“Damnificados” named finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award

I’m thrilled to say … well, you’ve probably read the title of this blog post already. Here’s why I’m thrilled: “The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award recognizes the best books by Black writers from the United States and abroad, chosen in a juried competition by previous Legacy Award honorees. The Legacy Award was the first national award…

“Rad Women Worldwide” – by Kate Schatz, illustrated by Miriam Klein Stahl

I’m reading Rad Women Worldwide: Artists and Athletes, Pirates and Punks, and Other Revolutionaries Who Shaped History with my 8-year-old son, who won it in a raffle. It’s awesome. It has short chapters – 2 or 3 pages – each containing a mini-bio and a paper cut illustration of a woman who’s made a difference….

Criticism – the getting and the giving

Recently, I was in conversation with a friend of mine – also a writer. He said he’d got his first one-star review on Amazon. We then discussed the giving and getting of criticism, that bitter pill that goes down like a block of lead. Anyway, the conversation got me thinking … what if someone was…