Thick in The Words

My Creative Nonfiction teacher, Ms. Tamara Jeffries, one of the most brilliant teachers and people I know, has these sayings that she likes to use, and most of them I forget, but one stuck with me. She told us that she wants our writing to be "thick on the page". We need to FEEL our writing. It needs to be beyond surface level analysis.Sounds easy, huh?I know, I know...I'm being sarcastic.But her advice is what I strive for in all my writing, whether I knew it or not. I want my writing to jump out at you on the page. I attempted that as I prepared...

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For Writers Who Have Considered Rewriting When Gender is Enuf

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/09/for_colored_girls_trailer.htmlhttp://clutchmagonline.com/newsgossipinfo/tyler-perrys-for-colored-girls-gets-november-release/For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is EnufI was 16, maybe 17, when I was first introduced to this choreoplay by Ntozake Shange. When the rainbow is enuf...how powerful those words were to a 16-year-old girl struggling to find acceptance within herself can't even be described. One of the resident writers that I was fortunate enough to have as a teacher...

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That Old Thing Back

An interview that I have yet to see wasn't what caught my attention. I, like many other people in my generation and the one before me, treat The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as a Bible of some sorts put to beat sung by an angelic voice- that which belongs to Lauryn Hill. Although that album was released in 1998 (12 years ago) and Hill has yet to have an album to reach its success, her name still starts a flurry of conversation, partially because of the privacy that she has set aside for herself.The music journalist Toure' recently did an interview...

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Becoming Butterfly

As I am writing this blog post, a butterfly lands quietly on the window of my car. At first I didn't notice it, but it became harder to ignore as it flapped its wings ever so gracefully, oblivious to the fact that I am watching it. I became excited because I absolutely love butterflies and what they represent. I love how they are originally caterpillars and then transform into butterflies. My favorite saying is "Just when the ccaterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly."In my Creative Nonfiction class, we have been assigned the...

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