Writing Samples Archive

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The Warmth of Other Suns: Bk Review

Posted on 07 October 2010 (0)

Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns – The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration is a great narrative journalism saga, told through the stories of three African Americans — who were among the millions of Southern Blacks who went North (one in 30s, one in 40s, one in 50s) to escape white supremacist threats [...]

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My French Persona

Posted on 13 June 2010 (0)

I know my way around France, speak the language, and have friends from the year my husband and I lived in the country.
Yet each time those glass tubes drop me at DeGaulle Airport’s door, I find myself switching not only languages, but personalities as well. My American persona just won’t do.
 

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Eye Opening

Posted on 23 May 2010 (0)

 Liz Petry, author of “At Home Inside: A Daughter’s Tribute to Ann Petry” 
    http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1134 and
“Can Anything Beat White? A Black Family’s  Letters” www.lizpetry.com 
comments on her blog http://lizr128.wordpress.com/
Barbara Beckwith has done a brave and wonderful thing in writing What Was I Thinking?: Reflecting on Everyday Racism. I’ve long believed that no one in the United States is without racism. [...]

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People of Color – quotes 1830-2010

Posted on 23 March 2010 (0)

People of Color have spoken out against white privilege and racism for two centuries. It’s time for white people to listen and to act

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy [...]

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Looking At Our Lives Through the Lens of Race Project

Posted on 23 March 2010 (0)

Join me in writing about your experiences growing up, with a focus on your awareness (or not) of race, racism, and white privilege.

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Howard Zinn – A Tribute

Posted on 07 February 2010 (0)

Howard Zinn − historian, activist, and a member of the National Writers Union and the Boston Chapter for almost 20 years  died on January 27, 2010. But his life and writing will inspire grassroots activists for many future generations.

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Howard Zinn, dead at 87

Posted on 28 January 2010 (0)

Howard Zinn died Wednesday, January 26, 2010.
When I think about why Zinn is so important to me, I think of how he often describes his own experience, his own complicity, his own gradual understanding of “what’s going on” (eg as WWII Air Force bomber, bombing people he couldn’t see, including the first napalm drops ever [...]

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Flash Flood

Posted on 27 September 2009 (0)

“Watch the sky,” says the man in the battered jeep, chin jerking skyward. “That canyon’s no place to be in a rain.” He switches into 4-wheel drive and guns his jeep along the sand-and-slickrock track toward the nearest paved road 10 miles away.

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Meditating at High Speed

Posted on 27 September 2009 (0)

A friend of mine meditates in the classical way. For hours, she sits quietly or walks in slow and measured steps. I can’t stay still for long. But I meditate in my own way — at high speed. While my friend folds her legs under her, and follows her breath, I race around a cold [...]

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Self-Presentation: A Writer’s Dilemma

Posted on 23 June 2009 (0)

At a recent literary event, where I milled about with writers, editors and agents, any one of whom could help advance my career, I realized, after being asked by several people “What do you write?”, that I’d forgotten to prepare a “sound bite.”

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