Happy Meme–a blogging game

“If you’re happy and you know it…clap your hands.
If you’re happy and you know it…stamp your feet.”
And so forth, goes my favorite kindergarten song.
Janet Muirhead Hill tagged me for this “Happy Meme”. As she says, “It’s simple. I only have to list six things that make me happy. Well, maybe not so simple when there [...]

“Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary,” 5 star review by Valerie J. Brooks on Good Reads

Valerie’s review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
bookshelves: highly-recommend
status: Read in July, 2008

Janet Grace Riehl writes with the honesty, openness and heart of someone who deeply loves life, but is not shy at hitting, straight on, the messes we have to clean up or the sorrows we must bear.
Her collection, “diary” as she calls it, is [...]

Pop Home from Hospital! Halleluyah!

In the hospital Pop received callers–visitors and staff–as if he were a host in an elegant drawing room clad in a dressing gown instead of hospital regulation. But, the last night before he left after a 5 1/2 day stay, he didn’t sleep until 4 p.m. “It’s the strain of it all,” he told me. [...]

Ghanaian President Attah Mills Installed

On midnight of January 6th, in a specially convened session of Parliament, the bi-carmel house switched sides, signaling a transfer of power.
On January 7th, the day I arrived back in the United States, President John Evans Atta Mills was formally inaugurated as President.
I was there for the duration of the elections. On the day I [...]

St. Louis: Largest African American Ball in City’s History

Ron Gregory organized a marvelous evening. I, as usual in polarized racial St. Louis (goodness!), was pretty much the only white folk there. But, luckily, I feel comfortable. After five years in Africa surrounded by Africans, this is no novelty.
Came with a friend. Sat at mostly an all-woman table…really nice woman. Mostly boomers. For most [...]

Inspiring Day at the Hospital with Pop and His Court

I spent yesterday at the hospital with my father (who experienced a small heart attack early Sunday morning) and my niece, Diane, who holds his medical records with meticulous care and kindness.
We have a division of family labor in creating a team to support my father’s ability to live alone. The medical portfolio belongs to [...]

“Yes We Can,” an inaugural poem by Marvin Bell

Marvin Bell has written a fine poem on an impossible subject. In its sweep, yet anchored in strong, precise images that anchor the ideas that America was founded on…in its inclusion of family, of people who work with both hands and heads…for me, it’s a true poem—perhaps even a great poem—of the beat of what [...]

Happy, Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

(Photo from http://www.writespirit.net/inspirational_talks/political/martin_luther_king_talks/martin)
Yesterday I attended a magnificent brunch celebration for Martin Luther King Jr. and the upcoming historic inauguration of Barack Obama.
Freida Wheaton’s home art gallery named “Studio 53″ was a fitting backdrop for this salon–a gathering of the most prominent African Americans in St. Louis and its expanded metro area…reaching as far as [...]

Where do you write? In bed, like Walker Percy, Edith Wharton, Collette, Proust, James Joyce, Mark Twain…and me (at African Rainbow Resort)?

Photo from Aerphant.
A tidbit from my Author’s Guild Bulletin caught my eye:
“Comfy: Where do you do your writing? For a book of photographs, The Writer’s Desk, by Jill Krementz and published in 1996, John Updike wrote the introduction.

“He was interested that some writers seem to avoid a desk entirely. Updike wrote, ‘Walker Percy is actually [...]

“Working from Source in Your Creative Practice”–new Creative Catalyst Post on Telling HerStories Story Circle Network blog

You can read this new post by clicking here.
I am building a series that will later be collected in an e-book and small printed pamphlet. It might also, eventually be presented as an online course.