Wednesday, 25 November 2009

Unlocked Diaries


Unlocked Diaries published in Black Beauty & Hair Magazine December/January 2010 is a feature I wrote that expresses/shares my journey to growing my hair into locs. The piece includes two excerpts from contributing blog writers, Monique Campbell and Brenda White, explaining their personal hair journey. Black Beauty & Hair Magazine is out now and available in your local newsagent.

Saturday, 14 November 2009

Catch a Vibe

Catch a Vibe is the only online magazine that covers all that’s new and essential in black arts and entertainment in London. Showcasing everything from theatre and independent movies to comedy and spoken word, this definitive guide to black culture also features music and book reviews, as well as interviews with key cultural figures.

Every first and third Tuesday of the month, new features are published online, giving you more insight into what’s new in London, in film, music, theatre and more. The Entertainment News section is updated everyday with the latest news from the UK and US. The What’s On section, hugely popular among readers, lists all the must-see events in neat categories: TV, Spoken Word, Live Music Sessions, Film, Theatre, Arts & Heritage, Fashion, Dance and Comedy.

Sign up to their newsletter to receive event guides and culture news and notices of their exclusive competitions!

http://www.catchavibe.co.uk/
info@catchavibe.co.uk

Thursday, 5 November 2009

Sometimes when I'm making beds

Sometimes when I'm making beds
or pressing hot creases into sheets
like a young girl's secrets wrapped in paper,
while the smell of heated cotton warms the room;
sometimes I think, were it not for the sounds
of cars outside, and the television sets
like squat black beetles in each of the rooms,
the vacuum cleaner I drag behind me
like a reluctant dog being walked;
were it not for these -
I could be an African servant girl
brought back two centuries ago
from Jamaican plantations by a trader,
my master, his mulatto child in fact.
The view over Lyme bay, misty now,
is much the same as it must have been then,
the neatly trimmed hedges and lawns,
lavender beds and the red-earthed driveway
curling around flowerbeds like a slowworm, sleepy
in the heat; the rooms with their polished dressers,
curved legs and white lace mats, the sounds of birds,
the clock in the hall.
Little has changed here, up at the big house
with me, the servant girl, being treated jolly well
having praise heaped on me like spoonfuls of sugar
for washing clothes, or folding sheets well,
while I make beds and think I know
how the magpie they keep in the garden
wrapped in wire must feel,
bruising its black and white wings against the cage,
pretending I was born for this,
smiling and dusting and cleaning white people's rooms,
with the smell of hot cotton warming my skin,
pressing hot creases like frown lines into sheets.
Louisa Adjoa Parker is a poet and black history writer. Her collection Salt-sweat and Tears was published to critical acclaim by Cinnamon Press in 2007. Her poem 'Rag Doll' was highly commended by the Forward Prize 2008.

Friday, 23 October 2009

BBC My Story

BBC MY STORY is a competition for ordinary
people with EXTRAordinary true stories.

Enter your story to the competition to be in
with the chance of winning a fantastic prize
and see your story retold on BBC One.

Closing date: 16 December 2009

For more info and writing tips: www.bbc.co.uk/mystory

Saturday, 17 October 2009

Mslexia Competition 2010

Mslexia Women's Short Story Competition 2010

First prize £2,000 including a one-week writing retreat at Chawton House Library plus a day with a Virago editor.

Second prize £500, Third prize £250
Three other finalists will win £100 each
All winning stories will be published in Mslexia magazine

CLOSING DATE: 25 January 2010

For inspiration and information visit: http://www.mslexia.co.uk/

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

Word Power

Word Power is an international black literature festival and book fair. Dozens of authors, hundreds of readers, thousands of books. All under one roof.
OCEAN, 270 Mare Street, Hackney, London.
24-25 October. Closing lecture 31 October. Free
T: 020 7254 9632
http://www.centerprisetrust.org.uk/

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

The Art of the Personal Essay


The Art of the Personal Essay - An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present - selected and with an introduction by Phillip Lopate

This book is a masterpiece in itself - it is a huge thick book spanning 777 pages - the introduction alone is comprehensive and breaks down the elements of a personal essay - The Conversational Element; Honesty, Confession and Privacy; The Contractions and Expansions of the Self; The Role of Contrariety; The Problem of Egotism; Cheek and Irony; The Idler Figure; The Past, the Local, and the Melancholy; Questions of Form and Style; Quotation and the Uses of Learning; The Personal Essay as Mode of Thinking and Being.

I discovered that for more than 400 years the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant of all literary forms and this anthology celebrates this lively genre. The Art of the Personal Essay includes 75 essays, beginning with influential forerunners from ancient Rome (Seneca, Plutarch) and the Far East to the mastering of the form by its sixteenth-century founder, Michel de Montaigne; through the golden age of the English essay (from Addison & Steele and Samuel Johnson through Orwell and Woolf) to its variegated outcroppings in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and its efforescence in the US.

Since reading this excellent resource, I have written a few personal essays - the freedom of the genre makes this my favourite way of expressing myself as well as writing poetry.