The New Year is approaching and we’re looking forward to a new year of writing and programming. We’re hoping in the upcoming year to expand RM 220’s focus and cover as much of New Orleans cultural life as possible. Our arts community is growing and always in flux. Stop by for a chance to check-in … RM 220 : NEW YEAR’S WRITERS REUNION AND COMMUNITY GATHERING
Sokari Ekine’s Spirit Desire, Resistance, Imagination and Sacred Memories in Haitian Voudoun is not meant to be just another coffee table specimen. The series of photographs “made” beginning in 2013, in Haiti, by the Nigerian British, self-described black queer feminist photographer, Sokari Ekine usher in the photographer’s recently published book. As codified by Ekine, the sixty-six photographs … Spirit Desire: Resistance, Imagination and Sacred Memories in Haitian Vodoun ( Sokari Ekine, 2018)
My first exposure to Jon Padgett’s work was through the horror fiction podcast, Pseudopod. Padgett narrated his own short story, “20 Simple Steps to Ventriloquism.” The sound design, as well as Jon’s terrifically creepy voice-over performance, elevated an already excellent story into something I knew I needed to share with as many people as possible. … New Orleans’s own Jon Padgett is an apostle of Dark Fiction.
My name is Annette Lapel. And I have enough time on my hands to take a stab at my autobiography—at least a first draft… My mother was a seamstress who owned a dress shop on Decatur. My father was a photographer who traveled the world. I spend most of my days in my … What’s your name? Where are you from? Who’s your family? (Annette, Le Vampire, 2018.)
Join us & other talented Black New Orleans writers and artists at the 2018 Words & Music Festival, November 15-18th at The Pere Marquette Hotel. This year’s Black Joy and Justice track of programming is curated by poet and consultant, Kelly Harris Deberry. Check out the complete schedule: Black Joy & Justice at BrassyBrown.com Entire Words & … Black Joy & Justice Schedule at the Words & Music Festival 2018 New Orleans
Lina Iris Viktor, Eleventh, 2018 Something used by someone else carries a history with it. A piece of cloth, a platter, a cut-glass pitcher, a recipe. A history and a spirit. You want to know when it was used. And how. And what it wants from you. [1] Reminiscent of a Babylonian Lillith in her … Lina Iris Viktor: A Haven, A Hell, A Dream Deferred (A Review)
In 2003, Marvel Comics released Kyle Baker’s Truth: Red White and Black, an original, in-continuity graphic novel exploring the idea that before giving the super-soldier serum to a white test subject, the US Army tested the serum on a group of black GIs, most of whom perished in the process. The series was dark, well-written, … The Black Family Gets Its Own on Black Lightning
This past August, in a bit of a writing funk, I came across Lawrence Ware’s, “What The Source Taught Me.” An homage to the magazine in its glory days as a hip-hop magazine edited by Black people, the article brought memories to the surface. Good memories, often buried underneath thirteen years of post -Katrina drama. Ware’s … History & Geography: Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi Covers “The Source”
Is it still Lion in Winter if there are no signs of frost? Kalamu Ya Salaam’s Be About Beauty arrived in our inboxes as we sent New Orleans Griot: The Tom Dent Reader to the printer. New Orleans Griot was Kalamu’s tribute to his mentor, showing Dent in many of his roles in the … Kalamu Ya Salaam’s Be About Beauty:
A review by Jeremy Tuman Many people understand that wealth inequality, the gap between the poorest and wealthiest members of a society, has drastically increased in recent years, both in the United States and in other countries. We know, for instance, that C.E.O.-to-worker pay was quantified fifty years ago in double-digits, around twenty to one, … If We Could Just Be More Like Iowa
