Write With Your Spine

Celebrating 12 Years in Print:

2012-01-31T08:54:00.000-05:00

For Marita Golden, Marie Brown, Judy Sapp, Matthew Miller and Christine Wilkinson, who all believed even when I didn't. It has been a long time habit of mine to wake up at 4 a.m. to write. This morning I woke up to play "catch up" with my classes at the university. In the shower, I bemoaned the fact that since the beginning of the semester I had spent little to no time dedicated to the final

Brick. Mortar. Ink. Paper: Why We Bought a Book Store

2011-08-02T15:21:00.001-04:00

The Wild Fig Books--1439 Leestown Road--Lexington, KY Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. ~Harper Lee I have owned a house in the Meadowthorpe Neighborhood in Lexington, KY for more than 17 years. My son turned 13 when we moved into our house. The twins were five. One of the mainstays of the neighborhood was Morgan Adams Books, an eclectic

For the 6,500,656, 493th time: I Write Because...

2011-05-14T09:09:00.001-04:00

Ron made this for me years ago. I like the POKEWEED PRINCESS part of it most! Sometimes it's an interview, usually with an undergraduate or high school student writing a paper. Sometimes it is just a conversation that I have fallen into with someone who knows I write. Why do you write? This is when I take a deep sigh. Not just because this is the worse question that you can ask a writer but

My Mother's Thick Love: A Daughter's Confession

2011-05-08T02:00:00.002-04:00

Of course I love my mother but there are days when I mourn the mother she could have been. My mother left me when I was six weeks old while she went off to quietly have her nervous breakdown. My first memories are filled with whispers passed through the cupped hands of the women in my family. When they spoke of her, of her illness, it always sounded as if she was on vacation, off somewhere doing

Gathering Magic: How to Read Like a Writer

2011-05-04T09:07:00.001-04:00

A few days ago, I was frantically looking for this little post so that I could pass it along to a student after we had a very involved conversation about what it means to read like a writer. I also suggested that she read Francine Prose's book Reading Like a Writer. I wrote this post back in the old MYSPACE days and I posted it rather hurriedly when I cam back from teaching a "How to Read Like

Monday Motivation

2011-02-21T01:14:00.000-05:00

My new novel is set in the 70s so it's throwback time for motivation this morning. Big Afro cornrows bell bottoms cut off shirt ruffles & cuffs wooden platform shoes with fish on them sky blue eye shadow Sweet Honesty perfume Mood rings

Paying Attention: Heroes, Al Green, Coconut & Kisses

2011-02-06T18:16:00.002-05:00

I’m a strange bird. I once watched WTBDWK (part documentary, part mind-bender on quantum physics, metaphysics, spirituality hosted by Marlee Matlin) four times in a row. I was riveted by the possibilities and capabilities of being human presented in the film. When I was thirteen and on a school trip to Cincinnati, I walked on a twelve-inch balcony on the top floor of a hotel and climbed into

A Poet Sings: Nikky Finney's Head Off & Split

2011-01-14T14:16:00.002-05:00

Photo by Rachael Eliza Griffiths My dear friend Nikky Finney's new book Head Off &Split will be released February 1. I've announced the arrival of friends' books here in the past but I am so very thrilled about this one. Anyone who knows Nikky knows she works hard, she thinks about the world hard. She holds the world up to our eyes and makes us see it for all its dirt and guts and beauty.

Monday Motivation: Hong

2011-01-04T15:13:00.000-05:00

It's the first week of the new year and already my Monday Motivation has been postponed until Tuesday. This morning writing was a fight. My mind was like a sieve of thoughts. Not thoughts about the next scene and how my protagonist would make her way through her current predicament but thoughts of the unpaid bills, the unanswered email, the todo list, the children, the grandchildren, the unborn

Motivation Monday: Chris Abani

2010-12-27T12:59:00.000-05:00

I've decided to try to post a video, a blog, a quote, something that motivates me as a writer and as a human being on Mondays to get the week started. "The only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me," Abani says in speaking about the South African concept of ubuntu. Check out Abani's work. And thank you Christina Lovin for mentioning this video on FB.

Coming Fully Into This Century as an E-Author

2010-12-19T23:28:00.004-05:00

It's been a month since the announcement that Amazon has acquired the publication rights of 120 literary titles from Toby Press. My books ( Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street) are among the titles and as one of the 61 authors affected by this merger I am excited about this opportunity to have the powerhouse of Amazon behind my work and to introduce my back list to the world of E-books

Crystal's No Cluck Chicken and Dumplings

2010-12-04T19:54:00.001-05:00

Of course this has nothing to do with writing but Ron and I have renewed our vows (ha!) to our bodies and have become even more strict in our vegetarianism. We have vowed not to use chemical-filled meat substitutes so I've gone crazy (a la Food Network type lunacy) in the kitchen. I swear I'm ready for Chopped: The Vegetarian War. So any how, here's my latest recipe which was wonderful for a

Praisesong for My Literary Mama

2010-11-20T23:35:00.000-05:00

She places you inside a complex character and doesn’t give you any room to wiggle or to flinch or to look away. She tells the truth and takes you with her to it. She knows the characters and the voice and the emotion of the worlds in which she creates more than any writer I know. She is the most divine unsung woman in Black Literature perhaps in all of contemporary literature. She has never been

Write About A Childhood Meal

2010-11-17T21:50:00.002-05:00