Kaitlyn Greenidge knows that her debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, is a disorienting read. She spent eight years grappling with how to render its vexing premise with nuance and substance. Her account of a black family hired by a research institute to raise a chimpanzee as their own is as wild as you would expect and more thought-provoking.
“Every couple of days when working on this, up until the end, I doubted whether or not this was a good idea, whether people will understand what I am trying to explore, and whether it will be taken seriously,” Greenidge says. Her perseverance paid off, leaving us with a strange but powerful debut novel that charms as it prompts reflection. Continue reading “Kaitlyn Greenidge Discusses We Love You, Charlie Freeman”
Kaitlyn Greenidge knows that her debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, is a disorienting read. She spent eight years grappling with how to render its vexing premise with nuance and substance. Her account of a black family hired by a research institute to raise a chimpanzee as their own is as wild as you would expect and more thought-provoking.
“Every couple of days when working on this, up until the end, I doubted whether or not this was a good idea, whether people will understand what I am trying to explore, and whether it will be taken seriously,” Greenidge says. Her perseverance paid off, leaving us with a strange but powerful debut novel that charms as it prompts reflection. Continue reading “Kaitlyn Greenidge Discusses We Love You, Charlie Freeman”
A powerful new anthology aims to channel the spirit of James Baldwin’s sharp eye and sharper pen, turning them on current events from Trayvon Martin to Sandra Bland. In The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, Jesmyn Ward has collected 18 essays and poems by contemporary authors that bring Baldwin’s tradition to the present day.
Ward says she saw glimpses of acuity like Baldwin’s in social media posts but longed to bottle it up. “There were so many writers on Twitter who had such great ideas and really insightful things to say about what was happening,” she recalls. “Then after two days I didn’t have access to those ideas anymore just because of the way that particular social media platform is structured. I wondered where I could go in order to encounter that kind of thoughtfulness about race in America.”
Ward found that Baldwin’s words, despite the passage of time, still directly addressed much of what she was experiencing in the present. “He’s such a singular voice,” she explains. “I find myself turning to his work again and again…and I’m continuously surprised at his bravery and his fierceness.” Continue reading “Jesmyn Ward Discusses The Fire This Time”
A powerful new anthology aims to channel the spirit of James Baldwin’s sharp eye and sharper pen, turning them on current events from Trayvon Martin to Sandra Bland. In The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, Jesmyn Ward has collected 18 essays and poems by contemporary authors that bring Baldwin’s tradition to the present day.
Ward says she saw glimpses of acuity like Baldwin’s in social media posts but longed to bottle it up. “There were so many writers on Twitter who had such great ideas and really insightful things to say about what was happening,” she recalls. “Then after two days I didn’t have access to those ideas anymore just because of the way that particular social media platform is structured. I wondered where I could go in order to encounter that kind of thoughtfulness about race in America.”
Ward found that Baldwin’s words, despite the passage of time, still directly addressed much of what she was experiencing in the present. “He’s such a singular voice,” she explains. “I find myself turning to his work again and again…and I’m continuously surprised at his bravery and his fierceness.” Continue reading “Jesmyn Ward Discusses The Fire This Time”
26-year-old Brit Bennett’s sparkling debut novel, The Mothers, came of age over eight years and several drafts. She began penning the tale of youthful indiscretions and betrayals while just a teen. Then she carried it with her through college at Stanford and to MFA and postgraduate fellowship programs at the University of Michigan, where she torched and remade the story repeatedly.
The pull of the characters and drama at Upper Room Chapel, a black church in a California beach town, kept her honing the novel despite the gap between her literary ambitions and nascent writing skills. “I felt a type of loyalty to these characters because I had grown up alongside them,” she says. “It’s this crazy leap of faith that someday this book that was so bad for so long would get better. I’m glad I stuck with it and believed there was a good story there somewhere. I just had to learn how to develop the skills in order to tell it.” Continue reading “Brit Bennett Discusses The Mothers”
26-year-old Brit Bennett’s sparkling debut novel, The Mothers, came of age over eight years and several drafts. She began penning the tale of youthful indiscretions and betrayals while just a teen. Then she carried it with her through college at Stanford and to MFA and postgraduate fellowship programs at the University of Michigan, where she torched and remade the story repeatedly.
The pull of the characters and drama at Upper Room Chapel, a black church in a California beach town, kept her honing the novel despite the gap between her literary ambitions and nascent writing skills. “I felt a type of loyalty to these characters because I had grown up alongside them,” she says. “It’s this crazy leap of faith that someday this book that was so bad for so long would get better. I’m glad I stuck with it and believed there was a good story there somewhere. I just had to learn how to develop the skills in order to tell it.” Continue reading “Brit Bennett Discusses The Mothers”
In The Firebrand and the First Lady, scholar Patricia Bell-Scott illuminates the unlikely friendship between two historic American women. Radical civil and women’s rights activist Pauli Murray and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt corresponded for years and swayed one another’s social justice aims and strategies. Their views never converged, but Bell-Scott makes a compelling case that they grew with and toward each other.
“I started out being interested primarily in doing a biography, but then the friendship just drew me in,” Bell-Scott says of her decadeslong quest to capture the relationship and its impact—both on the women and the country.
Murray saw Roosevelt for the first time in 1934 at Camp Tera, a government-sponsored facility for unemployed women. Murray was an indigent resident, and Roosevelt was the camp’s visionary, visiting to confer with residents and ensure the camp was adequately staffed, equipped, and integrated. Twenty-four-years old, malnourished, and suffering from respiratory problems, Murray was exactly the kind of young woman Roosevelt meant the New Deal camp to serve. Continue reading “Patricia Bell-Scott Discusses The Firebrand and the First Lady”
In The Firebrand and the First Lady, scholar Patricia Bell-Scott illuminates the unlikely friendship between two historic American women. Radical civil and women’s rights activist Pauli Murray and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt corresponded for years and swayed one another’s social justice aims and strategies. Their views never converged, but Bell-Scott makes a compelling case that they grew with and toward each other.
“I started out being interested primarily in doing a biography, but then the friendship just drew me in,” Bell-Scott says of her decadeslong quest to capture the relationship and its impact—both on the women and the country.
Murray saw Roosevelt for the first time in 1934 at Camp Tera, a government-sponsored facility for unemployed women. Murray was an indigent resident, and Roosevelt was the camp’s visionary, visiting to confer with residents and ensure the camp was adequately staffed, equipped, and integrated. Twenty-four-years old, malnourished, and suffering from respiratory problems, Murray was exactly the kind of young woman Roosevelt meant the New Deal camp to serve. Continue reading “Patricia Bell-Scott Discusses The Firebrand and the First Lady”
It’s Toast Time in Austin, the wonderful season when exceptional parties bloom around town in support of the St. David’s Foundation Neal Kocurek Scholarship Fund.
I had the distinct pleasure of participating in the first two parties this year. I moderated a discussion with Karan Mahajan, author of The Association Small Bombs, at Saturday afternoon’s event, then appeared on Tuesday night with Shaka at a party where he was the featured speaker. Both were great opportunities to show support for Central Texas students like Jona Mata and Tevon Hood in their quests for healthcare careers. Continue reading “St. David’s Foundation Toast of the Town 2017”
It’s Toast Time in Austin, the wonderful season when exceptional parties bloom around town in support of the St. David’s Foundation Neal Kocurek Scholarship Fund.
I had the distinct pleasure of participating in the first two parties this year. I moderated a discussion with Karan Mahajan, author of The Association Small Bombs, at Saturday afternoon’s event, then appeared on Tuesday night with Shaka at a party where he was the featured speaker. Both were great opportunities to show support for Central Texas students like Jona Mata and Tevon Hood in their quests for healthcare careers. Continue reading “St. David’s Foundation Toast of the Town 2017”
It is an honor to be featured in Tribeza Magazine’s People of the Year for 2017-the artists, thinkers, builders, and visionaries shaping the future of Austin.
Continue reading “Tribeza Magazine’s Person of the Year 2017”Gila Jones played it safe in her twenties, following a well-worn path from a government degree from Harvard University to an NYU law degree and a job with a prestigious law firm. After five years with the firm, she took an unexpected leap into the corporate world and became general counsel of an LA-based apparel company. At 31, she traded the security of a defined career ladder for the challenge and responsibility of leading an entire legal operation. Sixteen months in, she’s still leaning in and loving it!
- Name: Gila Jones
- Age: 32
- Work: General Counsel for a Los Angeles-based fashion brand
- Educational background: Bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University; Law degree from New York University
A silhouette of a 1950s housewife emblazoned with the words “emotional,” “bossy” and “too nice” stood out among the other magazine covers depicting skyscrapers and suit-clad executives. I grabbed the magazine off the rack, wondering what exactly the editors meant that cover to convey. Were they suggesting that those descriptors were as outdated as the woman’s bob hairstyle? I sure hoped so.
It was the Harvard Business Review. I flipped to the article, “Women Rising: The Unseen Barriers” (by Herminia Ibarra, Robin Ely and Deborah Kolb), and marveled at the image selected to illustrate it: a two-page spread of artist Janet Echelman’s soaring Amsterdam Light Festival sculpture installation. Vital and cerebral, the hi-tech yet animate work evoked the kind of unfettered intelligence and creativity that leaders should possess.
But this article, unlike Echelman’s acclaimed TED Talk, wasn’t about taking imagination seriously. Instead, jargon like “second-generation gender bias” and “identity workspaces” jarred against Echelman’s breathtaking art. The sculpture’s buoyant spirit couldn’t have contrasted more sharply with the article’s neutered corporate speak.
Continue reading “What Does It Really Take for Women to Become Corporate Leaders?”I celebrated a birthday in September and, in true internet-age fashion, did a Google search on women born in my birth year, 1980. Turns out I share it with Christina Aguilera, Gisele Bundchen, Kim Kardashian and Venus Williams. All four are powerhouse women at the top of their games in highly public fields. They’ve built multimillion-dollar personal brands with incredible work ethic and uncommon drive. Three are also moms.
I could look at these peers and see a lot standing between their accomplishments and mine. But that would miss the point. Birthdays give us a perfect occasion to ponder the gap between where we are and where we’ve always longed to be.
I never aspired to be a pop icon, supermodel, reality star or elite tennis player. But I always thought I would be a nationally recognized author. Problem was: I didn’t always work like one.
I suspect that the ladies above grasped early on something that I was slower to recognize. That once you figure out your niche — something you’ve got some talent for and interest in—you’ve got to imagine yourself performing at your peak and find the motivation to pursue the vision relentlessly. Every day.
Gisele remarked in British Vogue: “I tell my five sisters, who don’t work at it very hard at all, whatever you put in, you get out. I’m not afraid of working hard at anything, whatever it is. I just always want to be the best that I can.”
My big dreams remain, but as a mother, I’ve got to be considerably more creative in their pursuit. Getting from point A to point B with a two-year-old in tow requires a bit more strength and flexibility than when I was flying solo. Now I have to work at the dream and at finding time, space and energy to pursue it. Fortunately, motherhood builds just that kind of muscle with its nonstop demands and the ultimate motivation—a little being who’s watching your every move.
Continue reading “Reflecting on Priorities in Life and Motherhood, Two Years In”