco cigarettes on the street.
Foreign Whips and Detroit’s Decline
Inherent in Detroit’s zenith were forewarnings of its decline. Positioned as one of several U.S. magnets, Detroit drew in hundreds of thousands of desperate workers from disparate regions of the country. It was a terminus for black migrants fleeing the Jim Crow South, as well as European immigrants new to America.
Audrey Shipp 