Zetta Elliott's Blog, page 115

take two

Ok, so I'm still figuring out how to film people and I'm realizing that trying to squeeze everything into a ten-minute You Tube segment doesn't always work.  I also sometimes act as though "we" all know one another—if you read my blog, then you know certain authors' work, and if I call them by their first name you know who I'm talking about…but that's not a fair assumption to make.  So I'm reposting the interviews I did yesterday, restoring the bits that got cut for the sake of time.  And I a...

Re-Imagining the Past

This morning was our panel at the NYPL; train trouble made me a little late, but once we got started, everything went really well…we had a great group of 6th-graders who had lots of questions and were avid readers and writers.  Of course, I brought my Flip camera along so I could record the interesting answers my fellow panelists gave—what an honor to sit beside such smart, creative women! (l-r: Kekla Magoon, Tonya Cherie Hegamin, Rita Williams-Garcia, & me—and special thanks to Latria for...

mitts

Am way too tired to write about this long day, but just wanted to share this photo of the mittens my grandmother knit for me and my sister when we were babies…I'm not good in social situations, and my mother's anxiety was off the charts today as well—not a great combination.  We got off to a rocky start, but the wedding was lovely, and afterward we had dinner with my sister.  Then when we finally got home, my mother called me into her room and randomly asked if I wanted any of these pairs of ...

sleep

You know I love birds, but the ones near my mother's house wake up BEFORE 4AM!  So night #1 in Toronto was not so great…had a headache, woke at 4, and couldn't fall back to sleep.  Insomnia makes the night feel endless…around 6am I did work out a scene for my novel, however, which is great.  Erzulie Dantor…

The tests yesterday morning took more than 2 hours, but I'm glad I decided to participate in the study.  I do have a slight head and hand tremor, but the doctor thinks that, right now...

are writers born or made?

I'm in Toronto right now, and my mother and I just watched a really interesting show on Bravo—it's called Writers' Confessions, and it featured a diverse group of authors talking about what it means to be a writer.  One question asked was whether an author is born or made…I found myself agreeing with a number of folks who expressed the idea that some writers have an innate gift, and some writers don't, but work really hard at their craft; incredibly talented artists sometimes lack the...

time warp

I yelled at a man in the street yesterday.  That in and of itself is unusual, but what was really strange was my sudden Caribbean accent: "Yuh can see the light is RED?"  I shamed that male driver who nearly ran me down, and crossed the street with my own cheeks burning…raising my voice at men in the street was not part of my home training; generally I ignore whatever's being said or done, or suck my teeth at most.  But I've been reading Marina Budhos' The Professor of Light, and at times...

getting back on the horse

I was terrified of horses when I was a child, yet when my parents decided to separate, they enrolled my sister and I in equestrian camp to take our minds off the domestic situation.  I think I was six or seven, and I spent most of my time indoors, drawing the massive beasts I was too afraid to ride.  A few years later, my grandfather began to take us riding as a special treat (followed by a stop at Dairy Queen) and when I spent a semester in England during college, we actually went...

Love Your Library!

Tomorrow is Love Your Library Day in Brooklyn!  If you haven't already made a donation, please do Support Our Shelves.  And if you're in Brooklyn, stop by Grand Army Plaza for a day of fun events including performances, author talks, arts & crafts, and a book sale…I have fond memories of going to the library as a child and buying a used book for a DIME!  And, of course, I rely on the BPL for my research and recreational reading…if you're a sports fan, consider donating as much to your public ...

Grease Town

Technically, I'm not writing book reviews any more so these are just my thoughts on Ann Towell's novel, Grease Town.  I've already established that very few children's books are published in Canada featuring a black protagonist; most of the existing books are written by white authors and focus on the migration of African Americans from slavery in the US to freedom in Canada.  Fortunately, Grease Town doesn't paint Ontario as "the promised land" of milk and honey, and it concludes with the...

AGO?

Are you listening?  Ame!  Good, I have your attention.  Actually, AGO refers to the Art Gallery of Ontario.  No, I am not going to start another rant about race and Canada.  I just want to point out that Kenyan-born (Brooklyn-based) artist Wangechi Mutu has an exhibit in Toronto right now—I will *definitely* check it out while I'm up there later this month.  But, of course, while watching this interesting video (made by the AGO), I had to wonder how many black Canadian artists have had solo s...