Monday, July 1, 2019

Continuing the Celebration of LGBTQ Pride with Trans Soul Singer-Songwriter Shea Diamond

Shea Diamond- Illustration by Emily Gage

The discovery of Shea Diamond is my absolute magic.

I love how she belts out this lyric- "...the voice inside your soul is trying to sing you home...

"Trans soul singer-songwriter Shea Diamond embodies transcendence. Imprisoned in male correctional facilities for 10 years, searching for something to carry her through her incarceration, she found her voice.

In 2016, the singer introduced herself with the powerful “I Am Her,” and two years later, on Friday (June 29), she released her triumphant debut EP Seen It All." Henry Youtt

Please, please listen to this acoustic version of Seen It All.

Monday, June 24, 2019

Octavia McBride-Ahebee's Work Featured in Bilingual Journal Agony Opera

Honored to have three of my poems featured in the Agony Opera Journal's June 2019 issue. Agony Opera is a bilingual journal of English and Bengali. The indomitable poet Staceyann Chin has her work featured in this issue, as well, which is translated in Bengali. Visually it is so delicious to take in!!!! Check out the site and leave me some comments on the site.

https://agonyopera.weebly.com/

Saturday, June 1, 2019

Octavia McBride-Ahebee Continues Blog Tour on Poéfrika

Image may contain: 3 people, people smiling, people standing and outdoor

Thirty-eight years ago, I was a 19-year-old headed to Lesotho, a starkly beautiful, mountainous country in southern Africa. Under the auspices of Operation Crossroads Africa, I-3rd from the right- and a motley crew of wide-eyed college students, Carla Boykin- 2nd from left, including our leader who was an African-American Rhodes Scholar-made our way across southern Africa, starting with Lesotho and moving on to apartheid South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and a spanking, brand new Zimbabwe, -what stories we have- and thus began my love affair with Africa; a wonderfully vast, diverse and endless source for storytelling.

That winter trip was about getting me to South Africa, a place I had become obsessed with because of literature-Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, Athol Fugard, Dennis Brutus… But, the beginning of that journey started with Lesotho, a place, though rich in its own cultural history, was deeply affected by apartheid. That long winter, so long ago, I learned, especially roaming the hills of Thaba Tseka on horseback, meeting all sorts of intriguing people, how important it is to connect to the world and bring the stories of its people to each other. That’s what Lesotho taught me!

All of this reminiscing brings me to a special gentleman and poet Mr.Rethabile Masilo, who has graciously featured two of my poems, from Praise Song for the Gravediggers, on his literary blog Poéfrika, as part of my virtual book tour. Mr. Masilo is from Lesotho and now lives in France. I find it, indeed, poetic that a connection to Lesotho, which is the source that really propelled me on my literary journey as both a reader and a writer would offer a platform for me to share my work. The poems presented here are not informed by my southern African sojourn, but are rooted particularly in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Please discover Rethabile Masilo’s work and his blog as well.

Here is the link: http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2019/05/two-poems-by-octavia-mcbride-ahebee.html

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Octavia McBride-Ahebee Begins Virtual Book Tour at Blog Cat-eyed Woman

Photography- Ruud Van Empel

So excited to start my virtual book tour promoting my work and new poetry collection-Praise Song for Gravediggers. First stop is Cat-eyed Woman, a blog created by globetrotter, educator and writer Furaha Youngblood who is based in Panama.

Simply scroll down to read two of my poems on her blog and discover the inspiration behind their creation.
http://www.cat-eyedwoman.com/

And leave me some commentary!!!!

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Praise Song for the Gravediggers is included in the Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon's Traveling Library

Image may contain: Juliet P. Howard, smiling

Here is the phenomenal poet JP Howard of Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon, out of New York. I am so thrilled that my new collection of poetry, Praise Song for the Gravediggers , is included in this salon's traveling poetry library-1st row, 3rd book from the left. Thank you for this honor.

Octavia McBride-Ahebee Reads at the Historic Pomona Hall in Camden, NJ

Image may contain: 1 person, smiling, standing and outdoor

I had the honor of reading last Thursday, from my new poetry collection, Praise Song for the Gravediggers, at Pomona Hall in Camden, in the space where enslaved Africans worked and slept-sacred space. There were slave plantations even in southern New Jersey and Quakers were plantation owners like Marmaduke Cooper of Camden, NJ Image may contain: 1 person, indoor

Praise Song for the Gravediggers is available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Song-Gravediggers-Octavia-McBride-Ahebee/dp/1792945213

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Octavia McBride-Ahebee to Read at Pomona Hall in Camden

Saturday, May 11, 2019

Octavia McBride-Ahebee to Read at the Camden County Historical Society

Pomona Hall
Camden County Historical Society
1900 Park Boulevard
Camden, New Jersey 08103

So honored to be reading from my new collection of poetry, Praise Song for the Gravediggers, which is available on Amazon.

Saturday, May 4, 2019

Proud Mama- Sojourner Ahebee Celebrating the Humanities At Stanford

I am so proud of my daughter Sojourner Ahebee, a recent Stanford grad, who was invited by the university to share her experiences as a humanities major ( African and African-American Studies). Stanford is world-renowned for its science and technology programming, but it has equally stellar humanities programs. Enjoy!!!

Monday, April 22, 2019

Praise Song for the Gravediggers by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

I am so excited about my new poetry collection, "Praise Song for the Gravediggers", which delivers a geography of women/girls whose stories, once historically silenced, rise to the top to be heard and considered. Readers meet the likes of Aminata, a Malian woman, who crossed both the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea finally landing in an urban, U.S. city where she, undocumented, braids working class African-American girls’/women’s heads using the hair Indian girls/women donated to their religious shrines to receive blessings; no money. All this feminine intersection, this cast of global females, gathering in the flesh or in hair, in unassuming salons, in the hood is magical, yet buoyed by undercurrents of structural, economic inequities. This collection brings women from all backgrounds into a fertile space where world history, economic systems and current events meet to form an oasis of human exchange and storytelling.

Available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Song-Gravediggers-Octavia-McBride-Ahebee/dp/1792945213/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=praise+song+for+the+gravediggers&qid=1555963413&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

Sunday, April 14, 2019

The Burial of Kojo- A Film by Blitz Bazawule

A film by Samuel Bazawule This is an absolutely stunning film, by Ghanaian filmmaker Samuel 'Blitz' Bazawule, which is currently being shown on Netflix. It is interesting in that my daughter and I had strongly visceral reactions to the film, but ones at the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Nevertheless, we were both move by this film and its bold imagination. And, yes, the soundtrack is gorgeous.

Here are some links to reviews/interviews:

1. The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-burial-of-kojo-reviewed-a-boldly-lyrical-portrait-of-a-young-ghanaian-girl

2. Shadow and Act https://shadowandact.com/exclusive-blitz-bazawule-challenges-hollywoods-africa-narrative-with-magical-realist-the-burial-of-kojo

3. Ava DuVernay's ARRAY Acquires Surrel Drama 'The Burial of Kojo', Sets Netflix Premiere Date

https://deadline.com/2019/02/array-releasing-the-burial-of-kojo-samuel-blitz-bazawule-ava-duvernay-1202558477/

Blitz 'The Ambassador' Bazawule: "Stories are ours to tell"

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"You and I" by Malak Mattar

One of Philadelphia’s brightest culinary treasures, the Southeast Asian Market at FDR Park

June 19, 2024 Collage as a Form of Resistance-At the Bok Bar /Philadelphia Celebrates Juneteenth

During this workshop, we will experiment with visuals to help curate our ideologies around pride, Black history, culture, and music. Through discussion and art making students will leave this course confident in the methods of collaging as a form of resistance. All materials will be provided but feel free to bring any of your own collaging materials as well (mats, exacto knives, scrap materials, photos, etc...) This class will be hosted by Doriana Diaz. Doriana Diaz is a multidimensional artist, archivist, and memory worker rooted in Philadelphia's soulful rhythms. She has hosted a wide array of collage and bookmaking workshops around the city in spaces like The African American Museum, Brandywine Museum of Art, United States Botanical Gardens, Mural Arts, and Fleisher Art Memorial, a variety of schools including Penn Charter, Delaware Valley Friends School, and Green Street Friends, along with places such as Express Newark, Ipade, and Bok Bar. Her work explores loss, memory, fantasy, utopia, formation, and identity through the archival documentation of visual imagery. Click the image to register for this event.

Now until July 14, 2024 /Joyce J. Scott-50-Year Retrospective at BAM

Don’t miss the Baltimore Museum of Art ‘s(BMA) 50-year career retrospective of artist Joyce J. Scott (b. 1948, Baltimore, MD), encompassing the full range and depth of her prolific and genre-defying practice. Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams features nearly 140 works from the 1970s to the present—including sculpture, jewelry, textiles, artwear garments, performance compilations, prints, mixed-media installations, and a new large-scale commission. The exhibition closes July 14, 2024. Click image to learn more.

A 106-year-old from the Philippines is Vogue's oldest ever cover model

Still Dancing by Johnathan Labillois

Mr. Labillois' Artist Statement: I donated this to the Montreal Native Women's Shelter to raise awareness of missing and murdered Native women in Canada. I hoped sharing it with others would bring this issue to the minds of many people, and hope that many of our sisters, mothers, aunts or daughters will never be forgotten. The idea for the title came from my little sister who said, "Dancers dance for those who cannot, the sick, the elders, and those who are gone. It's like all those women are still dancing thru her." * 2020 Collective vision.us - Postcards for Political Action; Click image to learn more.

March 9, 2020 7:30 p.m./ Maira Kalman | The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Illustrated

Free Library of Phila./Central Branch-An illustrator, writer, artist, and designer, Maira Kalman is the author of a dozen children’s books, has designed fabric and accessories for Isaac Mizrahi and Kate Spade, created sets for stage productions, shown her work in nearly two dozen galleries, and, with her late husband, made accessories for the Museum of Modern Art. She has also designed several New Yorker covers, including the famed “Newyorkistan” absurdist map cover. Written by Gertrude Stein in the voice of her partner, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is one of literary history’s cheekiest and most loved biographies. In this new illustrated edition, Kalman brings to life the shimmering lights and intellectual luminaries of Paris in the 1920s and ’30s. Click image to learn more.

Wed, March 11, 2020 7:30 p.m.- James McBride Free Library/Central Branch

“Boisterous, highly entertaining,” and “altogether original” (Washington Post), James McBride is the author of the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, in which a young boy born into slavery joins abolitionist John Brown’s doomed crusade. His nonfiction books include the New York Times bestselling memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother and Kill ’Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul. His other fiction includes the novels Miracle at St. Anna and Song Yet Sung, and the short-story collection Five-Carat Soul. Also an award-winning composer, screenwriter, and saxophonist, he received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2016. Deacon King Kong is a novel about a very public shooting in a 1960s Brooklyn housing project. To learn more, click photo.

Wed, March 11, 2020 6:00 p.m. One Book, Many Voices Community Dinner

Blanche A. Nixon/Cobbs Creek Library Gather for a family-style dinner of dishes from the Americas. Hear thoughts from the contributing chefs on Indigenous food traditions, as participants put text on the table and discuss passages from There There by Tommy Orange. Everyone will get to know their neighbors during this special evening, and explore together what identity and community-building mean in Lenapehoking past, present, and future. Join the party for a family-style dinner with dishes from across the Americas, in partnership with One Book, One Philadelphia. Participating restaurants include: El Merkury, Poi Dog Philly, South Philly Barbacoa and Chef Chris Paul. Registration for this FREE event is encouraged but not required; seating is first-come, first-served. Click image for more information.

Curtis Institute of Music Student Recitals-Mon., Wed., & Thu/Free

The Student Recital Series provides a platform for exceptional young musicians—and more than 100 free opportunities for audiences to indulge in a season-long showcase of artistry. Since Curtis was founded in 1924, some of history’s most important musicians have appeared on the stage of Field Concert Hall, and today the Student Recital Series continues this celebrated legacy. Students perform solo and chamber works on most Mondays at 6 p.m., and Wednesday and Friday evenings at 8 p.m. Additional dates and times are added throughout the year. Student Recitals are free and open to the public. Seating is general admission and first-come, first-served. Most recitals are about two hours long, with one intermission. Click image to learn more.

U-M anthropologist uses toe tags to highlight crisis at US-Mexico border

"Hostile Terrain 94", by anthropologist Jason De Leon, confronts viewers with a giant map of Arizona. The map is populated with 3,000 toe tags — cards used in morgues to identify the dead. Each toe tag represents a person who died attempting to cross the border through the Sonoran desert. As part of the exhibition, the viewer is invited to fill out the toe tags by hand, listing the person's corresponding name, date, location of death and condition of the body. Click image to read more of this article and to learn more about this project.

ReimaginedFLP: Free Library Opened Reimagined Spaces in the Parkway Central Library!

The Robert and Eileen Kennedy Heim Center for Cultural and Civic Engagement First Floor | 7,200 square feet An active gathering space for diverse programs and civic engagement. Marie and Joseph Field Teen Center Ground Floor | 4,000 square feet Special programming and a gaming area–exclusively for teens. Business Resource and Innovation Center Ground Floor | 8,200 square feet A new hub for Philadelphia's entrepreneurs, inventors, nonprofits, and job seekers./ Click image to learn more.

Open Archive: The Poetics of Anti-Slavery Protest- New York

Join Michelle Commander, associate director and curator of the Lapidus Center, who will explore archive material capturing the use of poetry and related arts in anti-slavery efforts in the Atlantic World. The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center is the only facility of its kind based in a public research library. The initial collection included 400 rare items of printed material — books and documents continue to be added to the collection — making the Schomburg Center home to one of the world’s premier collections of slavery material. The Center's mission is to generate and disseminate scholarly knowledge on the slave trade, slavery, and anti-slavery pertaining to the Atlantic World. Lapidus Center engages the public with a variety of programs, an annual nonfiction prize, exhibitions, and conferences./ Click image to learn more.

Raquel Salas Rivera

Written in response the PROMESA bill (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act) bill, lo terciario/the tertiary offers a decolonial queer critique and reconsideration of Marx. The book’s titles come from Pedro Scaron’s, El Capital, the 1976 translation of Karl Marx’s classic. Published by Siglo Veintiuno Editores, this translation was commonly used by the Puerto Rican left as part of political formation programs. Lo terciario/the tertiary places this text in relation to the Puerto Rican debt crisis, forcing readers to reconsider old questions when facing colonialism’s newest horrors-Colette Arrand, author of Hold Me Gorilla Monsoon

Photos Of 1908 Japan, Before Wars And Devastation

Back in 1908, a German photographer Arnold Genthe (1869-1942) spent six months in Japan, documenting the everyday life of Japanese during the Meiji period. Genthe was known for his photo series, documenting San Francisco’s Chinatown. After his death, the Library of Congress acquired approximately 20,000 never before seen photographs from his studio, and buried in the collection were these rare photos from 1908 Japan, during the Meiji period. In these photos, you’ll see an almost idyllic everyday life that contrasts sharply with the soon-to-come destruction, brought by the wars. Click on image to learn more.

20 Amazing Writing Residencies You Should Apply for This Year

Leeway Foundation

The Leeway Foundation's grantmaking programs honor women and trans* artists for their ability to create social change through their artistic and cultural work. The Art and Change Grants and the Leeway Transformation Awards fund women and trans artists (including those identifying as transgender, transsexual, and/or genderqueer) living in the Delaware Valley region of Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, who engage in art and social change work and have financial need. To learn more, click image.

Hedgebrook; Women Authoring Change

Hedgebrook is a global community of women writers and people who seek extraordinary books, poetry, plays, films and music by women. A literary nonprofit, its mission is to support visionary women writers whose stories and ideas shape culture now and for generations to come. Hedgebrook offers writing residencies, master classes and salons at its 25-year-old retreat on Whidbey Island, and public programs that connect writers with readers and audiences around the world. Click image to learn more.

Rethinking Schools

Coming in early 2015 Rethinking Sexism, Gender, & Sexuality, a new book from Rethinking Schools How do you respond when a child asks, “Can a girl turn into a boy?” in the middle of circle time? What if your daughter brings home schoolbooks with sexist, racist stories? What does “queering the curriculum” really mean? What does it look like? What if parents complain? Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality is filled with insightful, inspiring articles on these and dozens of other critical topics. Chapters include: creating safe and nurturing classrooms, coming out at school as a teacher or student, integrating feminist and LGBTQ content into curriculum, moving beyond the classroom to school and community teacher education Join our campaign to publish the book we wish our own teachers—and our children's teachers—had well-thumbed copies of in their classrooms.

The American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship

The American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship was created in 2013 to nurture and sustain a heritage as old as the Library itself – deepening French-American understanding. The Visiting Fellowship offer writers and researchers an opportunity to pursue a creative project in Paris for a month or longer while participating actively in the life of the American Library. The project may be a book (fiction or non-fiction), long-form journalism, film or music. The Fellowship award, a stipend of $5,000 is intended to cover travel and housing costs for the Visiting Fellow. He or she will be expected to present the work-in-progress to the public in a weekday evening talk at the Library, and to conduct one or two workshops for Library members on a subject of common interest. Click Image to learn more..

Ride a train across country and write a book. Welcome to the Amtrak Writer's Residency:

What began as a line in Alexander Chee's interview in PEN Ten and was fueled by Twitter, is now an official Amtrak program. As many of you may know by now, our test-run for Amtrak Residency was done by Manhattan-based writer Jessica Gross, whose piece, Writing The Lakeshore Limited was published in February by The Paris Review. What followed was overwhelming support on Twitter and in the media with #AmtrakResidency being featured in The Wire, The New Yorker, and Huffington Post among others. Today we are happy to announce that #AmtrakResidency will allow for up to 24 writers to take long-distance trains to work on their projects. Each writer's round-trip journey will include accommodations on board a sleeper car equipped with a bed, a desk and outlets. We hope this experience will inspire creativity and most importantly fuel your sense of adventure! Are you excited about #AmtrakResidency? Want to learn more and apply? Head over to our official entry form and good luck! Click image.

Where My Birthmark Dances is now available on Amazon

What's being said about Where My Birthmark Dances ?

The Ancient Romans used to call a person's creative spirit her "genius," and recognized the labor of setting it free as one of love and sacrifice. Octavia McBride-Ahebee's latest collection is just such a labor. Her poems depict human longing, love and dignity in the context of global inequality with fierce, uncompromising grace. As her characters speak, she creates indelible sensory images of loveliness and affection, profound misery and anger, letting each co-exist on the page. The resulting complexity of tone makes space for nuanced and compelling human voices that might otherwise be categorized as "victims" or "villains" of oppression. It takes the full use of genius to notice and capture these contradictions, and a deep social conscience to care so passionately about writing them down. This collection is one of McBride-Ahebee's "bighearted magnolia trees," its trunk scarred by the fire of sacrifice, its blossoms and branches so beautiful you don't want to leave their shade.

-Lillian Dunn, Editor of Apiary Literary Journal

Octavia McBride-Ahebee

Words without Borders; The Home of International Literature