Book Look and Talk

what’s coming up

Join me on March 5, 2023 at 3:00pm EST to spend some time in the world of Linney Stepp. I will be in conversation with poet and novelist, Diane Gilliam about her new work. THE BOOK CANOPY, a collective of women writers who read, discuss and promote books by women writers, will present an online conversation with the author.

I came to know Diane Gilliam as a poet, author of the collections, One of Everything, Kettle Bottom, and Dreadful Wind and Rain.
When I read her deft, lyrical poems of Appalachian people and culture, I knew Diane and I shared a desire to represent people often stereotyped if not forgotten in the American historical past. In “Linney Stepp,” an ordinary girl becomes extraordinary as she chooses her life’s trajectory in the face of the loving bonds of her close-knit family and Appalachian culture. Sometimes it is more difficult to wrestle individuality from loving, but rigid structures mandated by class and geography than to run from tragic circumstances and start over.

The voice of Linney Stepp

Once I met a doe in the woods in that starving time right between the end of winter and the breaking through of spring. Not a bit of green nowhere, the whole world brown and dry as an old creek bed. The doe looked at me, the purest look you could ever imagine. There wasn’t no asking in it, nothing like that. Liked to broke my heart. I went to get her a cabbage out of the cellar, even though there was only four left and I knew Mama would know somebody’d took one. But the doe was gone when I got back.

The voice of the author:

I was always a girl with a book. I carried my favorites around with me and read on the way to and from school. I wrote my very first novel in third or fourth grade, about an indentured servant named Anastasia who ran away–so I did think I could be a writer when I was very young. As I got older though and people started asking what I wanted to “do,” writing was not the best answer and over the years my answer changed to “teacher,” then “scholar.” – Diane Gilliam

I have a few questions to ask Diane about character, setting and representation. Join us on Zoom under The Book Canopy.

REGISTER HERE:

https://www.thebookcanopy.org/

Come up to Hobart! Come and celebrate the work of women writers for Hobart Festival of Women Writers 2023. We are in-person in Hobart, New York, the Reading Capital of New York State for Hobart Festival of Women Writers 2023 on

JUNE 16TH, 17TH & 18TH

We’re presenting a great lineup of Participating Writers offering workshops, readings and panel discussions. Mark your calendar and don’t miss it!

https://hobartfestivalofwomenwriters.blog/2023/02/03/celebrating-a-milestone-hfww-2023/

visit my website at www.BreenaClarke.com
Read Fat &Grinning: https://amzn.to/3qLwGky

Salute! The 6888th Postal Directory Battalion

Give them the medal!

In the European theater in World War II, General Patton bemoaned his troops’ low morale and pressed to have the distribution of soldiers’ mail prioritized as a boost to them. Contact through letters and packages was seen as vital as munitions to keeping the soldiers ready and able for combat. Under the leadership of the first director of the Women’s Army Corps, Oveta Culp Hobby and at the urging of Black leaders, such as Mary Macleod Bethune, African American women who had enlisted in The Women’s Army Corps, were assigned to the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion. The WAC, though segregated as the rest of the armed services, allowed African American women to enlist. The recruits quickly and efficiently relieved the logjam in warehouses in Birmingham, England, and created a smooth system for the distribution of mail to the European Theater’s troops. General George Patton credited the Postal Battalion for providing this vital boost to troop morale.

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My aunt, Luise Higgins Jeter didn’t serve overseas in WAC, but she did serve stateside. She remained proud of her military service. She was thrilled to visit the Women In Service To America Memorial in D.C. and her name is included on the registry of those who served.

Luise Higgins Jeter (1918 – 2007) Veteran of World War II

Explore Breena Clarke’s books at Breena Clarke.com

Read “FAT AND GRINNING”, a weekly serial novel at: https://amzn.to/3qLwGky. FOLLOW so you don’t miss an episode.

Fat and Grinning: a novel in weekly episodes

“Why did I love him so? Why still? Why, at a time when I was vulnerable, did I cling to his silly advice songs? It made no sense then. It makes less now. Why do I love him? Who cares. I just do,” says Gardenia Meadows, the biggest, the oldest, the longest, the staunchest, the most devoted fan in all of fandom. She loves Fats Waller and refuses to apologize.

circa 1935: American jazz musician Fats Waller (1904-1943) smiles in front of a CBS radio microphone. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

When Eleanor Bumpers, an old, arthritic Black woman is killed by police in Bronx, New York , Gardenia Meadows falls into a funk and turns to a familiar friend, the legendary Sultan of Silliness and Master of the Stride Piano, Fats Waller. How did this friendship get started? Are they just friends? What is the connection between Gardenia and Fats and Bumpers?

Read FAT AND GRINNING by Breena Clarke in weekly episodes https://amzn.to/3qLwGky

New episodes on Wednesday. Follow so you don’t miss a thing in this mash-up of stereotypes and stories and music and personal history.

Visiit my website: http://www.BreenaClarke.com

“One never knows, do one.” – Fats Waller

Experience the music of Thomas “Fats” Waller https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1mh7wDfNAGjlzRdMlPC5JS

Disclaimer: Fats’ music is not for everybody. He built his short, but brilliantly prolific career on laughing at himself before anybody else could. Some of his lyrics and shenanigans are cringe-worthy. He was a musical genius nevertheless.

https://amzn.to/3fHKdTO Read THERE’S A BODY IIN MY LOBBY by Esther Cohen and meet the indomitable Clara Israel. 92 or 93? Who knows? She’s using her years of wisdom and her unerring instincts about human behavior to solve a mysterious murder in her NYC apartment building. Esther Cohen returns with her hilarious nonagenarian gumshoe in weekly episodes appearing each Wednesday. Don’t miss the latest.

Check out more Esther Cohen at : http://www.esthercohen.com

Self-Determination

Habari Gani? Kujichagulia (self-determination) to be responsible for the community and to speak for oneself.

Reader on the shelf

Self-determination is, like food, water, and shelter, a human right. Tragically, many of our most vulnerable young people, especially young girls are unable to determine the course of their lives because they are subjected to sexual exploitation by gangs of predators who traffic them, i.e. sell them to others as sexual slaves. The problem is thought to be particularly acute at this time of year as the Super Bowl approaches, but statistics on trafficking do not support a jump in activities. Human trafficking is a serious, year-round industry. January is Human Trafficking Awareness Monthhttps://www.state.gov/national-human-trafficking-prevention-month/, which is why the issue is getting more attention now than at other times of the year. And, with the Super Bowl drawing large crowds to the host city, outreach groups and activists say they see an opportunity for public awareness initiatives. Consider the case of teen, Chrystal Kizer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrystul_Kizer_case, who faces life in prison for killing her enslaver. Activists in Wisconsin are calling for allowing for self-defense claim for Kizer. Advocates dmand justice for Chrystul Kizer

Chrystul Kizer shot and killed the pedophile who abused and imprisoned her and is charged with his murder

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Let’s celebrate Kwanzaa by being determined to recognize the needs of our communities and by being willing to stand for justice and dignity and against racism and sexual exploitation. For more information about Kwanzaa, go to: What is Kwanzaa

more information about Breena Clarke’s books at www.BreenaClarke.com

River, Cross My Heart, an Oprah book club selection and a classic of African American fiction is now available for your e-reader.

“The acclaimed bestseller–a selection of Oprah’s Book Club–that brings vividly to life the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, circa 1925, a community reeling from a young girl’s tragic death.” Amazon.com

River, Cross My Heart, kindle edition

New and Now

Announcing

A NEW workshop with Breena Clarke:

How They Must Have Felt: developing an emotional landscape in historical fiction.

This workshop created and led by Breena Clarke is one of six being offered as part of the Hobart Festival of Women Writers’ Fall Workshop Series. We’re entering our ninth year of platforming the work of women writers across all genres. Since 2013, we’ve held a three-day Festival of readings, workshops, panels and performances in Hobart, New York, the Reading Capitol of New York State. The pandemic has caused us to suspend the in-person Festival again this year. We’ve maintained presence for women writers, however. In September 2020, though we were unable to come together in person, we created several virtual readings https://bit.ly/3rA4xLT featuring videos made by Participating Writers.

Beginning in September 2021, we are offering six, four-week zoom workshops. Each session will be 90 minutes. These workshops are priced at a very friendly fee and are under the leadership of six distinguished professional writers: Bertha Rogers, Breena Clarke, Mercy Tullis-Bukari, Elena Schwolsky, Stephanie Nikolopoulos, and Mary Johnson.

Breena Clarke, co-founder and co-organizer of The Hobart Festival, is the author of three historical novels. Join her for How They Must Have Felt: developing an emotional landscape in historical fiction, to explore how you can fill the gaps in the mainstream narrative to richly build the interior lives of your characters.

Have you begun a novel? Have you come too far to turn back, but feel you’re stuck in a slurry of characters and events and ideas and points of view and styles and genres? Then, you confront the skimpy historical record for people like your protagonist. How do you engage the rich interior lives you are looking for?

Authors often face empty spaces when researching the past for the voices of people outside of the racial, social, and economic mainstream of American history. – Breena Clarke

Faced with the incomplete historical record of people of color, fiction writers must speculate about the past, filling in the interior lives of people left out of mainstream narratives. The process of constructing these lives requires reimagining geography, history, sociology, etymology and popular culture. Over the course of four consecutive weeks in September – 9/11,9/18, 9/25 & 10/2 – Breena Clarke will help you explore the techniques fiction writers can use to create voices of the interior lives of the past. Participants will discover practical strategies to get started laying out an emotional landscape for their fiction.

As a special bonus, Breena Clarke will read and critique your first 50 pages. Are you off to a great beginning for your novel or are you confused about where to start? All participants in this workshop may submit a manuscript (limit 50 pages) at the completion of the workshop and each will receive a comprehensive critique of their work.

Though writing a novel is often compared to a long-distance run, it can also be compared to a 50-yard dash. There is value to both approaches. Putting your head down and pushing forward quickly with all you’ve got can energize your project. Come join me and we’ll see how far we can take your novel. Make a commitment to yourself and the novel inside you. Tell your story.

We hope you’ll support Hobart Festival of Women Writers by registering for a workshop with one (or two or all six) of our participating writers. This is a great way to help us maintain a platform for women writers and a way for you to develop your own creative work.

We’re pulling through and it is because of you.

Please note: All workshops are open to every lover of books and language regardless of gender.

This workshop is offered as part of the Fall Workshop Series for Hobart Festival of Women Writers. Information at www.hobartfestivalofwomenwriters.com

https://www.hfwwnow.com/blog/bhqrfagi734gcvabdadjj6ifhoivl3 Read “An Accumulation of Grievances,” Breena Clarke’s most recent work in NOW, the online journal of the Hobart Festival of Women Writers. NOW is an online platform for the most important and scintillating work in essay, fiction and poetry by Participating Writers of Hobart Festival of Women Writers. Go to http://www.hfwwnow.com

Read the most recent book in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series I’M SPEAKING NOW: BLACK WOMEN SHARE THEIR TRUTH IN 101 STORIES OF LOVE, COURAGE AND HOPE, edited by Breena Clarke and Amy Newmark with an introduction and two personal essays by Breena Clarke. This book includes 101 personal narratives of the lives of Black women living today. https://bit.ly/3fVUzPx.

The Book Canopy: a discussion of Stand The Storm

Join Breena Clarke for a discussion of her novel, Stand The Storm on Saturday March 13th at 2:00pm EST. This event is the inaugural event of The Book Canopy, a place to read, enjoy and discuss books by women authors.

I’m honored to have been invited to inaugurate the Canopy Book Club. I look forward to discussing Stand The Storm, a novel set in the mid-nineteenth century that follows the lives of a self-emancipated African American family.

at Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C.

In Stand The Storm, I wanted to accomplish a narrative that created a fuller picture of urban enslavement in Washington, D.C. at mid-nineteenth-century. I wrote also about the Compensated Emancipation Act enacted by Abraham Lincoln that freed enslaved persons residing in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 1862, nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation. Now, much to my surprise, I’ve learned facts about my direct ancestor who gained his freedom under this edict along with his mother and grandmother. I’m delighted to learn that an event I’d written about in my fiction had a true historical impact on my family.

On Saturday, March 13th, I will be joined by arts facilitator, Chesray Dolpha to discuss Stand The Storm and the lives of enslaved people in our nation’s capital in the Civil War era.

REGISTER FOR THE DISCUSSION at https://www.thebookcanopy.org. And register for the Book Canopy newsletter to receive information about the upcoming book discussions.

Want a signed, personalized copy?
I'll sign and mail you a personalized hardcover copy of Stand the Storm for just $10 + shipping if you purchase it here. Or obtain a copy from your public library, an independent bookseller, or anywhere books are sold.

NOW What?

SPREAD THE WORD! An exciting project is upcoming in a popular literary series. Chicken Soup for the Soul is thrilled to announce a new title for Black women writers, publishing June 1, 2021. Chicken Soup For The Soul. I’m Speaking Now: Black Women Share Their Truth in 101 Stories of Love, Courage and Hope. I’m really pleased to serve as a coauthor for this new Chicken Soup for the Soul book.

So, I’m calling out directly to the strong and diverse community of Black Women Writers: Now is the time for Black Women to tell our story in all of its complexity. 2020 is the time, and this is the place for the deeply personal essay, the intelligent commentary, wryly or wildly humorous takes own modern life or the narrative witness to history.

Share your dreams, your triumphs and, your failures. Write about your lives and community, which have unique challenges not well understood by others. This unique collection of stories will be for readers of all colors. Readers of color will recognize their struggles in these pages, and all readers will benefit from an inside view of Black life in America, Canada, and the diaspora.

We’re looking for everything from the serious to the silly. There will be 101 stories, so we can go wide and deep, and we’d like to share stories from Black women of all ages, from late teens to women in their nineties.

Link here for submission guidelines and a comprehensive list of suggested topics.

https://www.chickensoup.com/story-submissions/possible-book-topics

Please submit to this collection. Let’s speak now about our beauty and our ugly, our sweet and our fraught, our boiling and our simmering.

Chicken Soup For The Soul. I’m Speaking Now: Black Women Share Their Truth in 101 Stories of Love, Courage and Hope.

The deadline for story and poem submissions is JANUARY 15, 2021 but submissions will be reviewed as they come in, so please don’t wait until the deadline.

Read my story about a dog in NOW, an online journal

https://www.hfwwnow.com/blog/95h3zk8uu650o7agjgc6qaiaedropg

NOW, an online journal of The Hobart Festival of Women Writers https://www.hfwwnow.com is a project created during this unprecedented time. Edited by Breena Clarke, Cheryl Clarke and Esther Cohen, this journal is a collection of work of twenty-one authors who have been Participating Writers with The Hobart Festival of Women Writers 2013 – 2020. NOW presents the wide swath of genre, style and subjects that these womens’ work represents.

For more information about Breena Clarke, go to http://www.BreenaClarke.com

NOW, an online journal

Hobart Festival of Women Writers has published the first issue of a new online journal featuring new work from some of the many published women authors who have been Participating Writers at Hobart Festival of Women Writers. I’m excited to have been one of the editors of this issue. I was joined as editor by Cheryl Clarke and Esther Cohen. Read excerpts of my fiction and non-fiction here:

His Teeth

Bazemore Plantation

Bazemore, Maryland

1781

His gleaming, ivory-colored teeth could have stood in his mouth for another lifetime, but each fell beneath the knife. They bound him to a plank. They dosed him with alcohol to quiet his howling as the horse surgeon pillaged his incisors, his molars, and his bicuspids. They took his teeth because he was a persistent escapee, had run away seven times and bore marks of whipping and brining.

There were no rotted teeth in his mouth, no broken ones, none were misshapen, and not a single one was missing. Very great was the resistance of the teeth to being pulled out. They were moved not at all by the horse surgeon’s pliers. He reconsidered and took up a knife and an awl and cut away the gums until the teeth could hold no longer. Several times the man nearly drowned on the massive amounts of blood in his mouth. Yanked upright, turned over a bucket to spit, salted water flushed into his mouth, more whiskey poured down his throat, the work continued until each tooth was dug out undamaged. Each was cleaned, admired, and carefully placed in a wired device fitted for the master’s mouth.

Aunt Jemima, Eleanor Bumpers, Sandra Bland, and Breonna Taylor: Writing Against The Current

I never thought I’d be updating the dramatic work, “Re/Membering Aunt Jemima: A Menstrual Show” or even seriously reconsidering it. Written more than twenty-five years ago, the play contains topical references that I thought would seem stale in the 21^st century. Glenda Dickerson and I had, in writing “Aunt Jemima: A Menstrual Show,” flung ourselves at notions of racial propriety. We didn’t want to write a domestic drama full of polite insistence that black people are worthy of Western civilization. We wanted to confront the popular culture of negative images of Black Women in messy confrontational language.

read my entire essay at https://www.hfwwnow.com/blog/g89bnakx17u4jne2r8wlib0u6r9d2a

NOW, an online journalhttp://hfwwnow.com features also the work of Alexis DeVeaux, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Arisa White, Lisa Wujnovich, Esther Cohen, Elena Schwolsky, Cheryl Boyce Taylor, Marina Cramer, Julie Enszer, Aine Greaney, Ellen Meeropol, Bertha Rogers, Linda Lowen, Diane Gilliam, Dahlma Llanos Figueroa, Denise B. Dailey, Cheryl Clarke and Stephanie Nikolopoulos

Creative Community

Kwanza Habari Gani?

Kuumba. Creativity — to make the community more beautiful and beneficial for the future, is observed on the sixth night of Kwanzaa. Let’s celebrate creative work in the arts. Founded in 2013, by Cheryl Clarke, Breena Clarke, and Barbara Balliet, the Hobart Festival of Women Writers will produce its tenth anniversary weekend on June 16, 17 & 18, 2023 celebrating the work of literary women. The Festival takes place in the small village of Hobart, New York, home of seven independent bookstores and a children’s lending library. Hobart is officially designated as The Reading Capital of New York State.

more information at Hobart Book Village.

Check out HFWW’s Holiday Gift Guide. Our writers have published some of the most exciting books of the season.

For information and updates on Hobart Festival of Women Writers 2023, go to http://www.hobartfestivalofwomenwriters.com

In September, 2020 HFWW returned to an in-person Festival after two years of virtual programming. It was a delight to renew friendships and to meet new Participating Writers and attendees.

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River, Cross My Heart, an Oprah book club selection and a classic of African American fiction, is now available for your e-reader.

more information at BreenaClarke.com

Joy For The World

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2018

The Gleeful Goddess

at the crux of fear and flame ’tis the season of joy.

I’m happy to be celebrating the sixth consecutive year of platforming and presenting the work of women writers at the annual Hobart Festival of Women Writers co-founded with Cheryl Clarke and Barbara Balliet. We had a great weekend of rejuvenation and inspiration in the beautiful Catskills this past September 7, 8 &9th.

View more photo highlights here:

Festival of Women Writers 2018 photo highlights

A ROOM OF HER OWN FOUNDATION, a global organization of creative women with which I’ve been associated since its first writer’s retreat in 2003 has rolled out a wave of treasure this December, Gifts of Fellowship which include unique opportunities for the givers. You can donate to support this great consortium of creative women AND have a chance to win an expert book doctor consultation with Esther Cohen, OR secure a winter artist’s/writer’s residency in Santa Fe at a charming casita OR you can experience an empowering ONE-ON-ONE session designed to build your skills and confidence in reading your own creative writing with Breena Clarke.

Are you ready to read your work for an audience? Do you shake in your boots at the thought of performing your own writing? Consider donating to A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Edna Payne Clarke Gift of Fellowship and you could win an opportunity to work with me. Find out the full details and donate-to-win a Gift of Fellowship at A Room of Her Own Foundation:

http://aroomofherownfoundation.org/giftsoffellowship/

Winning fellows will be announced January 4th.

In this one on one class with me which is named in honor of my mother, Edna Payne Clarke, you’ll get email and video-conferencing interaction. I’ll help you select the right material to read and I’ll share my tips on preparation and some techniques for a smooth and exciting reading.

EdnaPayneClarke_GoF

Check out Hobart Festival of Women Writers Holiday Gift Guide. A book is always the right size.

Gift books

for more about Breena Clarke’s books, go to BreenaClarke.com

Give a gift of truth and beauty. Purchase a Hobart Festival of Women Writers Calendar

Get your calendar at hobartfestivalofwomenwriters.com

	Breena Clarke on Kwanzaa 2021
	easearle on Najeeb Walid Harb 1974 –…
	Jacqueline Cooper on Najeeb Walid Harb 1974 –…
	easearle on Self-Determination
	BlackMail4u on Oppression On My Table?

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