Maggie Collins's Blog, page 2
June 30, 2014
May 24, 2014
Celestial Blue Skies Book Signings
Celestial Blue SkiesI will be Signing Purchased Copies of My Novel at The Community Bookstore2523 Bayou Rd. New OrleansonJUNE 28, 2014I will also READ excerpts from my novelincluding the Curse of the MulattoPlease email your friends about this event.I will also be at the LOUISIANA BOOK FESTIVAL on November 1, 2014 as a featured PanalistMy novel was a finalist in the William Faulkner William Wisdom Worldwide ContestIt has been recognized by the Louisiana Endowment for the HumanitiesI am a Fellow with the Center for Black Literature in New YorkThank you for coming to my website.
Praise for Celestial Blue Skies Reviews
Maggie Collins’ mesmerizing novel takes us deep into the hearts and minds of a Louisiana creole family struggling to maintain their dignity and traditional values within an uncompromising world full of poverty, superstition, and intolerance. Celeste, the main character, must navigate through the rigid cultural code demanded from her family as she strives to transcend the bad reputation her mother has acquired in the community. She soon learns that those demands, although at times brutal and suffocating in the hands of her grandmother and matriarch, Maymay, come from a source of genuine love and caring. The values she learns from her family are what eventually guide her towards a stronger sense of self and a better, self-fulfilling life. A fabulous read, full of engaging complex characters and fascinating situations, Celestial Blue Skies, invites us to consider that at times the only type of love that can help us survive is an exacting, fierce one. --J.L. Torres, author of The Accidental Native and Boricua Passport Editor Saranac Review
Maggie Collins writes about real people who live on the page. Celeste Bastille is a young woman who will win the reader and stay in her memory. Most of the characters are as vivid as Celeste and they are a family. As much as you want Celeste to find happiness in her own life, the family needs her. Collins weaves a tale as intriguing as the folktale that is the basis for the book. Celeste earns her Celestial Blue Sky. ~ Lee Grue, Editor, The New Laurel Review
It isn't often that I get to visit Creole homes in southwest Louisiana and just listen. I like to tell my friends here in Europe that New Orleans is a city of tribes who are more or less friendly to one another. Within the black community there are tribes with complex differences, within the white community there are tribes. But the tribe I love the most is the tribe of the heart. Ms. Collins is surely part of that. Celestial Blue Skies is a book of the heart. It describes a Creole family in southwest Louisiana some few years ago, with the authority of an insider. I found myself peering through watery eyes a number of times. Truthful books touch you that way. ~ Gordon Walmsley, Editor, The Copenhagen Review
Praise from Other Readers
This book had me shaking at Chapter 3. I haven't read something like this since Sugar by Bernice L. McFadden.
Debbie Knatt Jones
Growing up in Louisiana in a small town and a Creole family, I was able to relate to this book. Of course it had the boudin, crackling, hot crawfish and crabs, the sugar cane and the Zydeco music that we Creoles love, but most of all, it had the love of family Maymay is like so many creole women I know. She holds the family together durning a crisis.
If I could tell the author anything, I would tell her thank you for writing this book because it reminded me of the love that I had with my grandmother. I had a digital copy but my son got me a hard copy for Mother's Day. Truthfully this is one of the best books I have read in a long time.
Terry Noel
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Praise for Celestial Blue Skies ReviewsMaggie Collins’ mesmerizing novel takes us deep into the hearts and minds of a Louisiana creole family struggling to maintain their dignity and traditional values within an uncompromising world full of poverty, superstition, and intolerance. Celeste, the main character, must navigate through the rigid cultural code demanded from her family as she strives to transcend the bad reputation her mother has acquired in the community. She soon learns that those demands, although at times brutal and suffocating in the hands of her grandmother and matriarch, Maymay, come from a source of genuine love and caring. The values she learns from her family are what eventually guide her towards a stronger sense of self and a better, self-fulfilling life. A fabulous read, full of engaging complex characters and fascinating situations, Celestial Blue Skies, invites us to consider that at times the only type of love that can help us survive is an exacting, fierce one. --J.L. Torres, author of The Accidental Native and Boricua Passport Editor Saranac Review
Maggie Collins writes about real people who live on the page. Celeste Bastille is a young woman who will win the reader and stay in her memory. Most of the characters are as vivid as Celeste and they are a family. As much as you want Celeste to find happiness in her own life, the family needs her. Collins weaves a tale as intriguing as the folktale that is the basis for the book. Celeste earns her Celestial Blue Sky. ~ Lee Grue, Editor, The New Laurel Review
It isn't often that I get to visit Creole homes in southwest Louisiana and just listen. I like to tell my friends here in Europe that New Orleans is a city of tribes who are more or less friendly to one another. Within the black community there are tribes with complex differences, within the white community there are tribes. But the tribe I love the most is the tribe of the heart. Ms. Collins is surely part of that. Celestial Blue Skies is a book of the heart. It describes a Creole family in southwest Louisiana some few years ago, with the authority of an insider. I found myself peering through watery eyes a number of times. Truthful books touch you that way. ~ Gordon Walmsley, Editor, The Copenhagen Review
Praise from Other Readers
This book had me shaking at Chapter 3. I haven't read something like this since Sugar by Bernice L. McFadden.
Debbie Knatt Jones
Growing up in Louisiana in a small town and a Creole family, I was able to relate to this book. Of course it had the boudin, crackling, hot crawfish and crabs, the sugar cane and the Zydeco music that we Creoles love, but most of all, it had the love of family Maymay is like so many creole women I know. She holds the family together durning a crisis.
If I could tell the author anything, I would tell her thank you for writing this book because it reminded me of the love that I had with my grandmother. I had a digital copy but my son got me a hard copy for Mother's Day. Truthfully this is one of the best books I have read in a long time.
Terry Noel
a Rafflecopter giveaway
April 29, 2014
Amazonhttp://www.amazon.com/Celestial-Blue-......
Amazonhttp://www.amazon.com/Celestial-Blue-Skies-Maggie-Collins/dp/069202347X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398824637&sr=8-1&keywords=celestial+blue+skies
Barnes and Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/celestial-blue-skies-maggie-collins/1119365514?ean=2940149550692
In Belle Place, Louisiana, where the sugarcane grows a mile high to the bright blue sky, Celeste struggles with her mentally ill mother, Tut, and works with her grandmother Maymay to hold the Creole Bastille family together. Celeste has bigger dreams for her life, and is falling for the handsome and wealthy Vashan. But, when Tut runs away to live with the man she met working in the sugarcane to escape her reputation as the town whore, Maymay fears that Celeste will end up like her mother. And just as things are finally looking up for Tut, her past returns with violent, tragic results. Will Celeste end up like her mother, or will she redeem her family from the hoodoo curse that haunts them? And will she find love with someone from a culture just as exotic as her own?a Rafflecopter giveaway
Maggie Collins was born and raised under the clear blue skies of Loreauville, Louisiana. She majored in English at the University of Louisiana and later earned a Master's degree from the University of New Orleans. An excerpt of this novel was published in "Louisiana Cultural Vistas" and was a 2009 finalist for the worldwide William Faulkner William Wisdom writing contest. She is a Center for Black Literature fellow and an Educational Diagnostician. She lives with her two sons and wonderful husband
Praise for Celestial Blue Skies
Reviews Maggie Collins’ mesmerizing novel takes us deep into the hearts and minds of a Louisiana creole family struggling to maintain their dignity and traditional values within an uncompromising world full of poverty, superstition, and intolerance. Celeste, the main character, must navigate through the rigid cultural code demanded from her family as she strives to transcend the bad reputation her mother has acquired in the community. She soon learns that those demands, although at times brutal and suffocating in the hands of her grandmother and matriarch, Maymay, come from a source of genuine love and caring. The values she learns from her family are what eventually guide her towards a stronger sense of self and a better, self-fulfilling life. A fabulous read, full of engaging complex characters and fascinating situations, Celestial Blue Skies, invites us to consider that at times the only type of love that can help us survive is an exacting, fierce one.
--J.L. Torres, author of The Accidental Native and Boricua Passport Editor Saranac Review
Maggie Collins writes about real people who live on the page. Celeste Bastille is a young woman who will win the reader and stay in her memory. Most of the characters are as vivid as Celeste and they are a family. As much as you want Celeste to find happiness in her own life, the family needs her. Collins weaves a tale as intriguing as the folktale that is the basis for the book. Celeste earns her Celestial Blue Sky. ~ Lee Grue, Editor, The New Laurel Review
It isn't often that I get to visit Creole homes in southwest Louisiana and just listen. I like to tell my friends here in Europe that New Orleans is a city of tribes who are more or less friendly to one another. Within the black community there are tribes with complex differences, within the white community there are tribes. But the tribe I love the most is the tribe of the heart. Ms. Collins is surely part of that. Celestial Blue Skies is a book of the heart. It describes a Creole family in southwest Louisiana some few years ago, with the authority of an insider. I found myself peering through watery eyes a number of times. Truthful books touch you that way.
~ Gordon Walmsley, Editor, The Copenhagen Review
a Rafflecopter giveaway
April 28, 2014
April 10, 2014
Maggie Collins writes about real people who live on the p...
Maggie Collins writes about real people who live on the page.Celeste Bastille is a young woman who will win the reader and stay in her memory. Most of the characters are as vivid as Celeste and they are a family. As much as you want Celeste to find happiness in her own life, the family needs her. Collins weaves a tale as intriguing as the folk tale which is the basis for the book. Celeste earns her Celestial Blue Sky.Lee Grue New Orleans poet and author
Publisher of the New Laurel Review
Lee Meitzen Grue is a Louisiana poet and fiction writer, who often writes about New Orleans culture and music. Her published books are: Trains and Other Intrusions: Poems; French Quarter Poems; In The Sweet Balance of The Flesh; and Goodbye, Silver, Silver Cloud, a collection of New Orleans stories. A spoken word CD with jazz accompaniment "Live! On Frenchmen Street" was released in 2000. Performing with jazz or reading without accompaniment, Grue has appeared in night clubs: The Knitting Factory in New York, Snug Harbor, and True Brew in New Orleans. and at literary festivals: The Tennessee Williams and Faulkner Festivals, and Jazz Fest in New Orleans. As a Visiting Writer, she has conducted seminars and performed her work at La Universidad de Barcelona in Spain; at Librairie, an English language bookstore in Paris, Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, and at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa at an international symposium on “The Literature of Place" She has translated the work of Mexican poet David Huerta as part of “Bridging The Gulf”an exchange of four Mexico City poets and four new Orleans poets. The recipient of an NEA Fellowship; prizes in poetry and fiction from Deep South Writers; The Associated Writing Programs; and A PEN Syndicated Fiction Prize, Grue has taught at Tulane University, Westminster College, and Xavier University. She is the former Director of The New Orleans Poetry Forum and The First Backyard Poetry Theater and long time editor of The New Laurel Review. Grue is a member of The Authors Guild and is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in American Women. www.leegrue.com
It isn't often that I get to visit Creole homes in south...
It isn't often that I get to visit Creole homes in southwest Louisiana and just listen. I like to tell my friends here in Europe, that New Orleans is a city of tribes who are more or less friendly to one another. Within the black community there are tribes with complex differences, within the white community there are tribes. But the tribe I love the most is the tribe of the heart. Ms. Collins is surely part of that.Celestial Blue Skies is a book of the heart. It describes a Creole family in southwest Louisiana some few years ago, with the authority of an insider. I found myself peering through watery eyes a number of times. Truthful books touch you that way.
Gordon Walmsleyauthor of Daisy, The Alchemical Adventures of a New Orleans Hermaphroditeeditor of The Copenhagen Review (www.copenhagenreview.com)
Gordan Walmsley, an internationally acclaimed poet, is author the new poetically constructed novel, Daisy, The Alchemical Adventures of a New Orleans Hermaphrodite, published in October, 2013 in Denmark as a limited edition. The book, written partially in prose, partially in verse, has been described by Lee Froehlich, Managing Editor of Playboy, as the "undaisiest of daisys." Gordon grew up in New Orleans ane was graduated from Princeton University and Tulane Law School and has been writing poetry ever since. His latest book of poems Echoes of a River, Poems of New Orleans and Beyond , was published in Ireland by Salmon. The Irish Times wrote: “Walmsley’sspirit of compassion and empathy shines through the pages. The shorter echo poems that are placed like waves in the volume lend a visual interpretative layer that helps the collection in imparting more complex readings ("something can arise / from a wave that falls / among the sounding words". Gordan is married to a Dane and has been living in Denmark for many years. Apart from writing poetry, he edits www.copenhagenreview.com which features a span of excellent writers from relatively unknown aspirants to Nobel Prize winners. He has translated a number of poets from German, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish, including Tomas Tranströmer, Inger Christiansen and Katarina Frostenson.Taken from the website: http://www.wordsandmusic.org/Author_Faculty.html
March 16, 2014
Moray Olivier and Mattie Auzenne won the $25 Amazon Gift ...
Moray Olivier and Mattie Auzenne won the $25 Amazon Gift Cards. CONGRATULATIONS.
March 5, 2014
Celestial Blue Skies Cover Reveal
Synopsis
Celestial Blue Skies is a coming of age story about young Creole and biracial Celeste who lives in poverty with her mentally ill mother, her grandmother, Maymay, her Aunt Bumblebee, her Uncle T-Red, her three illegitimate sisters, and her cousins. Celeste learns how to fend for herself and her sisters at a young age while also fighting rumors about her mother, Tut, the whore of Belle Place, a sleepy one traffic- light Southwestern Louisiana town. Her mother Tut wants to leave all of them and live with a man she finds working in the sugarcane fields. Maymay fears that Celeste will end up like her mother. Will Celeste end up like her mother, or will she redeem her family from hoodoo and the Curse of the Mulatto? Will she find love herself with someone with a culture just as exotic as hers?
Biography
I was born and raised under the clear blue skies of Loreauville, Louisiana. I majored in English at the University of Louisiana and later earned a Master’s degree from the University of New Orleans where I earned the title Educational Diagnostician. I am married with two young boys.An excerpt of my novel was published in Louisiana Cultural Vistas. Celestial Blue Skies which was once titled The Curse of the Mulatto was a 2009 finalist finalist for the worldwide William Faulkner William Wisdom writing contest. It also placed as a finalist in the same 2011 competition as Celestial Blue Skies. I am a Center for Black Literature fellow.Contact
maggieperrodin@yahoo.com
http://celestialblueskies.blogspot.com
Maggie Whodat Collins on Facebook
@maggie28 on twitter
Celestial blue skies on facebook
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February 28, 2014
BLACK BOYS DON’T SHOOT is an intense, experimental theate...
BLACK BOYS DON’T SHOOT is an intense, experimental theater production aiming to cease gun fire on black youth across the globe. BBDS tackles the history-long obstacles and violence-dense ideology faced by and taught to black boys (particularly in America) from the 1700’s until now. The objective of Black Boys Don’t Shoot is to help members of the community re-establish the village mentality. We aim, with this production, to bring responsibility back to self while bringing accountability back to the entire community (the village). The production follows ten scripted monologue passages that discuss the effects of abandonment during slavery, the judicial system, poverty and fatherhood. Black Boys Don’t Shoot discusses solutions for becoming better men by seeking the divine within ourselves and mentoring young men. Writer/Director Charles Foster Jolivette is a 31 year old entertainer and entrepreneur from San Francisco California now living in New Orleans Louisiana. Charles began his career in writing shortly after he learned to walk, penning letters to Maya Angelou at 8 and rubbing elbows as an adolescent his Bay Area hometown with 2Pac Shakur. As a recording artist and talent manager, he has had the honor of working with Dick Gregory, Michael Franti and Paul Mooney among a slew of creative talents. His books include Etouffee, Le Midnight Roux and Bayou Babies. Foster Jolivette's upcoming release is an intense, experimental theater production aiming to cease gun fire on black youth. He calls the production, Black Boys Don't Shoot, "God's work!" Born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Tony Wilson is a multi-talented stage performer and recording artist now residing in New Orleans, Louisiana. An electric performer, Tony Wilson presents captivating, uplifting entertainment and is often referred to as "the most sought after Spoken Word artist in the Gulf Coast Region." Born in Jackson, Tennessee and raised in Henderson SIMPLE CITY Tennessee, Robert Deon is a 39-year-old United States ARMY SENIOR LEADER currently serving in Gulfport, Mississippi. Robert is an Iraqi War Veteran, a film and television actor and business owner. Deon also boasts that, "I'm the proud son of a preacher dedicated to pushing the positive word to the world.''
A Scribe Called Quess? (aka Michael Moore) is a poet, educator, and an actor. Quess has spent four years as an English teacher and is is a founding member of Team SNO (Slam New Orleans), New Orleans’ first slam poetry team since Hurricane Katrina, and the only national championship team the city has ever produced having won competitions in 2010, 2012 and 2013. His accomplishments with Team SNO have earned him honors from the Mayor of New Orleans as well as from City Council.
32 year old Larry D.E. McGhee II, originally of Atlanta Georgia is a graduate of Morris Brown College and the North Atlanta School for performing arts. As an active duty U.S. Coast Guard for 8 years Larry was worked in counter narcotics and search and rescue. His daughter is the center of his world and music and acting are his passion. Of Black Boys Don't Shoot, Larry says, " I hope it will light a fire in the hearts and minds of MEN both young and old to take a stand against what's happening to our FUTURE."
