Kibkabe Araya's Blog, page 48
September 16, 2016
September 10, 2016
(via Memoir Uncovers One Woman’s Painful Search for Racial...
(via Memoir Uncovers One Woman’s Painful Search for Racial Identity - NBC News)
This memoir is on my Goodreads list because I want to write one similar to it someday. About being bicultural but fully black. It’s been an interesting experience. The interview with the author is heartbreaking and hopeful, and I can’t wait to read it.
(via ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ Author Is Queer And Now...
(via ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ Author Is Queer And Now Our Childhoods Make Sense | Huffington Post)
This week, two prominent female authors dominated the news by saying they were queer. First, Elizabeth Gilbert of “Eat Pray Love” fame said she had fallen in love with her female best friend. Then, Ann M. Martin, the author behind “The Babysitters Club” series and the most masterful author ever for writing a book in less than a month for many years, revealed in an interview slyly she had a female partner.
Now, readers are looking for clues in their works, but it’s interesting how authors weave elements of their lives into their works and how readers are intrigued by these tidbits.
I recently read “The Girls” by Emma Cline. The prose was amazing yet superfluous, but when I spoke about the book of the summer with other writers, they said they didn’t feel the author had to write the book. Definition: there wasn’t a strong connection to her.
Yes, we don’t know this rising author well. It’s like we didn’t know Jessica Knoll though she wrote “Luckiest Girl Alive” with a seemingly conceited character who’s actually disguising her pain from past traumas. The gang rape scene in the novel is vivid, so when Jessica came out a year after the novel’s release and said it did happen to her, readers felt like they knew that tidbit because the storytelling came alive for them in that moment.
While readers go back to their books - whether it’s Elizabeth’s journey to find authentic love around the world or Ann’s fictional all-girls babysitting club - to see how their recent revelations of being queer appeared in their works, it shows the importance of making the story real enough to engage readers who want to relate to the people living among the pages.
September 9, 2016
August 23, 2016
Netflix has become the answer to my unthought-of prayers. First,...
Netflix has become the answer to my unthought-of prayers. First, it revived “Fuller House” (imagine being an 8-year-old devastated by the original sitcom’s finale) then the yet-to-be-released “Gilmore Girls” (if only there was a Stars Hollow-like haven in LA) - just two of my favorite shows from childhood - and now it’s going to revive “Anne of Green Gables.”
Though being a modern black girl obsessed with literature centering around white girls in the 1800s is considered odd, I still found refuge in my Lucy Maud Montgomery novels. Long ago, I read “Anne of Green Gables” about the spunky redhead orphan who took Prince Edward Island by storm. I read the sequential novels around her life with befriending her bosom friend Diana Barry (they made currant wine look fun) to marrying Gilbert Blythe and then the novels about the adventures of their daughter, Rilla, short for Marilla, the namesake of Anne’s adopted mother.
Anne’s adventures were entertaining, and her monologues made statements, forcing me forever to see the name Anne spelled with an “e” to be far more romantic than without the vowel at the end. When PBS showed the ’80s miniseries every holiday season, it was a tradition in my household to watch it every night for the week and suffer through the commercials begging for money from “members like you.” I was even excited when Megan Follows stepped back in Anne’s shoes in the early 2000s for another miniseries surrounding Anne’s grown-up life with Gilbert.
In Anne, I saw an independent girl - a quality girls were/are not supposed to have - and wanted to emulate her. Now, in a celebrity-obsessed world, most girls don’t have role models, and since we’re stuck on gadgets, maybe a girl today can see themselves in Anne by watching this Netflix version. Then, hopefully, she’ll find the novel - probably as an e-book - and let Anne inspire her.
August 22, 2016
Best creative writing piece to appear online today and involve...
Best creative writing piece to appear online today and involve the best fries on the fast food circuit. (via Kanye West’s McDonald’s poem, illustrated | The Verge)
August 14, 2016
#amreading @essence #magazine article on the Ava DuVernay new...
#amreading @essence #magazine article on the Ava DuVernay new show @queensugarown. Saw the 1st episode last week at #nabjnahj16 the same day I finished the novel.
(via Mermaid Crowns Bring Us One Step Closer To Being Sea...
(via Mermaid Crowns Bring Us One Step Closer To Being Sea Royalty)
This makes me believe Oceania can be real.
August 12, 2016
"Being a writer was never a choice, it was an irresistible compulsion."
- Walter Jon Williams (via psliterary)
(via Simone Manuel’s Olympic Win Is Huge Considering...
(via Simone Manuel’s Olympic Win Is Huge Considering Swimming’s Racist Past)
West Coast living means getting Olympics news early through alerts, so I knew Simone Manuel would fulfill #blackgirlmagic with her gold medal in swimming - the first African American to do so. Once she made history, the articles about black folks’ twisted history with swimming popped up. From the Atlantic slave trade to the segregation of community pools, there’s a lot of history, and a lot of black folks still can’t swim, don’t want to swim as I learned from being in the real world.
I’m currently working on a young adult novel about a 16-year-old girl sacrificing everything for love to be a mermaid at a nightclub. She also happens to be a lifelong competitive swimmer. And she’s black.
Finally getting my idea to paper, I’ve already incorporated the history on swimming in the story and will continue to weave more in. So when I saw Simone be draped in gold yesterday, I thought about how important my story could be with sprinkling real-life history over fantasy.
