Women of Color: writing

A Saturday Workshop for Women about Women

"There was a woman here who was loved." Joy Harjo

February 20, 2010
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

TRUE COLORS BOOKSTORE http://truecolorsbookstore.com/

SHARING OUR WOMEN'S STORIES: AN ORAL TRADITION will focus on stories of women in our lives. Stories of women in our families, and/or stories of women who have crossed our paths. Is there a particular woman you want to or need to write about?

This workshop is for writers and non-writers alike--everyone has stories!

Join Sherry Quan Lee and Lori Young-Williams for a lively and thought-provoking day of writing (letters, poems, and/or short narratives). We will use photos, maps, memorabilia, and history books. We will read stories by other women, as well as our own--stories recalled from great-grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, and girlfriends.

This will be an engaging day of story sharing -written / visual / oral!!!

Cost for workshop: $40.00 plus a donation to True Colors bookstore of a used book or dvd. Please bring cash or check payment to the workshop. To register, e-mail Lori at youngwms@yahoo.com. Workshop limited to twelve participants.

Lori Young-Williams is a 42 year old prose poet born in St. Paul. She comes from a working class family that believes in laughter, crying, and praying when times are good, bad or otherwise. Lori has one brother, one sister, and another sister who passed away when she was 14. She received her degree in Human Relationships with an emphasis in family relationships at the University of Minnesota, 1992. Lori works a 9-5 job in Human Resources and Finance, but her passion is her writing. Most of her poetry is about her family--family relationships and how they impact her life. She has been published in Interrace magazine, the Turtle River Press, the National Library of Poetry, Quill Books, Dust & Fire and other anthologies. Also, she has self- published two chapbooks. She has read in various bookstores, coffee shops, and spoken word events in the Twin Cities. Lori recently was accepted as a participant for the Givens Black Writers Retreat, with Sonja Sanchez and Carolyn Holbrook. She is currently working on her Master's Thesis through the Master of Liberal Studies program at the University of Minnesota. She has studied with Rose Brewer, Carolyn Holbrook, Sherry Quan Lee, and others.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/leexx065/writingmulticulturalidentity/

Sherry Quan Lee approaches writing as a community resource and as culturally based art of an ordinary everyday practical aesthetic. Quan Lee taught Creative Writing at Metropolitan State University for ten years, and continues to teach community workshops such as Stories that Save Lives, and Bookmaking. Currently she is a Program Associate for the Split Rock Arts Program Summer Workshops and Seasonal Retreats at the University of Minnesota. She has done consulting for SASE: The Write Place, a community based literary organization. She was a selected participant for the Loft Literary Center's Asian Pacific Inroads Program, and in 2000 she was the mentor for that program. She was a selected participant for the Asian American Renaissance's (AAR) Writers' Block Program to mentor youth. She edited several of AAR's annual journals, and curated AAR cabarets. Quan Lee was a selected participant for the first Cave Canem retreat for Black Poets in Esopus, New York. She earned an AA degree at North Hennepin Community College (has since been honored as a Distinguished Alumni), and a BA and MFA at the University of Minnesota. Quan Lee has edited Body of Stories, the fifth journal of the Asian American Renaissance, and Spirits, Myths and Dreams: Stories in Transit, the fourth journal of the Asian American Renaissance; as well as, I Am Who You Fear I Am, poems by Deborah Kelly, (distributed by Kitchen Table Women of Color Press) Corn Songs, poems by Virginia Allery (Turtle Mountain Reservation), and Chromosomes and Genes: an interracial anthology, (Guild Press, 1980's). Quan Lee is the author of A Little Mixed Up, Guild Press, 1982 (second printing), Chinese Blackbird, a memoir in verse, published 2002 by the Asian American Renaissance, republished 2008 by Loving Healing Press, and How to Write a Suicide Note: serial essays that saved a woman's life, Loving Healing Press, 2008. http://www.SherryQuanLee.com
http://www.blog.sherryquanlee.com

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It's been awhile since I have posted a writing prompt. School got in the way...along with other life issues.

Which is my writing prompt. What gets in the way of doing what you want to do, write, sing, draw, visit with friends, take a day off, the list is endless! How do you get around the barrier that is in your way? Are there times of the year where you have more conflicts than other times? What gets in your way and how do you solve the problem or not.

Please share your thoughts, stories, poems, essays, and prose pieces on this topic. See the "How to Become an Author" blog entry for further information on responding to this and all future prompts. We welcome all posts, if your writing doesn't end up speaking to the prompt but is triggered by it, we want to know!

Happy Writing!

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School, I feel like that's my life right now: learning, writing, interacting with classmates, teachers, instructors, staying up late, catching up on reading assignments, trips to the library, searching for books, files and articles, losing sleep, worrying, passing tests, failing classes, endless hours on your a-- in front of a desk, table or other hard surface. The list is endless.

What is your school experience? Are you thinking of going back to school? What memories, good, bad or otherwise, do you have of school?

Please share your thoughts, stories, poems, essays, and prose pieces on this topic. See the "How to Become an Author" blog entry for further information on responding to this and all future prompts. We welcome all posts, if your writing doesn't end up speaking to the prompt but is triggered by it, we want to know!

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Sponsored By: Department of English
Additional Sponsors: Ted Mann Concert Hall

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Cost:
Free and open to the public

Ted Mann Concert Hall
Minneapolis Campus

Contact:
Terri Sutton at 612-626-1528
sutt0063

From her first groundbreaking melange of imagination and (self-)history The Woman Warrior (1976), to her striking account of life during wartime (her lifetime, from WWII to the Iraq War) The Fifth Book of Peace (2003), Maxine Hong Kingston has created some of the most widely read (and taught) literature of the late 20th century. She has won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, NEA Awards, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and, in 2008, The Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. And she has taught and mentored thousands of writers, from Hawaiian high school students and undergraduates at the University of California, Berkeley, to the veterans she has met through her writing-and-mediation workshops (and whose work she edited in the award-winning 2006 collection Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace). The Department of English is honored to host her. Reception and book-signing to follow.

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Passing along information regarding the Fall Givens Black Writers Retreat.
Lori

The Givens Foundation for African American Literature
Invites Black Writers in Minnesota to Apply
For the 2009-2010 Givens Black Writers Collaborative Retreat Program

Information Session: October 7, 2009, 7P @ Open Book Rm. 303
Application Deadline: October 21, 2009
For More Information Visit: www.givens.org

For more than 20 years, the Givens Foundation for African American Literature has been the only organization in the Twin Cities exclusively dedicated to advancing and celebrating black literature and writers. At the Givens Foundation, we understand that African American writers are the future of African American literature. This is one reason that we developed the Givens Black Writers Collaborative Retreat Program -- to promote the "writing life," to support the crafting of excellence in African American literature, and to provide opportunities for the creation of literary collaboration, community, and the sacred space within which art is born.

Collaboration Retreat Program Quick Facts
What: A program for 10 emerging and established black writers living in Minnesota that includes a four-day retreat, writing workshops, one-on-one mentoring, peer support and a literary performance.
Retreat Dates: Nov. 12-15, 2009 (4 days, 3 nights)
Retreat Location: The Dwelling in the Woods, McGrath, MN (www.thedwellinginthewoods.org)
Mentoring Writers: Ishmael Reed (National) & Laurie Carlos (State)
Mentoring Workshops: November 2009 to April 2010
Literary Performance: April 2010
Cost: Free (Sponsored by the Jerome Foundation)

Eligibility Criteria
In October of 2009, 10 black writers will be selected to participate in the collaborative retreat program. For this program, the Givens Foundation will strive to have participants represent a balanced distribution of ages, genders, and geographic residences within the state of Minnesota. Applications will be subject to blind review by a panel of three local African American writers.

Selected participants will:

* Be aged 18 and older
* Be identified as emerging artists (6 applicants who exhibit significant potential yet are not recognized as established creators by fellow artists and other arts professionals; not yet or only recently published or produced)
* Be identified as established writers (4 applicants with multiple works published or produced)
* Not be enrolled in an academic literary arts program
* Not be past participants in the Givens Black Writers Collaborative Retreat Program.

Writers interested in applying should plan to attend the Retreat Program Information Session:
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
7:00p to 8:00p @ Open Book, Rm. 303
1011 Washington Avenue, Minneapolis, MN.

For More Information Visit:
www.givens.org

Or Contact:

Ellena Schoop
Collaborative Retreat Program Coordinator
Phone: 651-895-5603
Email: retreat@givens.org

Givens_Writers_Retreat_Application_Fall09.pdf

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by Theresa Crushshon

mama
always said
the best way
to get
the
honey
from
the bees


is
to let
the bees
chase
the honey.

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Ths post is my attempt at remembering and writing about what I saw on my road trip to Lethbridge, Alberta. The tense changes a lot, paragraph to paragraph, sentence to sentence. Please hang with me as I try to get to the gut of seeing the beauty of our land.

Disclaimer:
I know I am speaking from a point of privilege to even say that I have enough time to take vacation and enough money to go some place outside my neighborhood.

I am at Waterton Park in Alberta, just north of Glacier National Park. I am visiting friends who moved to ALberta to teach. Today it's a trip to the mountains to see the view of the Rockies. As I walked slowly up the trail putting one foot in front of the other, I watched the tops of the other mountains get closer. I noticed the way the earth and rock were formed, at angles, layers of rock moved further towards the sky. The sides littered with trees standing, leaning or fallen against the others that are standing, leaning or fallen. I reach the top of the summit to gaze at what the earth has been making for over 10,000 years or more. How old are the Rockies? The mountains are large and imposing. But aren't all mountains, Olympus, Rainer, Everest, and the Himalayas?

The wind blows my linen pants and strands of hair. My friends and I take pictures, pointing, posing and gazing. Standing close to the edge of a mountain/hill me and my friends hiked up, I took in the vast sky before me and the lake below, big and blue, reflecting the sky. I fell small. I feel big. I feel that warm fuzziness when you are in the presence of something grand. I wish to stay there forever in the present moments.

A crowd starts to gather and a family with three boys joins us on the summit. Reality sets in, it's time to head back down the mountain. Descending requires more concentration. I must pick my steps carefully so I don't slide on the small stones. I see scenes I didn't see on the way up, I look away for a second, lose my footing, slide a bit, and catch myself. Life changes quickly. Lose your footing and you can be a rolling stone. But life up here on this mountain doesn't seem to change that fast. Not from what I can see. I regain my footing and walk slowly down to the parked car and the bustle of the town.

The mountains were inspiring but then so were the plains. Our road trip took us through some beautiful fields of sunflowers, grazing cattle and cows. Once we reached Painted Canyon of North Dakota, just before Medora,my mind turned the glaciers that carved out this place and made the buttes that were popping up as we drove towards Montana. I would get out of the car at a rest stop and try to get my heart to catch up with what I was seeing, before we moved on.

A week doesn't do the landscape justice. I was slowing down as I sped across two states to visit friends who I would see for about five days. I wanted to take in every scene and document it. There is something valuable in seeing the land and its natural beauty. I try to visualize the mountains that were forming around Lake Waterton and also Lake St. Mary, MT, and how the coulee in Lethbridge was carved in the land, with Chief Mountain looking on. The plains give way to pastures that are larger than most neighborhoods. My thoughts would wonder to who surveys and keeps track of all this land? The fences that are so close to the rodas and highways? What will we do if the population gets too large? Will we expand out here? What will become of this land and the beauty?

Looking out the window beyond the twisting road to the foothills of the Rockies in the Lewis and Clark National Forest, drawing me in with it's pine trees like flag poles, covering the range and the creek rushing past us, heading north as we travel south. Bright blue sky hangs above and I feel free. Not myself, not anyone for a moment. I am in the moment. I am that blip of a blip in the history of the world. All I know for sure is this land will continue to be. It was here before me. It will be here after me. And for that I feel thankful, grateful.

Lori Young-Williams

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in
tampa
i especially noticed
how beautiful the trees were.

purely accidently
i found my way to an urban park
no swings for children
i noticed.
just benches for the adults

it was the kind of park where folks would go to on their lunch break.
as a kid, I often wondered why they had those kind of parks.
seeing how life is...
i now know why those kind of parks exist.

in the middle of the afternoon
i walked
and took in
the fragrance from the gorgeous flowers

immersed in the beauty
under my breath
i said
thank you God
for your earthly presents.

the exotic plants were in abundance
first time
i saw
uncut
birds of paradise

afraid to touch
i took pictures

and noticed
an oversized metal sculpture of a child dancing
handsomely painted in vibrant colors
it too
was
jubilant

but what was so picturesque
was
a bee
i followed

crazy of me.

i know.

but...
i wanted a picture
not of the flower
but of the bee on the flower
making love to life

don't mind me,
i said to the bee.
just go on
and...
do your business

he moved and I followed
like a fool
i followed
and continued to follow

hoping to capture a snapshot
of this moment

a glimpse of life
and beauty
in this small park where most just walk by
not noticing nothing

the chase continued

he moved
i chased
and
chased
and chased
and snapped in between all the chasing.

the pictures were blurred.
Oh this I will call art.

a bold me zoomed in.
and captured

a picture of a bee.

but the best picture
was the one not taken.

of me
traveling this great distance
to take
a picture
of
a
bee.

by Theresa Crushshon

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I went on a road trip a couple of weeks ago to visit friends in Lethbridge, Alberta. My travel buddies and I drove through North Dakota and Montana cutting up to Canada via Interstate 15. What has stuck with me, since being back, is the land and the way it looks, the mountains, buttes, river valleys and the great plains.

How does nature affect us as we live in it and around it, or not? Does the sight of mountains, lakes, etc. renew your spirit? Inspire growth? How does nature speak to you?

Please consider writing a blog post for our collective blog. Please pass on to your writer friends! Also, remember this is simply a suggestion to get your thoughts and writing going, we welcome all writings by women of color on our blog!

Happy Writing!

Kandace and Lori

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I have been thinking for the past week about the exercise I took part in at the Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT) pre-show party on August 13. I am a new board member of ADT. The exercise was to place someone in the middle of a circle and they were to guess who the leader of the change process was in the group. This leader would subtly make changes in their movement that would trigger the whole circle to make the changes as well. It was described that I have the power to gaze at the circle and scrutinize each person to see who was making these changes in movement (paraphrasing here).

The party was at the home of a donor's family member. I left the backyard as they decided who would be the leader. I thought about "the gaze" that women of color live with, deal with and how it is a part of my life, but do not think about it until I am in a new situation. This would be a new situation. I was called back and was vigilant in my gaze at the outer circle. Knowing what it is like to be looked at to the point of staring, I tried to do the same, but also tried to look for those subtle movements.

I felt empowered. I moved quickly and then stopped, turned and stared and by chance, luck, I was able to pin point the leader.

ADT is a space for all women of color to create community around social justice and social change. The dance productions incorporate the gaze in their ensemble pieces. I have always been amazed by these parts of her production. As a writer, I believe dance expresses where words cannot. I am at times moved with so much emotion by the movement as it expresses a deeper meaning.

There are times I cannot express how I am feeling. I get caught up in which words to say, how do I communicate what I am feeling without being the mean black woman or the hysterical, overly sensitive female? The emotion I am feeling seems to get attached to my inability to speak clearly or freely. And when I see dance, like Ananya's, I am restored as her movement, dance performances express me. She puts words to my life.

What would have happened if I was unable to find the leader? Would I have felt as empowered as I did when I jumped into the middle of that circle? This exercise allowed me to see how there are times that women of color are able to see what is happening and do something about the change happening. And other times when we do not catch the change and are trying to catch up or figure out what to do.

The gaze is powerful and is often not something that we think we can embrace. Or maybe some of us already do. But we should as those of us who can or by chance catch the change in our communities can help those who have not caught the change or need to catch up.

I write this and then wonder is this how women of color become the vessel of pain? The work that it takes to be the one who is hyper vigilant in making sure that our community is not falling behind? In helping those women who need our help to stay the course that may have changed, do we then become the vessel of pain as we help them? Does that make sense?

A friend is with out a job for six months and is starting to feel stress from not having enough money to help her family survive. In talking with her do I become the vessel of pain as she unloads some of this to me and I take on part of her pain? In watching the dance ensemble of Ananya's dance ensemble I feel that I am part of that group taking on the work of social justice and social change. I will become that gaze and that vessel.

Lori Young-Williams

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Sherry's publisher is looking for poetry for their next issue of "Recovering the Self". He is especially looking for work from women of color. The works can be on self, gender issues, etc. Deadline is August 31, 2009. Please check out the link below and submit your work!
www.recoveringself.com/about/write-for-us

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For the month of August please consider writing a blog post for our collective blog. Please pass on to your writer friends! Also, remember this is simply a suggestion to get your thoughts and writing going, we welcome all writings by women of color on our blog!

I have recently returned from a two week research journey where I collected the oral histories of five women in my family. It is an amazing experience to learn the histories of your own flesh and blood and I have been reflecting on the journey since my return. In her book, A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture, Denise Chávez writes, "All my life I have been trying to write my family's story. It hasn't been easy, not because I can't remember, but because I can't forget" (17, 2006). I trust that many of us know these words to be true of our own lives and experiences. After collecting these oral histories I came back from my trip with both joy and pain in my heart. The rivers of pain that flowed from these women's stories seemed to pool within me as my advisor, Edén Torres noted, this caused me to become "a vessel of pain". How do we as women deal with this pain as we constantly carry it with us in this world? What stories, poems, writings do you have that both illuminate this pain and help to deal with this pain?

Happy writing!

Kandace and Lori

Posted by Kandace Creel Falcón at 8:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Kandace Creel Falcón
August 11, 2009

At this point in my life, I have been thinking a lot about the issues of home, numbers, reading, writing and legacies. For instance, how is it possible that children born today will only know the century containing 2000 years? I find it rather unfathomable to think about how even the 1990s are foreign concepts, the so passé twentieth century! But as someone who has definitely not been on this earth for long, but experienced most of those years in the twentieth century these numbers just feel weird. What did the Aztecs think would happen in the 2000s? Did they have maps and star charts that could tell them about this "future"?

I saw lightning bugs the other night for the first time since I've been in Minnesota. How long have these creatures been roaming this earth? Five summers and only one bug flitting through summer night air with a light in its butt. Bugs that every summer in Kansas my brother and I would torture by capturing them and holding them hostage, that is if they even survived our mad grabs in the dark, in glass jars for their "future", soon release.

What does home mean to you? All I can think of is lightning bugs. They are reminders of seasonal cycles, of the trips my family endured via a long two way highway road from Albuquerque where the skies are pink and orange at dusk to Kansas where wheat waves in the wind. How ten hours on the road were mostly agonizing but also excellent opportunities for reading several books. But home means family, even if you are miles and miles apart. I've never, in my recollection seen a lightening bug in New Mexico, but I often wished I had, so much so that now my memories are unreliable now I see them coming out to play in our backyard even if they were never actually there.

I ask the mothers of nature to forgive me for the souls of the lightning bugs I unwillingly, accidentally harmed in my attempts to capture your beauty I took it away. When my hands came away from the jars in which I kept you captive and my fingers were covered in a green-yellow dust, I am sorry. It is now that I know the harm of my selfish ways. But fear not, your short lives and early deaths were not in vain, rather they now serve as the important metaphors of my life, home, family, love.

Posted by Kandace Creel Falcón at 7:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Check out the following guest post by Sherry Quan Lee on the blog "Embrace Your Age Cause You're Living." These are much needed words on the creating a home for oneself. Thanks, Sherry!

Buying Home: The Story the Story the Story

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The farmhouse sits on a plot of land that butts up against the Jamison plantation. The cypress trees on the west side of the property make a clear division between it and the cave plantation. The east side is relatively flat with a large field for cotton or tobacco.

The old house sits off the road a bit. A two-tire track marks the way to the barn, a large leaning shack. The barn hides in the shade of trees. The house sits in the center of the lot of land, in intense heat, come summer. The yard is a mixture of grass, weeds and dirt. Never know what you might find out there, a penny, nickel, or a lost pendent. The farmhouse is white to reflect the sun, an illusion to keeping it cool.

It is a one level house with two rooms off the back by the kitchen. The porch has a couple of old cane straight back chairs waiting for visitors. One the west facing side of the porch there is an old porch swing for sweethearts to be close and swing away any problems. The screen door is black and chipped from wear.

The door leads you into the large parlor and behind the arches there is the dining room. A long table is pushed up against the back wall. A tablecloth covers the worn spots. A large Bible rests on the table open to Psalms 27,"The LORD is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident". On each side of the Bible are cream-colored candlesticks, gathering dust, not used in a while. On the wall is a picture of Moses holding the tablets of the 10 Commandments. Pictures of the husband and wife and family are on both sides of Moses.

The wedding picture in an oval frame has faded through the years. Other frames circle the picture of Moses; pictures of babies, daughters, sons with wives, and sons and daughters with their own families, all serious looking, no one smiling. Their formal dress is plain yet proper, even if they came from meager means. White dresses for the mothers, black dresses for the old maids. The dresses are pinned stiff at the collars with ruffles at the wrists. Ruffles are worn on babies and pleats cascade down the front of young girls white dresses with shiny shoes. Sashes tied around waists and hold back neatly laid curls. The never-married stand in the back of the pictures. Alone, they keep vigil over the family. Their dress is plain, nothing to bring attention to them.

All the women in the pictures look at you and yet past you as you try to get some indication of who they were. Who laughed loud, who was shy, which one was mean and exacting, who went crazy after having Master Jamison's baby, which one woke up one morning to work the field, never to return, and who carried the family secrets? But like pieces of paper, their faces are blank. Their eyes reveal nothing, just looking past you out to the road and across it, to the plantation. Now you see why they left. There was nothing for them there but more work, rape, and hard times.

Lori Young-Williams
Revised March 26, 2009

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