Finding Agnes: Seven Generations of my Family lineage documented...

Finding Agnes: Seven Generations of my Family lineage documented...: "Continuing my ancestral journey on display at the National Archives in Atlanta. On Saturday, February 26, 2011, I..."

"To the Pen"

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP ACTING OUT!



AdiahBarnesProductions.com



Early Bird Tuition registration by
April 15, 2011 is $200 or $250 after that date.

"This demanding 12-week acting class allows students the opportunity to develop concrete, in-depth scenes and monologues.  This workshop also utilizes improvisation to develop in-the-moment acting skills and touches upon the nuts and bolts of the business.  It culminates in a dynamic Industry Night Showcase."

For more information on workshops, please visit http://www.adilahbarnes.com/ or call

(818) 752-2225     (818) 752-2225     

Quick Links 

www.adilahbarnes.com

www.OnMyOwnTerms.net

www.writersretreat.com

THINGS - TO- Do- at the Writer's Well, Senoia "ART OF GREEN"

‘Art of Green’, coming  to Senoia March 26-
The City of Senoia will celebrated “Art of Green” on Saturday March 26, with a sidewalk art show. The third annual “Art of Green” is sponsored by the Cultural Arts Committee of the Senoia Downtown Development Authority.

The show features artwork made with recycled and natural materials, items locally grown and produced, work by student artists, and a recycle for life exhibit. Children and adults alike are sure to enjoy the appearance of “Todd Key, the “Treeman” at noon.

Spaces 10 feet by 10 feet are available for individual artists and local vendors at $30 per space.  Deadline for all exhibitor applications is Monday March 21, at 5pm. Please reserve your space by downloading an application at http://www.enjoysenoia.com

Submit completed applications to:

Senoia “Art of Green”

PO Box 529, Senoia GA  30276

Senoia Welcome Center located at 9 Main Street, Senoia GA

Revisiting the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement through an Activist's Lens: A Documentary Photography Exhibit in Black and White

By Dr. Doris A. Derby

Dr. Derby is a ten-year veteran of the Civil Rights Movement and a working member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Her photographs provide an insider's view of the Movement and the people influenced by it. New exhibit to open March 1st, 2011 at the Atlanta City Hall, will recognize her exhibit.

Received a nomination for the 42nd NAACP Image Awards in the category of Outstanding Literary Work - Non-Fiction, 2011.
An unprecedented women's history of the Civil Rights Movement, from sit-ins to Black Power

In Hands on the Freedom Plow, fifty-two women--northern and southern, young and old, urban and rural, black, white, and Latina--share their courageous personal stories of working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement.

The testimonies gathered here present a sweeping personal history of SNCC: early sit-ins, voter registration campaigns, and Freedom Rides; the 1963 March on Washington, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the movements in Alabama and Maryland; and Black Power and antiwar activism. Since the women spent time in the Deep South, many also describe risking their lives through beatings and arrests and witnessing unspeakable violence. These intense stories depict women, many very young, dealing with extreme fear and finding the remarkablestrength to survive.

The women in SNCC acquired new skills, experienced personal growth, sustained one another, and even had fun in the midst of serious struggle. Readers are privy to their analyses of the Movement, its tactics, strategies, and underlying philosophies. The contributors revisit central debates of the struggle including the role of nonviolence and self-defense, the role of white people in a black-led movement, and the role of women within the Movement and the society at large.

www.lds.org/familyhistory

Genealogy: Black Family History Symposium

Genealogy: Black family history symposium Feb. 26 ajc.com

By Kenneth H. Thomas Jr. reporter for the AJC

The annual celebration of Black History Month is always a good time for those of African-American heritage to begin researching their ancestry, if they have not done so already.

On Feb. 26, the National Archives at Atlanta in conjunction with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will sponsor "Continuing the Journey of Generations," a black family history symposium and luncheon. It was held at the National Archives, 5780 Jonesboro Road, Morrow.

New this year are sessions on African-American family history research and activities for young people. The keynote address will be given by retired U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael N. Henderson, the first African-American from Georgia to receive membership in the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR).   http://www.blackfamilyhistoryday.com/

Writers if you are in Georgia, and researching, you may want to contact t
he metro Atlanta chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. 
The group welcomes visitors and will help anyone get started.  address is AAHGS, P.O. Box 54131, Atlanta, GA 30308. The website can be found by going to the parent website, www.aahgs.org, and going to "local chapters" and then the map. You may contact the group via e-mail at aahgsatlanta@gmail.com.

Spring workshop in Columbus:

The Georgia Genealogical Society will hold its spring workshop on March 5 in Columbus. Claire Bettag, a nationally known genealogist, will be the speaker. Her main subject will be "Locating the Keys to Untapped Treasures Found at the National Archives in Morrow, Ga." She also will address government documents as untapped genealogical treasures and bounty land records.

The workshop will be held from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Columbus Public Library, 3000 Macon Road, Columbus. The co-sponsors will be the Columbus Public Library and the Muscogee County Friends of Libraries.  For further information, contact Karen Molohon, 770-421-1522 (evenings), or programs@gagensociety.org. The GGS website contains more details about the program and the speaker.

Atlanta research guide:

A new "Atlanta City Guide" offering information on how to use Atlanta research sources can be found in the March 2011 Family Tree Magazine. This four-page insert was written by Sunny Morton with the input of several local researchers. This quick look at Atlanta's history and research facilities will help anyone get started, whether they come to the city in person or start via the Internet. One fact omitted is that DeKalb County deeds are lost before 1842 -- something one must consider in any Atlanta research effort. The issue is available at local bookstores or at www.familytreemagazine.com.

StoryCorps Griot is an initiative to ensure that the voices, experiences, and life stories of African Americans will be preserved and presented with dignity. A Griot (pronounced gree-oh) is a storyteller, a position of honor in West African tradition, who hands down family and community history from one generation to the next. All interviews recorded as part of the Griot Initiative will be archived at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture in addition to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

Straight Out Scribes United Again Book Tour

Staajabu Dapoet

Staajabu is a writer, poet, artist and producer. She and daughter V.S. Chochezi have co-written and self-published 6 books of poetry and produced 2 spoken word CDs.  She is a recent transplant from Sacramento, CA, who now lives in Sicklerville, NJ.

What I’ve been up to lately:

I recently submitted a sci-fi short story “Caldonia’s Daughters” for Sacramento’s ZICA Creative Arts and Literary Guild’s 2011 anthology edited by Ron Barnes.

Straight Out Scribes, that’s daughter V.S. Chochezi and I, will publish a book of all new poetry February 2013. We’re setting up the timeline now. Last couple of years I’ve been painting rocks using acrylic paints and finding rocks while walking the beautiful Sicklerville area parks and roads. Painted all kinds of designs on them; butterflies, flowers, drums, palm trees, sunsets, rivers, African continents, ankhs, Kinaras. I gave them to people who I visited and at different gatherings while traveling. They all had the word Peace painted on them somewhere so I called them “Peace Rocks”. I’ve given away over 100 of them.

I correspond with five political prisoners: Phil Africa, Mondo weLanga, Lynne Stewart, Gabriel Pittman and Mumia Abu-Jamal. I send them articles and information and when possible a money order.

My New Jersey family is gigantic. I have hundreds of cousins here. We gather often, share food, news, stories, photos and just enjoy each other’s company. I work part time at a geriatric hospital as a volunteer and reading is still my favorite past-time. Am currently reading “The Life of Pi”. Amazing!

Will be traveling by Amtrak to Kansas City Missouri, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Leandro in October 2011. The Scribes will be united again and plan to perform some of their newest material at a few of Sacramento’s many poetry venues.

Happy Black History Month, Women’s History Month and National Poetry Month everybody!

ON APPROACHING A BOOK AS A READER

(Original interview for Black Female Authors.blogspot.com)

By Adilah Barnes

ON APPROACHING A BOOK AS A READER

Back in the mid-1990’s I co-founded the Los Angeles reading group, Circle of Sisters: A Reading Circle. Over the years, this eclectic group of spirited women have committed to read countless books of different genres: from full-bodied memoirs to fluffy romance books, and back around the corner again to embrace genres richly steeped in mystery and history.

Some books have been outstanding page turner choices. However, whether a brilliant read or not, the group critiques the book thoroughly over dinner. I especially enjoy a read that evokes different responses from the women - and even an occasional heated and visceral discussion.

As a reader, I begin my books by reading the outside covers and proceed page by page from the beginning of the book. I thought most people read this way until I became an author and began to receive feedback on how readers stayed with my book. 

I was amazed to learn there are a myriad of ways in which readers may choose to approach a book.

Some say they begin a book traditionally from the opening page, while others open the book randomly and land where they fall. If pulled in, they may then go back to the beginning and read the book in its entirety.

Still other readers eye the table of contents and choose chapters that most appeal to their literary pallet. They may flip flop around until they decide to go back and start again chronologically, thus allowing the book to build chapter by chapter.

Perhaps the most horrifying discovery I made in speaking with a reader was that she actually began my book by reading the last chapter first!

I have come to learn early on in the first few pages whether the writer is going to transport me. If not, I generally push ahead forward anyway, hoping for the best and determined to get through to the end. Conversely, as I snuggle up to a good read, I welcome the author to guide me.  I love unexpected twists and turns and I always want a good book to continue. Sadly, though, I release a good read as I slowly savor the last page. The trick of a good writer is to leave the reader wanting more.

Perhaps the most difficult element for some writers is finding the right ending.

I have read a number of books that held me until I got to the last page. I feel cheated when an ending just does not fit, and the book ends abruptly. It almost seems the writer surrendered at the end, and just wanted to get the book done!

As writers, we must pay as close attention to page one as we do to the very last page of our writing.

One element that contributes to holding me as a reader is the writer’s attention to detail. For example, I recently read the book Half of a Yellow Sun by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. My senses were totally activated as I smelled, tasted, heard, felt and saw all the images that were so craftily placed in front of me. Set during the Nigerian Biafran War of 1967-70, some images were pungent and distasteful, yet some were absolutely beautiful. All were as the author intended.

This writer understood the pay-off of detail in her writing.

I always go back to the subject of the senses because it is in this reservoir that we can tap into and deepen our choices of language and imagery. The more we can unlock our own inner senses, the more we can hold our readers page by page. It is not enough to describe an object by its name. The reader wants to know colors, texture, weight and size given in descriptions. 

The reader wants to see and feel.

A useful exercise is to consciously choose times were we use all of our five senses: really seeing what surrounds us, really hearing the sounds that invade our space – tasting, touching and smelling our environment. Much can also be discovered by taking a sacred walk alone inhaling nature, passing a restaurant with aromas begging to be identified, or by listening to others speaking in conversation as we pass them, trying to make sense of a phrase we may have just heard.

These reflections can fuel our writing.

Let us keep stripping away the veneer of the obvious to find greater detail in our writing that titillate the question: “Have I conveyed all that needs to be said?”

For more information, contact Adilah Barnes at The Writers’ Retreat in Sharpsburg, Georgia., OR Thewriterswell@yahoo.com