What else? Well, I've been writing, of course. I'm approaching the end of my third book. The memoir. I spoke at the Movers & Shakers luncheon at the ALA convention in New Orleans this past weekend. I spoke about my second novel, Salvage the Bones, and the memoir, about survival and savagery and love. I said, "You are a savage. You salvage the bones of what you have: canned goods, the husk of a house, the memory of your brother's life, of your friends' deaths, and you create meaning. You make a future from it. You tell your story. You survive."
And then as people stood and clapped, I almost began crying. They heard.
Drake ~ Marvins Room (Official Video) from OctobersVeryOwn on Vimeo
2 comments:
Dear Jesmyn,
I am a current student in the MFA program at UMich. I am looking forward to hearing you read next month. However, I am dismayed that I missed your reading down here in the city! Actually, I am slightly crushed because I have heard wonderful things about you and your work from Peter Ho Davies. It would have been nice to have met down here.
Here's to next month,
Max Henderson
I'm not getting it and I hope the book is far better than all the coverage and hype I've seen. I find it the worst of racism - how to keep racism going, going, going. If we want to make people change their opinion of, treatment of and attitude toward us, WE have to make the changes - not continue to wine and complain. I think the book award is partially the constant white-patronization-for-their-own-sake award. And both sides are so far off on this it will never change. I want to know how many of those award granting, audience clapping whites would have opened their doors? And then why should they? First off, the author in an interview online said that the owner of the house said there was no room left but the author "felt" it was racism. Why? Did she see whites going in the house instead? And why do I live in Boston and hardly watch the news but for 25 years I knew that those levees needed fixing. People are in houses that are below sea level in hurricane alley and are warned for weeks that trouble is coming and are so unprepared that they have to cut a hole in their roof in the 11th hour but some stranger is suppose to ruined their house by letting in so many people there's standing room only cause other people didn't want to take responsibility. You don't need tons of money to get on a bus with a tent and get the heck out of Dodge if Dodge is about to blow up. I still want to know why 5,000 cars were destroyed? Why didn't more people get in them and just drive out of town in the last 3 to 4 days before the hit. This has been an accident waiting to happen for 25 years and the population did nothing to protect themselves. What about voting and letting the policians know, with peaceful marches on the street, that whoever promises to protect their homes by getting those levees fixed will get their vote. It was a cheap fix - I heard estimates of only $250 million which is a cup of coffee in Washington D.C. Up here in Boston we got funding for $2 Billion that ended up costing over $15 billion for a new highway system to alleviate traffic! Not save lives and homes. And why did we get that. Cause the squeaky wheel gets the grease and up here we vote for the squeakiest wheels we can find. We have/had the mouthy Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. The whole country knows who there are. Who knows the name of Louisiana's Senators. Almost no one. And then to add insult to injury, after Katrine the same mayour and governor who completely let them down by not getting those things fixed years ago got re-elected. So everyone had time to get pregnant or fight dogs, as the book implies, but no one had time to watch the news and go to the polls and elect representatives who would have done their job. This is a gov't of the people, by the people, for the people still, although not much longer. So stop dis-empowering yourselves. Everyone down there should have taken to the streets and the election polls years go to get those levees fixed and left town at least 2 days before it hit. If it were me and I had no money, I would have slept in a tent at a campground rather than sit there in the path of a Cat 3-4 in a house below sea level, down the street from a known, broken levee. And that book award is partly whites alleviate guilt. They are so willing to applaud and give out awards to patronize but not actually stand up and fight for the injustices. Up here in Boston I had even written a letter to a local rep suggesting someone get those levees fixed and they had NO effect on me. So how did iI hear of it way up hear? I'm so sick of people clinging to victim mode. It keeps the racism going and going and going. You want respect from whites? We gotta earn it.
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