Writer-in-Residence BlogTag

‘AMELIA THANK YOUS.docx’: The single Word document that kept me going

The first thing I do when I start reading a book is read the acknowledgments. I like to know where the book I’m about to read came from, and all the people who helped the author along the way. I love ...

'Write when the baby sleeps' and other impossible writing rules

Years ago, long before I had any kids, I read that Alice Munro wrote when her baby napped, so when I was pregnant with my first kid, I told myself I’d do the same. It was 2015, six years before my first ...

SOLITARY FANTASIES

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.― Maya AngelouWe have arrived at my final writer-in-residence blog post. For me, it was indeed an October to Remember. I ...

WE MOVE

While doing life, Nigerians use the slang “we move” to capture the dogged determination needed to plow through difficult situations. It’s a clarion call for better.Over the years, I have come across ...

RIDING THE WAVES

Marigold stood, held up her fist and struck a defiant pose as she recited William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus.” Out of the night that covers me,Black as the pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever ...

MUSICAL MAGIC

Welcome back. Today, I am talking about magic, soul-stirring musical magic.My idea of a relaxing evening is these achy feet raised on my dependable ottoman, a big mug of hot milky tea nestled in my hands, ...

AN OCTOBER TO REMEMBER

Odò ti ó bá gbàgbé orisun gbi gbẹ ló ngbẹ.― Yoruba ProverbWelcome to my October To Remember! It is an absolute pleasure to be Open Book’s October 2021 writer-in-residence. If you missed ...

On Synchronicity, or: a Set of Emergent/Entangled Influences

Moments of liberation—such as those of revolutionary rupture, or personal “peak experiences”—matter enormously, insofar as they remind us that conditions that once seemed fixed are not, and create ...

Hydra/Hyphae and Vampirism

“Simplicity is a mode of being in the world available to those enmeshed in white structures of feeling. Simplicity is an affect that motors the cultural imaginary of whiteness, an interpretive strategy."                                                                                                                                                                                                                              ...

On Painted Mountain Corn and Writing in Relation to Gardening

Winter is the time for gardeners to rest, and to begin thinking of the next season. Usually, by the time November arrives, I am so very grateful that the garden has lessened its hold on me, resting under ...