Wench is a carefully rendered story about emotional complexities and violence in master/slave relationships of the mid 1800s. Lizzie is a slave who develops a curious relationship with her master, Drayle, that begins with seduction and turns into a kind of love that is punctuated with moments of hurt and disappointment. There is a (albeit … Continue reading »
Author Archives: jamie-m
Natasha Trethewey, Poet Laureate
I’m so excited at the announcement of Natasha Trethewey as the next Poet Laureate! As I mentioned in this post about Native Guard, I believe she is one of the most relevant and telling poets publishing right now, especially with her focus on the Mixed experience. Check out the NY Times article with her reaction. … Continue reading »
Marie Hara & Nora Okja Keller, Intersecting Circles
I stumbled across this anthology of writing in the library and was instantly grabbed by the title: Intersecting Circles, the Voices of Hapa Women in Poetry and Prose. It’s a substantial collection, just about 400 pages of thought-provoking, quality writing about the Hapa experience. Check out the anthology here. Reading it, I was reminded of … Continue reading »
Speaking: Ai
“Since I believe that clinging to one’s race tears one apart and that letting go makes one whole, I wish I could say that race isn’t important. But it is…This is a fact which I have faced and must ultimately transcend. If this transcendence were less complex, less individual, it would lose its holiness” -Ai, … Continue reading »
Reader Sumission: Poetry by Rage
Thank you to Rage for submitting the great poems below, and be sure to check out her work in Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speak Out. Check out the submissions page to get our work featured! You Could Be Halle Berry’s Sister! brown is my allowance: the quick, tinning sound of nickels into jar. I … Continue reading »
Natasha Trethewey, Native Guard
Trethewey pays tribute to both her mother and to her home in the South in this Pulitzer Prize winning poetry collection. Through these poems, Trethewey navigates the empty space between the living and the dead. She questions what information still lives, and what is cast into history. Even further, what part of that … Continue reading »
I have feelings and they are about camp.
So this blog is normally used for my feelings about mixed-ness and such. But when something happens that changes you forever, you write about it, right? I went to camp. Not just any camp. A camp full of amazing/diverse/mixed/queer/artsy/intelligent people. It challenged me and saved me and made me cry. Maybe because I surrounded by … Continue reading »
Malcolm Gladwell on Being Mixed, Family History
This video comes from the Faces of America series with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Here’s his website. He’s the author of the highly regarded books What the Dog Saw, The Outliers, Blink, and The Tipping Point. Also, happy two year anniversary to my little blog that has kept me motivated as both a reader … Continue reading »
Pym, Mat Johnson
See, the thing about Pym is that it’s all the novels you want to read in one. There’s apocalypse, there’s adventure, there’s the allusions to a literary classic – it’s all there. The narrator, Chris Jaynes, has a voice that has a hint of academia, a straight forward ease, and a dark humor slant. Johnson … Continue reading »
Veera Hiranandani, The Whole Story of Half a Girl
Sonia Nadhamuni is half Jewish, half Indian and navigating through the rough landscape of 6th grade. When her father loses his job, Sonia and her sister must switch from their private school to a much larger public school. Disconnected from her old friends, she wavers in and out of the popular crowd, trying to figure … Continue reading »
