Tag Archives: NOW

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.

Alfred Clarke and Virginia Cole Clarke
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.
www.Breena Clarke.com

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

Breena Clarke’s Books

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.

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

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 21st 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

http://www.BreenaClarke.com