Tiah Beautement's Blog, page 74
June 29, 2014
June 27, 2014
On The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch - It was time to go, well past time - my mother had made that perfectly clear - and yet I could see no path out of the space where I was and in fact in some ways it was hard to imagine being anywhere else in the world - that there was another world, outside that one. It was like I'd never had another life at all. - - Oddly, it was the picture on the greeting card that had troubled me. It was the kind of thing you'd see in a drugstore card rack,...
June 26, 2014
On insanity
I'm talkin' about you. Stop pretending you're normal. You're insane. Make that work for you. - Jennifer Crusie
June 25, 2014
On The Guardian's Wyrd
Nerine Dorman, The Guardian's Wyrd - I didn't mean to slam Mike into the wall so hard, but it was so satisfying to catch him unawares. - - I needed all the allies I could get, even if they were stodgy old spinsters with a fondness for Beethoven. I could forgive her the Beethoven. At least it wasn't Chopin. Ugh. - I had this sense that things were about to go horribly, horribly wrong. Kinda like not studying for an exam but only ten million times worse. Kinda like when you've got to play at an Eisteddfod and you haven't...
June 24, 2014
On Thinking
I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say. - Flannery O’Connor
June 23, 2014
On To The Black Women We All Knew
Kholofelo Maenetsha, To The Black Women We All Knew - Matlakala looked at her words on the screen. Despite the violence of the scene, and the thoughts it had brought to mind, clicking the save button, she felt strangely calm. - - A person never looks like anything other than who they are. It is the observer who decides what he or she should be. And I believe that is seldom what that person is. - - Jeffrey sat watching Lazaro Paint. He could see he was creating a beautiful thing. The man could express himself better in colours than...
June 22, 2014
On Shine
Short Story Day Africa both works with and raises up many charities and organsations. One such organsation we admire is Shine, who is being represented this year by our 9 & Under judge Kathryn Torres. When we asked Kathryn if she would like to do a guest post, she tapped another Shine member, Sheryl Kavin. A few quotes stuck out for me: When I was first introduced to Shine, I was not quite sure what to expect. I attended an orientation and loved that “The Shine Centre has a vision to create a nation of readers”. Being able to read...
On Life Drawing
Robin Black, Life Drawing - These are the sorts of things you see when you step away. It doesn't mean you're right. It just means it's what you see. - - But as I drew, I felt the familiar sag of mediocrity travel down my arm, through my fingers, into the charcoal, onto the paper, stiffening my lines, emptying him of life. - - A painter looks. That's what she does. But she doesn't always look in the right direction. - - Life. It begins and begins and begins. An infinite number of times. It is all beginnings until the...
June 19, 2014
On Lost Language
My maternal great-grandmother could speak five languages. I struggle with the one. Was raised in the 80s when being American meant being proud of knowing less vocabulary, a sentiment that baffles me to this day. I pay the price for the then educational system's misplaced patriotism. Here I am, struggling in my thirties, with a narrow minded brain that refuses to expand to accommodate a few more of the eleven official languages of my children's country. So much knowledge lost. And while the expanse of generations may sound wide between myself and great-grandmother, the reality is on that side the...
June 17, 2014
Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire On Writivism
Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire OnWritivism: Promoting Literature by Africans to Africans on the Continent Most of the instant responses to the mention of Writivism have been to ask if it is about the use of writing for activism. It is not an easy feat to distance the word ‘Writivism’ a coinage of writing and activism-from the subjection of writing to ‘activism’. But on the 16th of May 2014, at the Franschhoek Literary Festival in South Africa, a mentor on the program, Yewande Omotoso explained most eloquently: Writivism is advocacy for African writing. Writivism is an African continent-wide program run by the...
