Ominous and timely, No One Is Coming to Save Us explores the sense of displacement and dispossession that burrows within communities—and individuals—when work vanishes. The novel follows residents of Pinewood, a declining North Carolina factory town, as they ponder the twin perils of staying stuck in the stubborn red clay beneath them or moving earth to cut their own new roads.
Author Stephanie Powell Watts’ story could take place in countless small towns around the country—she points out that Allentown, Pennsylvania, is playing out a similar narrative with the steel industry’s uprooting. But the Lehigh University English professor (and Carolina native) planned from the outset to tell a North Carolina foothills story. She wanted to write with reverence and curiosity about home.
“I’d like for [readers] to think about the characters living in the South, in this post-integrationist era, and think of them just as people that could be their neighbors or their friends. And think of them with grace and charity,” says Watts. “I’d love it if people thought, ‘This is a human story and this could happen.’ ”
Continue reading “Stephanie Powell Watts Discusses No One Is Coming to Save Us”
I’m so excited to be included in Austin Way’s listing of Renaissance Women—creative players behind Austin’s arts scene.
Continue reading “Austin Way’s Renaissance Women”Artist Misha Maynerick Blaise’s latest publication traverses the universe from microbes to galaxies with a winning mix of scientific curiosity and joyous sparkle. Her volume, This Phenomenal Life: The Amazing Ways We Are Connected with Our Universe, lauds the majesty of starry skies and dense forests, but directs our attention to the wilderness within—the ever-cycling world of growth, death and rebirth invisible to the naked eye.
Through whimsical illustrations and hand lettering, combined with clear-eyed reporting of scientific phenomena, she offers a fresh compendium of reminders that we aren’t as isolated, individual and disconnected as we often fear. Not only are we in proximity to nature at all times — we are, in fact, supremely, profoundly, infinitely integrated with it. Just four elements, all of which began in space, make up most of the universe, she observes. “We are literally made from stars, and the atoms inside of us are as ancient as the universe itself,” she writes.
With a deft hand, she reveals commons misapprehensions of who we are and what we’re made of. Our bodies are flush with microorganisms “so much so that ‘you’ are largely made up of ‘not you’ elements,” she writes of the blurred lines. There’s as much bacteria in our bodies as human cells. Our faces are coated with unscrubbable mites. Microbial clouds surround us. We share significant DNA with bonobos and chimps and also dogs and banana plants.
Blaise also points to the edges of human understanding in ways that prompt inquiry, awe and wonder. The earth’s surface is 71 percent water, yet is largely unknown to us. Less than 5 percent of the seabed has been mapped in depth, she notes, and more people have walked on the moon than plumbed the underwater depths of the Earth. She links these mysteries to those of the water within our own human bodies and the hidden and sizable amount of water used to grow or power the products we create and consume.
Even readers who find little new in the content of her writing will appreciate the freshness, vitality and humor her illustrations bring to matter-of-fact text. The Big Bang, Mitochondrial Eve, and Nature’s internet haven’t been presented quite like this before.
A woman made of stars stands spread-eagled while creepy crawly micoorganisms encircle her. A shirtless biker with a giant Mother Earth tattoo soaks up Vitamin D. Vast networks of mycelium (branching “roots” of mushrooms) flourish beneath the soil and beneath a stilettoed, fish-net stockinged leg, helping plants exchange nutrients–and toxins. A donut lover chews on, unaware of the great dramas of the universe unfolding within him.
Her eye for the perpetual exchange among all elements and beings is a marvel and a gift. And when she concludes, “We are not just IN the universe, we actually ARE THE UNIVERSE,” a nod of agreement seems the best response.
National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward has stared down truth and rendered it on the page with poignance and precision before. But for her third novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, Ward forged a fresh set of writing tools—historical research, multiple first-person points of view, and a touch of the supernatural—to grapple with the legacy wounds of American racism.
Urgent and evocative, Sing, Unburied, Sing explores the inescapable force of history bearing down on thepresent. Dense, multigenerational tragedy tails 13-year-old Jojo and his drug-addicted mother, Leonie, as they travel from their home in fictional Bois, Mississippi, upstate to retrieve Jojo’s white father from the notorious Parchman Farm, also known as the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
Jojo’s black maternal grandfather, River, also served time in Parchman, and Richie, the ghost of a child prisoner from those cruel years, joins the wretched travel party for the trip’s return leg. In distinct ways, each traveler—young man, woman, and ghost—desperately seeks home in people and places that provide no rest and little shelter.
Continue reading “Jesmyn Ward Discusses Sing, Unburied, Sing”Journalist Ethan Michaeli had a pressing question when he interviewed for a job with the celebrated black newspaper the Chicago Defender in 1991. “Do white people work here?” he asked.
City editor Alberta Leak laughed and assured him that they did—and always had. Michaeli landed the job, embarking on a journalism career and a yearslong education in the history of white and black America. Now Michaeli is sharing what he learned in his new book, The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America.
It turns out that Michaeli’s interview query illuminated an important aspect of the Defender’s vision and impact. He was far from the first white employee. “I wasn’t even the101st, not even probably the 1,001st,” he says. “I realized that just as Frederick Douglass’ vision of America was an integrated vision, one that respected everybody for their own background and perspectives, that’s what the Defender always was. It’s an African-American–owned newspaper that works for an integrated country.” Continue reading “Ethan Michaeli Discusses The Defender”
Journalist Ethan Michaeli had a pressing question when he interviewed for a job with the celebrated black newspaper the Chicago Defender in 1991. “Do white people work here?” he asked.
City editor Alberta Leak laughed and assured him that they did—and always had. Michaeli landed the job, embarking on a journalism career and a yearslong education in the history of white and black America. Now Michaeli is sharing what he learned in his new book, The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America.
It turns out that Michaeli’s interview query illuminated an important aspect of the Defender’s vision and impact. He was far from the first white employee. “I wasn’t even the101st, not even probably the 1,001st,” he says. “I realized that just as Frederick Douglass’ vision of America was an integrated vision, one that respected everybody for their own background and perspectives, that’s what the Defender always was. It’s an African-American–owned newspaper that works for an integrated country.” Continue reading “Ethan Michaeli Discusses The Defender”
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”
