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Diversity
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From: Kerry Madden <kiffnkerry_at_sbcglobal.net>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:57:15 -0800 (PST)
Thank you very much for this great discussion on diversity. I know I'm chiming in a little bit late, but I have shared Elizabeth Bluemle's essay, "The Elephant in the Room" over the years with my creative writing students at UAB (University of Alabama Birmingham). I also appreciate Christine Taylor-Butler's comment, "Part of getting this diversity thing right - is getting all of us - ALL OF US - to be able to see the nuances that will become a "call" to children of color without scaring off a mainstream market that would label the work as "for them" or 'niche.'" It's been great reading everybody's comments all month long.
I'm not a mainstream author, but this is just a note about connections and one thing leading to another over the course of a century. When I wrote the biography, UP CLOSE HARPER LEE (VIKING 2009) I was lucky enough during the interview process to get to meet the storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham (1917-2011) who was a friend of Harper Lee's. Something about her magical storytelling voice got to me, and she also lived right in the heart of Selma, Alabama. She was white, and her best friend, Charlie Lucas, a black folk artist, was her nextdoor neighbor. When I interviewed her in 2007, it was to talk about Harper Lee, but Kathryn was so fascinating herself that I wrote about her in a essay that didn't fit into the biography. (I went back several times to talk with her some more and on one of the trips to Selma I met Charlie Lucas and began to interview him.) I learned that Kathryn wrote a story called ERNEST'S GIFT, about a young African American boy,
Ernest, who wasn't allowed in the Selma Public Library in 1932 because of segregation. (She wrote plenty of other books and appeared every year at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough.)
Anyway, I couldn't get Charlie and Kathryn out of my head, so I also wrote a storybook, NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE, which is the story of how a white storyteller and a black folk artist grew to be best friends in Selma, Alabama and fought diversity their own way by holding an annual hair comb concert on the lawn of the Selma Dallas County Public library. The book was published by Mockingbird Publishing in 2013, and a portion of the royalties goes to the Selma Public Library, Kathryn's favorite place in Selma. My daughter, Lucy, illustrated it, and together we visited rural Alabama libraries last summer to get kids to write and tell their stories and to make art, the ways Charlie and Kathryn did together as best friends.
Here are further links. Thanks so much for this wonderful listserve.
All best Kerry
Ernest's Gift http://www.amazon.com/Ernests-Gift-Kathryn-Tucker-Windham/dp/1588381498 The Elephant in the Room http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=700 Charlie Lucas, TIN MAN http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-3388 Kathryn Tucker Windham http://www.npr.org/2011/06/13/137155004/alabama-storyteller-kathryn-tucker-windham-dies
NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE
http://www.mockingbirdpublishing.com/cause-publishing/ http://www.al.com/bhammag/index.ssf/thread/a_tale_of_two_friends.html http://www.uab.edu/cas/magazine/the-storyteller-and-the-artist http://uabnews.blogspot.com/2013/07/professor-spent-summer-sharing-lessons.html http://nothingfancyaboutabooktour.wordpress.com/ (Blog with pictures) http://www.writersforum.org/news_and_reviews/review_archives.html/article/2013/07/31/nothing-fancy-about-kathryn-charlie
www.kerrymadden.com Editor of poemmemoirstory http://pms-journal.org/ Associate Professor of Creative Writing at UAB Birmingham, AL
"Be like a bird, who, halting in her flight on a limb too slight, feels it give way beneath her, yet sings knowing she has wings." Victor Hugo
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:57:15 -0800 (PST)
Thank you very much for this great discussion on diversity. I know I'm chiming in a little bit late, but I have shared Elizabeth Bluemle's essay, "The Elephant in the Room" over the years with my creative writing students at UAB (University of Alabama Birmingham). I also appreciate Christine Taylor-Butler's comment, "Part of getting this diversity thing right - is getting all of us - ALL OF US - to be able to see the nuances that will become a "call" to children of color without scaring off a mainstream market that would label the work as "for them" or 'niche.'" It's been great reading everybody's comments all month long.
I'm not a mainstream author, but this is just a note about connections and one thing leading to another over the course of a century. When I wrote the biography, UP CLOSE HARPER LEE (VIKING 2009) I was lucky enough during the interview process to get to meet the storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham (1917-2011) who was a friend of Harper Lee's. Something about her magical storytelling voice got to me, and she also lived right in the heart of Selma, Alabama. She was white, and her best friend, Charlie Lucas, a black folk artist, was her nextdoor neighbor. When I interviewed her in 2007, it was to talk about Harper Lee, but Kathryn was so fascinating herself that I wrote about her in a essay that didn't fit into the biography. (I went back several times to talk with her some more and on one of the trips to Selma I met Charlie Lucas and began to interview him.) I learned that Kathryn wrote a story called ERNEST'S GIFT, about a young African American boy,
Ernest, who wasn't allowed in the Selma Public Library in 1932 because of segregation. (She wrote plenty of other books and appeared every year at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough.)
Anyway, I couldn't get Charlie and Kathryn out of my head, so I also wrote a storybook, NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE, which is the story of how a white storyteller and a black folk artist grew to be best friends in Selma, Alabama and fought diversity their own way by holding an annual hair comb concert on the lawn of the Selma Dallas County Public library. The book was published by Mockingbird Publishing in 2013, and a portion of the royalties goes to the Selma Public Library, Kathryn's favorite place in Selma. My daughter, Lucy, illustrated it, and together we visited rural Alabama libraries last summer to get kids to write and tell their stories and to make art, the ways Charlie and Kathryn did together as best friends.
Here are further links. Thanks so much for this wonderful listserve.
All best Kerry
Ernest's Gift http://www.amazon.com/Ernests-Gift-Kathryn-Tucker-Windham/dp/1588381498 The Elephant in the Room http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=700 Charlie Lucas, TIN MAN http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-3388 Kathryn Tucker Windham http://www.npr.org/2011/06/13/137155004/alabama-storyteller-kathryn-tucker-windham-dies
NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE
http://www.mockingbirdpublishing.com/cause-publishing/ http://www.al.com/bhammag/index.ssf/thread/a_tale_of_two_friends.html http://www.uab.edu/cas/magazine/the-storyteller-and-the-artist http://uabnews.blogspot.com/2013/07/professor-spent-summer-sharing-lessons.html http://nothingfancyaboutabooktour.wordpress.com/ (Blog with pictures) http://www.writersforum.org/news_and_reviews/review_archives.html/article/2013/07/31/nothing-fancy-about-kathryn-charlie
www.kerrymadden.com Editor of poemmemoirstory http://pms-journal.org/ Associate Professor of Creative Writing at UAB Birmingham, AL
"Be like a bird, who, halting in her flight on a limb too slight, feels it give way beneath her, yet sings knowing she has wings." Victor Hugo
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Received on Thu 13 Feb 2014 04:59:54 PM CST
