Archive for the ‘Dharma Beauty Pageant’ Category
Ekphrastic Writing Winners
First Prize: Griselda Castillo
Second Prize: Michael Hatcher
Third Prize: Layne Calabro
Honorable Mention: Leslie Soule
-Juried by Mairead Case-
Griselda Castillo:
how is a cypress like a peace officer?
neighborhood trap
turns into neighborhood traps
when the cops can’t tell
the goodies from the baddies
the world’s turned to ammunition
caught the new american condition
the transition is a warning to us all
WARNING: flashing lights
are closer than they appear
authentic violence now comes
as silence
in this life cannibals and children
link up online
let me tell you about
the sick and the sad
wrists cuffed
infected lungs
our kindred can’t breathe anymore
across america
zen gardens fill up with baddies
their dark bodies strangled
by a cypress tree
i ask you simply
how is a cypress like a peace officer?
they both have knees that will
fuck you up
neighborhood trap
turned neighborhood traps
a traffic stop is a coffin
with my face on it
the TV shows pandemic or pandemonium
suggests a jab in the arm
can save the day
it’s been over a year
we’ve been beading the chain
with a pellet of suggested drug use
dots of daily walks
stone offerings to the dead
killed by cops
confusing the goodies and the baddies
Michael Hatcher
Open Mouth for Baddies
Most midnights are born black and without music,
Until lips and teeth make them whole,
Until words give them life.
So go to work.
Let the baddest women
Empty out the monastery
Wearing whatever they want.
Bedazzle the bustier
Turn the volume loud
Enough to make all make up run.
Bring them out banging!
Be them all bad. Be them, the entire background.
Be… smoke and mirrors. Be Special effects.
Sound is the spell caster’s briefcase
go to work.
Hair wherever they want it to be
Hips swinging like a pendulum
The night is not done
Until every patron goes to the hospital
At least once.
That’s what happens when salacious meets satisfaction
You have no choice but tp, bring them out!
Before the city is overrun
Before The holy Sun makes hordes of shadows
And covers them in black and red background.
Covers them in sand and emeralds,
And Here we go. A table full of bloody body parts
And a table full of women using the severed hands of men
To put themselves back together
all baddies,
All, breathing space and oxygen
Until the drums come back.
Until heartbeats are replaced by strobe lights,
And it takes a miracle to keep the blood flowing.
But the badies just keep dancing.
There’s nothing new or forgiving about this place
it’s a lectern for the unsettling,
Everyone that watches is going to be sick and turned on,
At the same time
That’s the way they measure it.
If she’s really a badie there will be no drugs and no life left
If she’s a badie that body will be dancing in the same place tomorrow
Whether her eyes work or not.
Shadows are born that way,
the blood is in the music
It’s the exit stage right,
And reincarnate center stage,
It’s all the spirts in the room with their Hands up.
Chained to the wall if need be,
It’s a movie
Where everyone walks out
But not the same way they walked in,
It’s a take your jaw and leave your teeth
Kind of event.
Under no circumstances
Should there be any hesitation
When the floor caves in and the trap door opens,
Just keep looking.
She’s a badie and
The turn is coming.
Layne Calabro
Beauty’s Path
Searching for home
In tongue-leaked lips,
Regal Beauty roams in
thigh-high silk and
rebounding brown skin
Relegated by signatures
an orifice of pleasure,
she clings to the
cover page. A definitive
denim-bleached success
still grasping
among vampires
to reclaim esteem
Angry Ancestral
drops
build
drops
that eventually
flood a knife’s edge
ready to dissect nature’s
inconvenience
Blood smears
soul and skin-split
Lights flicker and shadows open her eyes
unleashing the impressions of her oppression.
Rage finds a home and
she finds the freedom –
that only death can bring.
Leslie Soule
Baddie Flair
baddie baddie baddie, flair
eyeliner lipstick eyeshield jewelwear
90s MTV denim moves
red light flashfilm horrovibe grooves
hypnotic carnival demonic twerk
it’s madness blood sex trance work
flashes of fangs in dark despair
green ribbons flailing pigtail hair
Puppet controlled by the Illumi-naughty
Cashcam held steady instafilm hottie
Eye-candy, drug-candy, entertainment player
Blood-covered, nightmare-making innocence slayer
Due to the Pandemic and other unforeseen circumstances the originally scheduled 2021 Lit Hop production of The Dharma Beauty Pageant is re-imagined into website-staged trailer docu-introduction of cast members. Stay Tuned for the full staged version in 2023.
World Calls: Micaela Gutierrez Tillet and Brenda Randall
Micaela Gutierrez-Tillet
We love this excerpt from Micaela Gutierrez Tillet’s interview on the Voyage Dallas website. It’s a cool site, with profiling interviews of Dallas Culture Trailblazers, and more. Click here to read the full interview and visit more Voyage Dallascontent.
Micaela Guiterrez Tillet: After moving to Dallas from Chicago in 2005, I was quickly moved to create a program to unite, educate & uplift for the greater good of Texas through the power of Music, Dance & Wellness. Personal background: dancer 35 years, teacher 26 years, choreographer 24 years, artist director 18 years, independent contractor 15 years, nurse 12 years, event coordinator ten years and short film director eight years.
Anything worth achieving in life is never easy but if you choose to ride the waves or climb the mountains of personal growth it will definitely change your life moving forward. A few of my personal experiences are as follows: 1. Standing alone with courage when truth is called for, 2. Being firm with expectations while also being flexible with modifications when necessary, 3. Failures isn’t a bad term… failing is an opportunity to sit back to debrief in Pros/Cons & if given the opportunity to do it again what would you do different, 4. Preparation is Key in knowing continuing education is everything, 5. Never allow yourself to be viewed as a Master because there’s always room for higher learning, 6. Sleeping in my car while auditioning for the 1997 NBA Chicago Bulls season was a reality in showing up & giving 100% no matter where you lay your head down at night, 7. There’s no such thing as balance when you’re a single mom it’s called sacrifice, 8. There’s no simple road in achieving success because challenges (obstacles) comes in all different forms and 9. Know your humble beginnings is your personal story as a survivor, not a victim.
Having the opportunity to mentor young women in business, the 1st thing I let them know is to write down 3 things that makes them happy, surround yourself with people who will ignite your vision and find that 1 quote by an Author who will spark your creativity every morning before you leave your home.
In the past 14 years with ORIZON, I’ve worn many hats: Artistic Director of a Performing Arts Company, choreographer, short film director, dancer, primary contractor for the United States Air Force, sports conditioning coach, dance teacher, event coordinator, higher learning educator in anthropology, youth to adult programs, traveled to 14 countries & 58 USA cities teaching, Bless Up Festival, creator of Dancehall Texas (alliance), public speaker, building confidence in one’s truth and an ongoing Afro-Caribbean dance class in Texas.
My proudest experience is knowing the positive impact the ORIZON program has made in other peoples lives, What makes Orizon different? Orizon is an umbrella to many outstanding present programs: Afro-Caribbean, Dancehall Texas, Female empowerment workshops + short films, Sports Conditioning, Bless Up Festival and mentoring aspiring teachers.
Speak your truth with grace and choose to attend different workshops to understand the road you want to walk or lead. Don’t be afraid to travel out of your comfort zone. Lean into intrigue & adventure when meeting new people or experiences. Be prepared to work odd jobs so that you can achieve the next level, stay open-minded in the meantime. Allow yourself to have the full experience without guilt. If you want something in this World you must get off your a** & work for it. And challenge yourself to read many different kinds of leadership books inorder to instill different perspectives as well as to help you build confidence in knowing by fact… no matter a person’s title in life we are ALL connected as human beings.
What has worked for me: Research, a lot of reading, writing out a plan or idea, traveling abroad to experience truth, choosing to have a voice, to walk through a challenge with my chin up knowing my struggle as a woman is nothing compared to the generation before me of strong women & minority men, allowing myself to marinate in each stage of life, giving back, acknowledging the southside spirit resides in me no matter the task at hand, tuning out the naysayers, finding peace with choices, God’s plan (not religious view) is bigger than my initial plan and diving completely in (100%) towards what I love. (Tillett’s responses were excerpted from interview with Voyage Dallas)
Brenda Randall
Brenda Randall is a poet and organizational leader for the longest running showcase of women’s poetry in Dallas at South Dallas Cultural Center. She is co-host of “Verse and Rhythm” at Oak Cliff Cultural Center, “In the Words of a Sista” at Dallas Black Academy of Arts and Letters and numerous other readings. She studied at Texas Women’s University.
The video uses her poem and narration to present her perspectives of truth and beauty as tolerance and love. Micaela creates a multi-cultural visualization response, incorporating Brenda, dancers and other cast to invoke these components of truth and beauty.
Did You Hear Me Scream
By B Randall 7-12-17© All Rights Reserved Property of Brenda Randall
i feel hollow inside raw at the core
Don’t stand too close
i don’t know if i will implode or explode
Now i am dancing to some side beat and it has me coming apart at the seams
It is not My Beat
But I am Still dancing
i can’t seem to find My Strength, My Shield and My Fortress
Did you know sometimes my smile
pierces what could become my joy
and i emotionally bleed out
My Strength, My Shield and Fortress, Please!
Did you hear me scream?
i am getting tired
There are days when the snoring of the demons in my head
frighten the monsters under my bed
into the arms of the skeletons in my closet
and i can’t find the Holy Ghost anywhere
Because This Is My War
My Personal Battle
Can somebody stop my tears and save me from drowning?
There are no superheroes
searching for the light within me
it is to dim for them to see
Maybe if i could take the crumbled glass from my throat you could hear me scream
Where is My Strength, My Shield and Fortress?
Can somebody see me slipping away?
If not
It is because i am so good at what i do
Wanna see my scars, my hurt?
You can’t because i have been hiding them underneath smiles and the big roar of laughter and pretense of tears of joy
Can anybody hear me scream?
If i am not here anymore
Tell them i cut my skin to let the light in
Maybe the Superheroes
Maybe…The Holy Ghost can find me now
Artiste Extraordinaire
Ekphrastic Writing Contest
And the winners are: Click here
Areola Eyes – I’m a Baddie by Carolina Reyes: View and get started!
Guest Juror: Mairead Case
Submission Fee: $5 for contest entry. You may enter more than once. One submission per entry.
Feedback/Critique from Mairead Case: $25 (Total payment: $30)
Deadline: April 15, 2021.
Contest:
1st Prize $100 plus interview & recording of your work on our website.
2nd Prize $75 plus video recording of your work on our website.
3rd Prize $50 plus video recording of your work on our website.
Honorable Mention: Video recording of your work on our website.
The winners will also be announced and promoted on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Press Release and Mass Mail.
General Guidelines:
Submit one written work, in any genre that responds, reacts, bounces off Areola Eyes / I’m a Baddie. Maximum of 500 words.
Please format your submission double-spaced and include a word count.
In the top header, please add the title and page numbers.
Include the title AND your last name in the document name.
In the cover letter: Include a short bio
Selecting the critique option for your submission does not guarantee your submission will be selected as a winner or for publication online, but it does guarantee a summary of insights, and recommendations on your work.
About Mairead Case
MAIREAD CASE (rhymes with parade; she her hers) is a writer, teacher, and editor. Mairead learns about and works in radical anti-racist pedagogy, embodied queer theory, narrative, poetry, the US prison industrial complex, and the public.
Currently, Mairead teaches English in Denver Public Schools, the Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, the Colorado School of Mines and at the Denver women’s jail. She is also Associate Editor at Maggot Brain, a magazine edited by Mike McGonigal and published by Third Man Records. Mairead has been a Legal Observer for the National Lawyers Guild for over a decade, and keeps equity, diversity, and inclusion at the forefront of all her work.
Mairead is the author of the novels Tiny and See You In the Morning(featherproof), the poetry chapbook TENDERNESS (Meekling Press), the TO THE TEETH column at Entropy, and, with David Lasky, the forthcoming Georgetown Steam Plant Graphic Novel.
Mairead earned degrees from the University of Notre Dame (BA, Great Books and French) the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA-W), and the University of Denver (PhD, English and Creative Writing; AHSS Fellow) as well as anti-racism trainings from the Chicago Freedom School and the Highlander Center. She has an RYT-200 through Courageous Yoga.
Mairead teaches, reads, and organizes widely, at places including the Poetry Foundation Library, the Naropa Summer Writing Program, the Public Media Institute, the Pitchfork Book Fort, the Bronx Museum, Neighborhood Public Radio at the Whitney Biennial, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Young Chicago Authors, the Chicago Public Library, and Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop. She was awarded residencies and fellowships from Ragdale, ACRE, the Wassaic Project, Seattle Arts and Culture, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs; presents regularly at AWP and the Museum of Pop Culture; and has published in POETRY, JSTOR Daily, Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Inquiry, Pitchfork, Best American Comics, and other places.
WordSpace and The Dharma Beauty Pageant are honored to have Mairead Case “all-in” as Guest Juror and Feedback professional. We love this recent interview with Mairead on the Largehearted Boy website. Mairead’s talks about her writing process for her recently release book, Tiny, and includes her playlist during the process.
Mairead Case’s Playlist for Her Novel “Tiny”
January 5, 2021
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Mairead Case’s novel Tiny is an immersive modern retelling of Antigone set in the Pacific Northwest, a poignant exploration of grief and mourning.
In her words, here is Mairead Case’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Tiny:
When I wrote the first drafts of Tiny, I was in my head, all of the time. I wanted to understand my attraction to death, and at the same time, to stop myself from haunting myself. I was terribly sincere about it, and so I embarrassed myself sometimes. (I also figured a lot out; all embarrassment means is that you’re blocked.) When I wrote the last drafts, I moved just as much as I sat, and my loneliness was no longer sucking the air out of the room. This process was awful, bewildering, joyful, and necessary, and I was never completely alone in it. As a result, but also because of the pandemic, I don’t remember writing all of the sentences in Tiny, though I do recognize them all as me, and I can tell which came from the Head Drafts and which ones came after. Each one needs the others to work. Recognizing this made me a better listener.
The key line was always songs. When I play this mix, which I built during all drafts, I feel it in my fists, my hips, and nowhere at all (in which case, I’m listening to the lyrics). I am not Tiny, but I think she’d hear these songs like I did, and do. In that sense this is also a mix for her. The Frankie Knuckles song is actually in the book, and so are X, Le Tigre, and Iggy Pop and David Bowie, though they aren’t on this playlist. The songs I listened to most while writing were Magnolia Electric Company’s “Farewell Transmission”; Destroyer’s “This Just Doesn’t Happen”; Julius Eastman’s “Stay On It,” which is a new medicine for me; and most of all, the Velvet Underground’s “Temptation Inside Your Heart.” “I can listen to myself.” My cat Hero now chirps at the swirling sounds in that one. I think she thinks they’re our friends, and so now they are.
Tracklist:
1. “Untitled #1,” Pretty Girls Make Graves
2. “Young Lions,” Constantines
3. “Temptation Inside Your Heart,” Velvet Underground
4. “No One,” Jenn Champion
5. “Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On,” Talking Heads
6. “Here’s Your Future,” The Thermals
7. “Yesterday’s News,” Gossip
8. “Learning the Game,” Buddy Holly
9. “Ashes to Ashes,” Jenny Hval
10. “bury a friend,” Billie Eilish
11. “Sock It to Me,” Colleen Green
12. “That’s Us / Wild Combination,” Arthur Russell
13. “The True Wheel,” Brian Eno
14. “Demons,” Fatboy Slim, feat. Macy Gray
15. “When I Was Done Dying,” Dan Deacon
16. “Ceremony,” New Order
17. “Shark Smile,” Big Thief
18. “The Source of Uncertainty,” Tortoise
19. “Down by the Water (demo),” PJ Harvey
20. “Ha Ha Ha Armageddon,” The Julie Ruin
21. “What Part of Me,” Low
22. “I Am a Scientist,” Guided By Voices
23. “He War,” Cat Power
24. “Turned to String,” No Age
25. “Your Love,” Frankie Knuckles, feat. Jamie Principle
26. “Sketch for Summer,” The Durutti Column
27. “I Want More,” CAN
28. “Atlantic City,” Bruce Springsteen
29. “Farewell Transmission,” Songs: Ohia
30. “Real Death,” Mount Eerie
31. “Loner,” Dehd
32. “It Just Doesn’t Happen,” Destroyer
33. “French Disko,” Stereolab
34. “Fall Asleep,” Big Joanie
35. “Drone Bomb Me,” ANOHNI
36. “Slip Away,” Perfume Genius
37. “Tugboat,” Galaxie 500
38. “Unfucktheworld,” Angel Olsen
39. “Don’t Lie to Me,” Big Star
40. “I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore,” Lucy Dacus
41. “The Truth,” Handsome Boy Modeling School
42. “Les Fleurs,” Minnie Riperton
43. “Stay On It,” Julius EastmanM
Monika Bowman Bell
Monika Bowman Bell : In your sleep by black sheet curtains hung with tacks
Monika Bowman uses imagery of the natural world to reflect riddles of the human mind within her visual, performative, musical and written works. She has showcased and performed all over Dallas since 2009. Camping, meditation, ocean waves on warm days, and writing achy songs for her band, Mad Mother Goblin, gives her the ultimate joy. Her story, Born Hearts Upside Down has been published by HerStry Blog. @madmothergoblin | monivisual.com
in your sleep by black sheet curtains hung with tacks
My breasts are
dunes of sand
relaxed and moving
wild is the wind on
horizon’s heated chorus
I sing, cling to me
oasis, you glisten
lowly rambling for
strike of boons
infinite span of desert miles
shifting mountain ranges
paths afloat, stifled
swollen forces of
the dunes groan in
trepidation of parting
wavering voices
defensive banshees
violent humming sears
consumed and consuming
Surrounding and surrounded
one by one and all at once
swift rippling waves
a dry ocean, a top
once the bottom
static limbs beneath
rumbling blankets
await atomic effleurage
coiled drums shatter
nourished hearts
a mirage of plenty
trickling shivers
down the incline
keening within
release with solicitude
I fly away scathed
grain by grain
like dew to foggy vapor.
About Dharma Broads
A brief summary of past DB productions and participants: Past shows took place over 3 day weekends of Augusts, 2004-7, to soldout audiences at Katherine Owens’s Undermain Theatre. Each artist contributed multiple vignettes, stitched into the fabric of the whole; and all relating to a central theme. The original production featured a core cast of Karen Minzer, Tammy Gomez, Laney Yarber, Isabella-Russell Ides, with each subsequent show incorporating new artists selected to fit the moment and overarching themes
Dharma Broads I: Yoga Fusion Theater: Alice Lee, Isabella Russell-Ides, Rod Russell-Ides, Laney Yarber, Tammy Gomez, Karen Minzer, Adrian Bronough, Tex Venturous, Emily Aberg and Anna Minzer. Anne Waldman and Jello Biafra appeared via Dial-a-Poet Television videos and ambient video provided by Suze Riddle, Dave Hynds, and Ira Cohen. Maria Golia introduced the show, live, from Cairo. Technical support: Scott Means. Stage manager: Suze Riddle.
Dharma Broads II: The Arc of Awareness: Letitia Eldredge, John Fullingwider, Isabella Russell-Ides, Tammy Gomez, Chinook Wusduh, Karen Minzer, Laney Yarber, call-in reading by Ed Sanders, who described the Dharma Broads Productions as a “fear of Fall” project. Technical support: Cesar Herrera. Stage manager: Debs Phillips.
Dharma Broads III: Zenphrastic: Tammy Gomez, Laney Yarber, Karen Minzer, Ricardo Garza, Lisa Huffaker, April Bartos, Eileen Maxey, and Isabella Russell-Ides debuting a full-cast trailer of Chalk Temple, which later became an award winning play length production. Ira Cohen appears via Dial-in reading. Technical support: Mark Ridlen. Stage manager: Tim Cloward
Room for Beauty
“In the throws of the first covid quarantine, 2020, I returned to my life which had been shut down, anticipating a year of travel. Mexico, the expected first leg, took me to Guadalajara, where I met a wonderful art compatriot, Lou Garza, Professor of art at Monterrey Tec, Guadalajara. Apparent, after one month, my year of travel was cancelled, as was a collaborative piece in the works for Lou’s class at the university.
This home movie represents the confusion of exile and return, where nothing will ever be the same. Pagan musings, aided by my youtube gurus; and inspired by the tumult of pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd, I find a transformation thru trauma and sin-eaters of the world, with nature as savior. Video ends at 6:15, music continues for live performance accompaniment. Music by Jaap Blonk and Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sun Calling. “
One of Texas’s most celebrated performance artist Laney Yarber brings her charismatic and free associative magnetism to The Dharma Beauty Pageant. Laney Yarber is an artist whose work and influence has had a important impact on the state’s cultural life. Her work is part history (personal-area-occult), part installation, often multi-media, with great mastery of the craft of theater, sculpture, spoken word, and visual special effects. She is the recipient of many awards and grants, studied with Robert Wilson, and is an original cast member of Dharma Broads I-III. Laney leaves her fans and even her diva-to-diva antagonists crying for more. Never enough. Never enough.
Ronald Shannon Jackson’s music is featured at the end of Make Room for Beauty
WordSpace presents
Web-Staged Performance Art TV
Start writing or type / to choose a block
Start writing or type / to choose a block
The Dharma Beauty Pageant
-WebStaged Performance Art TV-
Due to the Pandemic: Due to the Pandemic: Due to the Pandemic:
The previously scheduled production of The Dharma Beauty Pageant has been re-imagined into website-staged trailer docu-introduction of cast members. Click here to read more on this project. The show runs through March and includes an ekphrastic writing contest
Juried by Mairead Case
Start writing or type / to choose a block
Stay tuned for upcoming happenings on
Intergalactic WordSpace WebStaged Performance Art TV.
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The Dharma Beauty Pageant is the fourth installment of Dharma Broads performance art series, originally commissioned by Robert Trammell and WordSpace in 2004. Dallas theater critic, Jerome Weeks, described the performance art group as “neo-beat, hippie Happening.”
Dharma Broads IV: The Dharma Beauty Pageant
Due to the pandemic, Dharma Beauty Pageant. originally scheduled for January, has been re-imagined as a series of video trailers to the upcoming staged version. The videos are first-person, documentary performances. The artists for The Dharma (or-Truth) and Beauty Pageant (or procession) interlace or collide on the elusive, sometimes conflicting, definitions for those words. Is truth, beauty? And vice versa?
The virtual cast includes Monika Bell, Linda Jones, Karen Minzer, Brenda Randall, Carolina Reyes, Micaela Tillett, and Laney Yarber. The selections were made by original DB producer, Karen X Minzer. With the exception of two cast members, the individual performers all created new work for the production. Additional performers are credited within each video. Please see credits for each video. Individual links serve as a printed program. All copyrights are reserved by the individual artists; and are held on their individual platforms.
Since the performers cannot hear your applause, boos, or questions, we hope you will all participate by clicking on the Comment section below and Comment links following the individual videos.
In the tradition of previous Dharma Broad productions, an audience-participation exercise is included: Carolina Reyes offers her video as an ekphrastic writing contest. Click here for Submission Details. There are 3 cash prizes.
The Dharma Beauty Pageant will run through February. Following the event, WordSpace Performance Art TV will continue to present performances projects of both new and archival material that represent our interdisciplinary arts legacy. Stay tuned!
Special thanks to The Great Fred Curchack for the inspiration drawn from his work; and for his generous mentorship of The Dharma Beauty Pageant.
The Dharma Beauty Pageant was commissioned by WordSpace; and made possible, with partial funding from the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture; and Moody Fund for the Arts.
Click here to read more on past Dharma Broad Productions.
2020 Pandemic: Om Mani Padme Om.
A Natural Progression | Linda Jones
“I am a writing coach, journalist, healing arts and grief recovery consultant, Black culture activist, artist and the (now) bald-headed founder of a collective that celebrates nappy hair! Through my consultancy The Writing Doula, I create content, edit, and help people give birth to the power of their words. I also conduct writing workshops that focus on telling life stories, preserving legacy, developing emotional intelligence, navigating grief and trauma and practicing self-care. I am an author and a self-proclaimed ‘spoken notes’ artist –who others mistake for poet. I love African drumming and have been able to hold my own at pre-COVID ceremonies and drum circles, playing my trusty doundouns.”
Click here for interview on Positively Joy podcast.
Linda has worked for a number of daily newspapers , including the Dallas Morning News, Detroit News and Sun-Sentinel (in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) as a features and general news reporter. She has done freelance work for The Daily Beast, People, Essence, Agence France Press, AOL News and a variety of print and online publications.
She is author of It’s Only Temporary … Journal for Surviving Loved Ones, Family Scribes: Writing Memories for Your Family Tree! and Nappyisms: Affirmations for Nappy-headed People and Wannabes! An essay from her book was selected to appear in Chicken Soup for the African American Woman’s Soul.
Linda has received feature-writing awards from The Writer’s Block, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Association for Women Journalists, Florida Medical Association, Society for Features Journalism, NAACP and others.
Claire Lane
Laney Yarber is an award winning Performance Artist from Dallas. This work was created as a presentation curated by faculty for the Guadalajara Tech Institute.
Carolina Reyes__Areola Eyes
Carolina Reyes is visual and performance artist from NYC.
