Harriet Tubman

February 14, 2011   |   LIWI68

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1820 – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War.

After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made 19 missions to Maryland to rescue over 300 people using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. If anyone ever wanted to change his or her mind during the journey to freedom and return, Tubman pulled out her revolver and said, “You’ll be free or you’ll die a slave!”

 

The petite Tubman knew that if anyone turned back, it would put her and the other escaping slaves in danger of discovery, capture or even death. She became so well known for leading slaves to freedom that Tubman became known as the “Moses of Her People.” Many slaves dreaming of freedom sang the spiritual “Go Down Moses.”

Slaves hoped a savior would deliver them from slavery just as Moses had delivered the Israelites from slavery. During these dangerous journeys she helped rescue members of her own family, including her 70-year-old parents. At one point, rewards for Tubman’s capture was a combined total of $40,000. Yet, she was never captured and never failed to deliver her “passengers” to safety. As Tubman herself said, “On my Underground Railroad I [never] run my train off [the] track [and] I never [lost] a passenger.”

One day, when she was an adolescent, Tubman was sent to a dry-goods store for some supplies. There, she encountered a slave owned by a different family, who had left the fields without permission. His overseer, furious, demanded that Tubman help restrain the young man. She refused, and as the slave ran away, the overseer threw a two-pound weight from the store’s counter. It missed and struck Tubman instead, which she said “broke my skull.” She later explained her belief that her hair – which “had never been combed and … stood out like a bushel basket” – might have saved her life. Bleeding and unconscious, Tubman was returned to her owner’s house and laid on the seat of a loom, where she remained without medical care for two days. She was immediately sent back into the fields, “with blood and sweat rolling down my face until I couldn’t see.” Her boss said she was “not worth a sixpence” and returned her to Brodess, who tried unsuccessfully to sell her. She began having seizures and would seemingly fall unconscious, although she claimed to be aware of her surroundings even though she appeared to be asleep. .

These episodes were alarming to her family who were unable to wake her when she fell asleep suddenly and without warning. This condition remained with Tubman for the rest of her life; Larson suggests she may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy as a result of the injury. This severe head wound occurred at a time in her life when Tubman was becoming deeply religious. As an illiterate child, she had been told Bible stories by her mother. The particular variety of her early Christian belief remains unclear, but Tubman acquired a passionate faith in God. She rejected white interpretations of scripture urging slaves to be obedient, finding guidance in the Old Testament tales of deliverance. After her brain trauma, Tubman began experiencing visions and potent dreams, which she considered signs from the divine. This religious perspective instructed her throughout her life.

She later helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era she retired to the family home in Auburn, NY (sold to her by the abolitionist and US Senator, William H. Seward for $1,200) and worked for women’s suffrage.

The 10 Best

Gil Scott-Heron Songs

By Michael A. Gonzales | May 27, 2012

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

 

Gil Scott-Heron, who died a year ago today, was a man of great strengths and tragic weaknesses. Beginning his career as a poet and novelist, he gained even greater fame as a revolutionary blues man whose music embraced spoken word, jazz, and funk. Backed by his chief musical collaborator Brian Jackson and a crew of inspired musicians, the learned lyricist spoke out about everything from mass media mind manipulation ("The Revolution Will Not Be Televised") to the evils of apartheid in South Africa to his own personal struggles with drugs and jail.

While many music critics baptized the rhythmic rebel as the “godfather of rap,” the brother preferred to dub himself “a blueslogist.” Nevertheless, Gil’s blend of bookish intellectualism and cynical humor inspired a generation of hip-hop rebels who embraced and built on his gritty vision. From Chuck D to Kanye West, the master blaster proved to be a profoundly influential voice. This Memorial Day Weekend, we take time out to look back at ten of his most seminal tracks.

Written By Michael A. Gonzales (@GonzoMike)

Click Here to Start the Story »

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Morning Becomes Eclectic

Meshell Ndegeocello

THU JAN 5, 2012

Host:

• Jason Bentley

Produced by:

• Ariana Morgenstern

Listen to/Watch entire show:

 

 

 

 Meshell Ndegeocello returns to KCRW to play songs from her latest album -- the soulful, seductive art pop gem, Weather. The bass player/singer has received critical acclaim throughout her 20 year career and we’re thrilled to showcase her work on Morning Becomes Eclectic at 11:15am.

via kcrw.com

Morning Becomes Eclectic

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Meshell Ndegeocello

THU JAN 5, 2012

Host:

• Jason Bentley

Produced by:

• Ariana Morgenstern

Listen to/Watch entire show:

Airings:

ON AIR/KCRWonair:

JUN 7 2005, 1-2P

-->

 Meshell Ndegeocello returns to KCRW to play songs from her latest album -- the soulful, seductive art pop gem, Weather. The bass player/singer has received critical acclaim throughout her 20 year career and we’re thrilled to showcase her work on Morning Becomes Eclectic

Call for Submissions to

Queer POC Anthology,

“Here, Our Voices:

The Black Trans-Identified Experience”

by Aleta Lan 

Michael David Battle, a black female-to-male (FTM) trans maan, who has been documenting his transition online is currently compiling an anthology of stories with the working title, “Here, Our Voices: The Black Trans-Identified Experience.”

We are looking for original, well-written personal essays, memoirs, or stories that are based on autobiographical experiences. The narrative must be in first person. Other than that, the contest is open to any type, genre or style of story. Stories can be funny or sad, serious, artsy or fragmented. We are interested in pushing the boundaries of memoir and also in just regular memoir that doesn’t try too hard–so long as it moves us. This contest is open to any writer of any age. Anyone from any country can submit an essay, so long as it’s written in English.

The deadline for submission to Here, Our Voices: The Black Trans-Identified Experience is Thursday May 31st, 2012.

Themes and Categories

Michael is currently accepting writing submissions for the anthology from black trans persons in the following categories:

• Family

• Love/Relationships

• Faith/Spirituality

• Sexuality

• Breaking Gender Binaries

• Work and/or School

Author Requirements

• The authors of the best writing for each category will be highlighted in the book and will have a photograph and short bio on the inside cover of the finished book

• All contestants should be Black trans-identified persons

• All entries must be accompanied by the Black Trans Experience — Writing Contest Entry Form; any submission without the form will not be considered for publication

 Submission Guidelines

• All entries should be accompanied with the $15 entry fee

• Multiple submissions are welcome, however, an additional $10 is required for each additional entry

• Entry must be previously unpublished (which includes websites and blogs)

• Simultaneous submissions are accepted, however, if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere, you need to let us know immediately that you are withdrawing your submission.

• All forms of writing (poetry, prose, essay, etc.) are acceptable

Important Technical Details

The title page should include the following:

• Title of the story

• Chosen theme/category (per above)

• Your full name, and whether you want your name to be withheld

• E-mail

• Address

• Phone

Make sure your entry follows the outlined specifications:

• The title of the manuscript should appear on every page.

• All pages should be numbered

• Entry should contain no more than 2,000 words

• Entry should be submitted in either RTF or DOC format ONLY, and as an attachment.

• Winners will be announced on August 1, 2012. We will announce them by e-mail and on our website.

Visit the Official Site for More Information

To read more about the call for submissions and submit your entry along with the required fee, visit the official call here.

Remember, the deadline is Thursday May 31st. Good luck!

SPECIAL ISSUE AND CONTEST:

SOUTHERN SIN
 

 

Deadline: May 28, 2012 July 31, 2012

Creative Nonfiction and the Oxford Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference & Workshop are looking for essays that capture the South in all its steamy sinfulness--whether you're skipping church to watch football, coveting your neighbor's Real Housewife of Atlanta, or just drinking an unholy amount of sweet tea. Confess your own wrongdoings, gossip about your neighbor's depravity, or tell us about your personal connection to a famous Southerner headed down the broad road to Hell. Whether the sin you discuss is deadly or just something that would make your mama blush we want to hear about it in an essay that is at least partially narrative--employing scenes, descriptions, etc.

Your essay can channel William Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor, Alice Walker or Rick Bragg; it can be serious, humorous, or somewhere in between, but all essays must tell true stories, and must incorporate both sin and the South in some way.

Usually the wages of sin is death, but this time we're making an exception. The selected essays will be published in Creative Nonfiction #47, and CNF and Oxford will be awarding $5000 for Best Essay.

There is a $20 reading fee (or send a reading fee of $25 to include a 4-issue CNF subscription--U.S. submitters only); multiple entries are welcome ($20/essay) as are entries from outside the U.S. (though due to shipping costs, the subscription deal is not valid).

Guidelines to submit by mail:
Essays must be unpublished, 4,000 words maximum, postmarked by May 28, 2012 July 31, 2012, and clearly marked "Southern Sin" on both the essay and the outside of the envelope. Please send manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter with complete contact information including the title of the essay, word count, SASE and payment to:

Creative Nonfiction
Attn: Southern Sin
5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15232

Guidelines to submit electronically:
Essays must be unpublished, 4,000 words maximum, and uploaded by 11:59 PM EST, May 28, 2012 July 31, 2012. To  submit, please click the appropriate link:

Reading fee only ($20)
Reading fee + 4-issue subscription ($25; U.S. submitters only)

SECTION QUERIES
accepted year-round

Have an idea for a literary timeline? An opinion on essential texts for readers and/or writers? An in-depth, working knowledge of a specific type of nonfiction? Pitch us your ideas; Creative Nonfiction is now accepting query letters for the following sections of the magazine:

UNDER THE UMBRELLA - explores one subset or type of writing that falls under the creative nonfiction umbrella--dad memoir, extreme travel writing, as well as lesser-known kinds of creative nonfiction--and the patterns that connect these types of writing. Past example: CNF's Armchair Guide to Stunt Writing.

WRITER AT WORK - an analysis of or an in-depth look into a specific writer's writing process. Past example: Gay Talese's approach to composition.

BETWEEN THE LINES - focuses on the business of writing and the role of the editor, agent, publisher and nonfiction writer in the contemporary publishing landscape. This section is reserved for more serious, newsy (in a general way) topics. Past examples: The future of literary magazines in America, and a defense of navel-gazing.

REQUIRED READING - catalogues and explores essential texts for nonfiction readers and writers. Pieces can be as simple as a list or as complex as a lyric essay. Past examples: David Shields' inspirations and recommendations, and the narrative forms of Norman Mailer as recounted by his biographer.

THEN AND NOW - literary timelines or comparisons of the genre's past and present. Past example: a history of the genre (and the magazine) from 1993 to 2009.

AFTERWORDS - the final page of the magazine. We're open to just about any ideas that can be presented completely in one page, though we are more inclined to pieces that take a lighter look at the genre, craft, and/or industry. Past examples: First sentences from first books, and the ever-expanding nonfiction subtitle.

[Note: Nothing increases your publishing chances more than a familiarity with the magazine; we recommend you become a subscriber, but a working knowledge of our recent issues is a great place to start, too. Once you're a student of the publication, query us via email, according to the guidelines below.]

Guidelines: All queries should be sent to "queries [at] creativenonfiction [dot] org", and the subject line should include the section you're querying about (e.g. "Between the Lines"). In the body of the email, please include the following:

Your name; your email address; your idea (250 words or less); your bio as it relates to your idea (250 words or less); and your plan for executing your idea (250 words or less).

Queries only. Please do not send completed pieces. Please do not send attachments. Please send brilliant ideas and a solid plan for turning said brilliant ideas into brilliant pieces of writing.

 

CONTEST: Tiny Truths: CNF's Daily Twitter Contest
accepted year-round

Can you tell a true story in 130 characters (or fewer)? Think you could write one hundred CNF-worthy micro essays a day? Go for it. We dare you. There's no limit. Simply follow Creative Nonfiction on Twitter and tag your tiny truths with the trending topic #cnftweet. That's it.

We re-tweet winners daily and republish 10-12 winning tweets in every issue of Creative Nonfiction.

Not sure what we're looking for? Check out all of our past "Favorites".

 

GENERAL (UN-THEMED) SUBMISSIONS
accepted year-round

We try to respond to all submissions as soon as possible. We read general submissions year-round, but depending on the time of year, it is not uncommon for a response to take up to 6 months.

What we're looking for:

• Strong reportage
• Well-written prose, rich with detail and a distinctive voice.
• An informational quality or instructive element that offers the reader something to learn (an idea, concept or collection of facts, strengthened with insight, reflection and interpretation.)
• A compelling, focused, sustained narrative that is well-structured, makes sense and conveys meaning.

Guidelines for Submission:

• Submissions should be typed, double-spaced, 5,000 words maximum (with word count clearly marked).
• Submissions to special issues should be clearly marked.
• Please do not send multiple submissions.
• Please do not send queries. We consider only complete essays.
• Faxed or emailed submissions will not be accepted.
• Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for response. We regret that we cannot return manuscripts.
• We will reply to manuscripts sent from outside the United States by email, if an email address is provided.
• We accept simultaneous submissions, but do ask to be kept informed of the status of your manuscript.
• We typically pay $10 per printed page.
• Please send unsolicited material to:

  Creative Nonfiction Foundation
  5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202
  Pittsburgh, PA 15232

Call for Submissions

From Muslim-Identified

Queer People of Color:

QWOC Media Wire

 

When we ponder the concepts of religion and queerness, what images and issues come to mind?

In discussions involving religion and LGBT issues for QPOC, the focus in mainstream media has almost always been on Christian families, churches, and communities, and the degree to which they are homophobic or transphobic. If we hear anything about queer Muslims, it’s sensationalized e.g. a viral link about a gay Iranian man being sentenced to death, or the number of lashes you’d receive for being a “practicing homosexual” in Muslim countries.

But when do we ever hear from queer Muslims themselves, about their everyday lives, about their hardships and triumphs, their families and lovers–or, simply, what keeps them centered, devout, inspired?

Here at QWOC Media Wire, we want to hear from LGBTQI people of color, diaspora, and other ethnic/racial minorities who identify as Muslim and/or were raised practicing Islam.

Whether you’re a Muslim born into an Uygher family, are a convert from another religion, identify as a queer Muslim from an African country, were raised Muslim but identify as spiritual etc. — whatever the case may be — we want you to be able to share, in your own words, your experiences and thoughts on religion, culture, sexuality, and everyday life.

Additionally, if you practice another religion, faith, and/or spirituality that you feel isn’t as readily discussed in public forums, such as Hinduism or Sikhism, Wicca, African Traditional Religions, Baha’i etc. we would love to hear from you as well!

IMPORTANT: Please keep in mind, the purpose of this call for submissions is not to get into a religious discussion; we don’t want to debate religion, we want to hear about how many of us reconcile the various parts of our identities as diaspora, sexual minorities, and spiritual/religious people. We want to create a space where people can share their experiences, not defend them.

Submissions can be in the form of prose, poetry, a stream of consciousness, a rant, an ode, or any other form of media. What’s most important is that it reflects you, your words, your lives.

Here are some examples of LGBTQI women of color and gender non-conforming folks we’d like to hear from:

• Muslims who grew up in the global south

• Muslim feminists who also identify as queer women of color

• People who were raised in Muslim families but converted, or don’t “practice”

• People who practice religion/spirituality outside of Islam and Christianity e.g. African, Buddhism, Hinduism

• Do you identify as a QPOC and a convert to Islam?

• Do you identify as another religion that has not been focused on in queer media, such as Hinduism or Buddhism?

Interested?

Please email us at submissions@qwocmediawire.com with your name, nationality, religion, how you identity ethnically, your sexual orientation/gender identity (if you wish), and what kind of piece you’d like to submit.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For enquiries/ submissions: submissions@qwocmediawire.com

Website: http://www.qwoc.org

 

Lorna Goodison

Caribbean Women Writers

(series):

Telling Stories:

Lorna Goodison's

By Love Possessed

 

by Charmaine Valere

My favorite short stories work like cinematic vignettes, which is to say that they are essentially portraits or scenes I am pulled into by a purposeful narrator or speaker, who gives me a quick tour or perusal of the scene or portrait, and simultaneously causes me to experience a quick wringing-out impression of the substance of that scene or portrait and leaves me a bit breathless--both from pace and matter. Connecting in some major way with narrative voice, whether it is first, third, or some other perspective, is for me the key component to enjoying short fiction. The Caribbean short story has a fascinating history of writers’ experimentation with narrative voice, which is one of the subjects discussed in The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives, a recently published collection of essays, edited by Caribbean scholars, Lucy Evans, Mark McWatt, and Emma Smith. In one intriguing study, Suzanne Scafe focuses on a fat chunk of the history of the short story in Jamaica (1938-1950) and makes the following observation:

Some of the most effective . . . in the dominant expression of Jamaican culture were those that privileged the use of Jamaican creole, not as dialogue, a form to which many readers had already become accustomed, but as either the narrative voice or as a means of articulating a complex interiority.

In her latest book, a collection of short stories titled By Love Possessed, Jamaican writer Lorna Goodison continues in the tradition of presenting narrative voice as a key element to understanding mindset, character, and even country in some regards. The 22 stories in the collection are cinematic vignettes, short shorts threaded through and held together by several elements, including a lively orality--compact with humor and mixed tones of derision and empathy--on recurring situations where characters confront or avoid issues concerning toxic love, hypocrisy of many forms, poverty, and old personal or psychological haunts.

The clear-visioned heroine

The first story in the collection, “The Helpweight,” gives us a female character whose no-nonsense attitude about love and relationships is a dominant one in the collection. In the story, a pair of former high-school sweethearts contend with the left-over emotions from their past relationship. She is now a successful marketing manager, and he is a lawyer. Their relationship ended years ago when he got married to an Irish woman he met while studying in England, but he has returned to Jamaica (wife in tow) and seems bent on resuming their relationship. She’s clearly not interested (she is about to become seriously involved with a doctor), but she lets him get close enough to publicly humiliate him a few times--including making him wait outside her office for over an hour before she sees him--then she finally cuts him off completely for having the “unmitigated gall to suggest that she settle for being his concubine.” In the story’s parable-like construction, she is presented as a heroine with the clear vision to see through his empty promise--“...You are number one, you will always be the queen”-- and recognize that he is no better than men like the deadbeat father of her house helper’s children, a man the helper says “is not a helpmate, ma’am, him is a helpweight. All him do is help weigh me down.” As a woman who has done well for herself, she can effectively challenge and reject the weight of a number system (so to speak) of power and ownership designed to benefit men. Her rejection strikes a decisive tone for the female-focused collection.

This clear-visioned Jamaican heroine is present in many of the stories, including those with women who are not as financially successful as the female protagonist in “Helpweight.” One such woman, a struggling artist, receives an offer to become the girlfriend of a wealthy man who asks her out, but tells her he doesn’t have much time in his life for “something like this” (time to invest in a serious relationship, perhaps?) but he can get her anything she wants. Her rejection of his offer is made particularly significant when she recalls seeing a woman of “house colour” (explained as the name Jamaicans give to the complexion one gets from spending most of one’s time indoors) taking inventory of her possessions in a jewellery store. She imagines that the woman’s collection of  jewelry is the result of a  life spent with someone who didn’t have time to invest in a serious relationship with her, and doesn’t want that for herself.

Sometimes though, as another story illustrates, a woman in a relationship with a “busy” man can negotiate her way into a compromise that pleases her. But she’ll require some help from divine sources. In “Jamaica Hope,” (name for a “champion” breed of cattle, which the narrator tells us were “bigger than most men”) Lilla, who “pledged her head, hands, heart, and hopes into building a life with Alphanso,” (her own version of a champion breed, perhaps) spends ten years living with him and bearing children for him without being married. Her contentment changes when she discovers he is seeing someone else. She then decides she wants the security of marriage and asks him to marry her. The ensuing dialogue about marriage--he talks to his brother; she talks to her mother--tells a story (though not the story) of Jamaican cultural beliefs regarding marriage:

“Bob, hear my crosses now, Lilla want get married.”
“All woman want to get married.”
“You know how much people live good good then them go and get married and everything crash?”

“Mama, Alphanso don’t want get married.”
“No man in Jamaica ever want get married.”

Lilla prepares to leave him and Alphanso seems uncaring of that until his brother (who lives alone) falls ill and Lilla takes care of him. He finally gives in and agrees to the marriage. 

Though Lilla may have been successful in getting the kind of relationship she desires, the collection, which shows a wide range of relationship situations, is full of other women whose efforts to build their lives solely around men are predictably unsuccessful. And where the women remain stubbornly persistent in trying to make those relationships work, the narrator pokes merciless fun at them. One woman, for instance, who pays a man’s way into a movie theatre when he claims his pocket had been picked, and who then becomes involved with him, is criticized by the narrator:
 

If she had been seeing straight, she would have noticed that some people were laughing when he raised the alarm. But she didn’t see anything except the handsome brown-skin man with “good hair,” straight nose, and a mouth like a woman’s.

The complex male

Though the major focus of the collection’s vignettes is on the agency or lack thereof of women in mostly dysfunctional relationships with men, and though (to that end) we get rather superficial and dismissive portrayals of the men with whom they are involved, two of the stories with male protagonists give a deeper look at a certain male condition. “Henry,” is the story of a young boy who is sent by his mother to “fight life” for himself when she determines his presence in the home is a hindrance to her relationship with her boyfriend. Henry tries to make a living selling roses on the street and he dreams of being rescued one day...

The sliver cloud will stand still, the rear window will be eased down, and the wife of the Governor General will call out . . . ‘Hello you, you little one in those red corduroy trousers that must be so hot on you, come dear, and let me find a place for you to live. You really should not be out on the street like this.'

His context for being rescued--by a wealthy mother-figure who singles him out for special attention, and who appears out of a “silver cloud”-- is as childlike as one would expect for someone his age (he’s 12), but it creates an undeniable pathos, especially too that the roses he sells are not only his reality--a way of life--in the story, they also become part of his idealist longing for something sweeter, prettier than his grimy street reality.

Because Henry’s story is so similar to the childhood of Albert’s, the protagonist in “Big Shot,” it’s possible to consider their stories as part and whole--a continuum... Like Henry, Albert once lived in poverty and aspired to be rescued from it. Like Henry, he was abandoned by his mother, though he had a grandmother who raised him and saw him through to college abroad. He returns to Jamaica and attempts to distance his present life as a successful lawyer as far as he possibly can from his past. But like many of the female protagonists in other stories, he is made aware that he can’t simply immerse himself in a new life and pretend the past doesn’t matter. When he left Jamaica to study elsewhere, he had abandoned a pregnant girlfriend, and he gets his comeuppance for that abandonment when the mother of his child confronts him in his office. That’s where the story ends, but along the way we are allowed to pinpoint societal and other destructive cyclical familial factors, patterns of behavior that may have contributed to the condition of a man who desires to hide from his past.

Voices of the community:

While “Henry” and “Big Shot” present possibilities for a wider range of reading the collection’s depiction of a certain male condition in Jamaica, “Bella Makes Life” presents possibilities for a wider geographical reading of how immigration can affect the value system upon which a relationship is based. Bella leaves her husband and children for New York and he assesses (through the letters she writes him, then later on through the clothes she wears) the ways in which she becomes a different person. In her first letters she seems focused on their relationship, telling him “You know I’m only here to work some dollars to help you and me to make life when I come home. Please don’t have any other woman while I’m gone. I know that a man is different from a woman, but please do try and keep yourself to yourself till we meet and I’m saving all my love for you.” But in later letters, she appears focused on herself and on telling him about her jobs and social life, declaring, “I figure I might as well enjoy myself while I not so old yet.” The narrator presents reactions to the changes in Bella which seem in part her husband’s, and in part that of a larger communal-sounding ridicule:

Enjoy herself? This time Joseph was working so hard to send the two children to school clean and neat, Joseph become mother and father for them, the man even learn to plait the little girl hair. Enjoy himself?

When Bella returns to Jamaica, Joesph is embarrassed at the clothes she wears and her over done accessories, and he longs for a simpler, less fussy woman. But the woman he turns to (Blossom) becomes just as unrecognizable when she leaves Jamaica for the United States and returns. Once again, because the narrator does the telling, we can sense a larger circle of ridicule pointed at Blossom, "a big woman, dressed in black socks with lace frothing over the top of her black leather ankle boots." One can certainly argue that these women have the right to wear whatever they want, but one is also quite tempted (seduced by the amusing narrative voice/s) to join in with the mostly valid indictment of those who seem to equate “making it” in America with becoming owners of a wardrobe of clothing--of ever-changing trends--from which they can choose and assume any outfit / identity, whether or not it suits them.

But sometimes, as another story shows, the “voice” of the community is clearly unfair. In “Fool-fool Rose Is Leaving Labour-in-Vain Savannah,” the narrator tells us of a woman who confides in a friend about her relationship and is betrayed by that woman who joins with other women in the community and ridicule her in secret. The narrator, who is an older woman, tells the young woman being betrayed a story she hopes will help her be less trusting. The layering of stories demonstrates good and evil effects of “telling” stories: those that damage, and those that teach and heal.

The final story in the collection, “I Come Through,” is both in title and themes, the collection’s culminating piece. In it, a famed Jamaican singer gives an interview and tells her life story, during which she revisits some of the collection’s dominant themes: abandonment; tricksters posing as friends and/or lovers; reading the ‘signs’; the surrogate mother or grandmother; and, healing and renewal in telling stories, including telling one’s own life story. From first story to the last, the collection has an engaging purposeful feel, with each slice of life producing a cohesive whole...

The collection’s best accomplishment:

In the tradition of Caribbean short fiction, which Scafe and others before her speak of, and which seeks to capture an articulate narrative voice that is true to place and time, Goodison’s narrators and speakers in By Love Possessed (who are sometimes single-voiced, and other times plural-sounding) secure an important place in the genre by effectively giving us a language and a sensibility that is true of many Jamaicans / Caribbean people living in the Caribbean as well as outside the Caribbean...true to a condition of living that requires adaptability and flux. The language is standard English inflected with accents, rather than a specific creole, persay. The reader who is not Jamaican or Caribbean can possibly detect the accent in the language, but is not excluded from it (no glossary needed here). Considering its language and its contemporary and universal themes, the best of what we get in By Love Possessed  is a carefully constructed dualism of sorts: it is nationalistic and global, time-and-place-specific, and transcendent.

 __________

By Love Possessed, by Lorna Goodison (McClelland & Stewart 2011, 272 pp).

The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives, eds. Lucy Evans, Mark McWatt & Emma Smith (Peepal Tree Press 2011, 356 pp).

photo by Cliff Watts

Halle Berry's Date

with a Perfect Stranger

A writer sat across the table from an actress. She told him most writers screw up the story. He told her writing isn't easy. She asked to give it a shot. This is what happened.

By Halle Berry & Tom Chiarella

 

[NOTE: Halle Berry wrote the story. Tom Chiarella added his thoughts in the form of footnotes. Click the footnote to read his annotations.]

As I sat in my car, (1) driving to what I had sworn would be my last print interview ever, (2) I couldn't help but think of all the reasons why I was glad that this would in fact be my last sit-down dinner with a perfect stranger on a mission. No more rhetorical questions about my failed marriages, no more smiling through the mundane inquiries about my beauty regime, no more defending my graphic love scene in Monster's Ball, no more pressure to come up with an excuse as to why I don't have a baby at forty, and finally, no more giving a magazine the power to paint a portrait of me that was just not true. (3)

I entered the restaurant (4) looking for the perfect stranger who would write this last and forgettable piece, and I was shocked to find that he looked nothing like I had suspected. (5) Instead of being a freakish monster (6) out to get me, he was a soft teddy-bear type (7) with shaggy hair (8) and an easy smile and the very normal name of Tom. Due to my extreme paranoia, I immediately thought it sneaky of the magazine to send a totally harmless-looking (9) perfect stranger to do its dirty work.

We sat down (10) and started with the normal blah, blah, blah that most perfect strangers start conversations with, and then suddenly, after about ten minutes, I realized that the interview had begun but Tom, the perfect stranger, had not taken one note or pulled out a tape recorder. At that moment, I smiled on the inside: Either Tom was as dumb as paint, (11) or Tom was going to be my best interview ever. Since this was my last interview, I decided to seek revenge preemptively on this perfect stranger and ask him all the annoying kinds of questions that I had suffered through for so many years. (12)

HB: You're a college professor as well as a journalist. I really admire that. What made you want to be a teacher?

TC: I really wanted to be around twenty-two-year-old women. (13)

HB: So what's it like working for Esquire, especially when you live in Indiana?

TC: It's a dream come true. I like ass-kissing, and I get to do a lot of it working for Esquire. (14)

HB: Any regrets?

TC: Yes, a failed marriage. I wish I had more kids. I also regret that I just told you that. (15)

HB: Can you tell me what happened with your first marriage? Can you shed any light on why you split with your ex-wife? Did her career as a nurse contribute to it?

TC: I'm no longer talking about that.... It's very private. But I will say this: Nurses have better stories. Please don't ask me to explain. (16)

HB: What about your current relationship with Christine White, the playwright? Is that different in any way?

TC: Oh, yes, yes, yes. I never get sick of Chris, and she surprisingly never gets sick of me. She's the joy and the wonder of my life. Through her, I get to get close to hot chicks like Rae Dawn Chong. (17)

HB: Speaking of Rae Dawn Chong and movies, have you seen any of my movies? If so, what has been your favorite and your least favorite?

TC: Well, I didn't like the Bond flick that much. I mean the bikini was okkkkkaaaayyyy. (18) However, I really loved B.A.P.S. For a white boy raised in New York living in Indiana, I thought that shit was funny! (19)

Like most good journalists on a mission, I am not really sure if those were the actual answers Tom gave or if that was just my selective memory in search of a juicy story with an interesting twist that would sell magazines. (20)

The next day, Tom and I were to spend the day together shopping for a dinner party that I was giving for a few of my closest friends. Whoo-hoo...sounds like fun... not! However, Tom took the shopping spree in stride, all in an attempt to "see what a day in the life of a perfect stranger''(21) like me was like.... Right! (22)

As we parked and headed toward the door, one of the perfect strangers that had been following us all morning taking our picture asked Tom his name. (23) Tom replied, "Tom Chiarella." The perfect stranger replied, "You look like Kevin Smith." Then, to my surprise, I heard Tom, aka Cuddly Bear, (24) shout, "Fuck you." Then the perfect stranger said, "Like Kevin Smith before he lost the weight." To which Cuddly Bear said, "Then my name is Fuck You Twice." And as a result, rumor has it Cuddly Bear is now known on the Net as Fuck You Twice. (25)

After laughing our asses off, we headed into the market and fell right into the whole couple-going-shopping thing. He grabbed the cart from the back and I pulled it from the front. Although we were perfect strangers, we appeared to be the perfect couple. I led him around like women do to men in supermarkets, grabbing everything I needed for dinner with skillful precision. He was careful not to run the cart up on my heels, just like his mother taught him. One perfect stranger after another offered us all kinds of delectable treats as we shopped. While I passed them all up like a woman on a crazed mission to get out of the store ASAP, Tom delighted in tasting every free treat he could get his hands on. (26) I didn't dare tell him, but he did kinda look like Kevin Smith. (27)

As we checked out, Tom was a true gentleman and offered to carry all the groceries. As he struggled to manage the bags, he also struggled to find his sunglasses. He said that now that he knew perfect strangers were photographing us, he felt "the need to look cool." And I must say, Tom was starting to look kinda hot. (28) Not because the glasses were anything special, but because I was having fun with a perfect stranger. A perfect stranger who I thought for sure was out to get me the day before.

Off we went to our final destination: Greenblatt's. My favorite deli. Greenblatt's is more than a deli; it's a place that houses the finest wine in the city. I ordered a case for my little dinner party, and we decided to sit and end our outing with a bite to eat. I was starving by now and ordered the pastrami on rye with spicy mustard, while Tom ordered the cheese-and-paté plate. I was like, Is that all you're going to eat? He replied, "After that Kevin Smith comment, I've been on a diet for the last thirty minutes." I thought to myself, Poor guy, he wouldn't last a minute in my shoes with that thin skin. Sure enough, a perfect stranger brought my sandwich and Tom instantly became moist at the mouth. (29) As I ripped into the meat like a wild boar eating its kill, I could see the desire on Tom's face. He immediately canceled his cheese plate and ordered what I had. And of course, like most people who have been on a diet for only thirty minutes, he was relieved to see the real food arrive. The funny part was that he said he wasn't going to eat the bread, as if the fatty pastrami was void of 80 percent of the calories of the meal. (30)

As the conversation wrapped up, I pulled out my credit card to pay. Tom stopped me from paying by noting that the meal was on the magazine. I thought, Oh, shit, right...we are doing an interview. However, the last two hours had felt like I was hanging with an old friend from back home. Then he reached his cupped left hand over the table toward my chest area and said, "Can I touch it?" In my mind, I was like, Whoa, playboy, slow it on down. I gave him one of my what-the-fuck looks, and he laughed and said, "I'm talking about your titanium Amex card." (31) Now that I felt knee-high to a bullfrog, I graciously passed him the card and did my best to play it off.

I watched the perfect stranger finish his sandwich. On another day, he'd just be a guy in a shop, lifting the pastrami off his perfectly good rye bread like a fool. But now I knew him. Him and his girlfriend and his screwups and his pain here and there in life. He knew mine, too. But everybody thinks they do. He looked past me, out the window. "The coast is probably clear," he said. "No one seems to know we're here." I smiled. The perfect stranger was my hero. He never asked me one dumb question, not one rhetorical question, not one question I had heard before, never invaded my personal boundaries, didn't really seem to care about my love life, and never asked me what it was like to kiss Bruce Willis. I looked at him again.

I never get to see a perfect stranger like that, looking out the window, caught in his own thoughts, worried about other perfect strangers with cameras. It was kinda sweet. "You think they know we're here?" he said, with mustard in his beard. I handed him a napkin. "They always do," I said. (32)

Then I told him he just didn't have a clue. (33)

 

Annotations, by Tom Chiarella

(1) Halle Berry wrote this. Every word. Like all writers, she got a lot of things wrong, and she should be held responsible for the content. Return to story.

***

(2) Oh, please, who believes that? Return to story.

***

(3) Here's a portrait for you: At this point, I was inside at the bar, having been there in advance, having spent some nugget of time talking to a young woman who claimed to be a professional shopper for the wives of athletes, me working to make small talk. She was having none of it. She drank champagne with a drop of Chambord. I asked her what that tasted like. Reasonable question. She looked at me icily, but for a moment it seemed as if she could see me. "What it tastes like," she said. For a moment, I thought this was the first part of her answer and that more was coming. But she kept quiet, and silence hung between us. I felt like I was made of clay. That was her answer. It was the old Redd Foxx bit. Q: What is it? A: What it is. It felt like an omen. Me, talking to a woman sick to death of talking to men she didn't know. Christ. Here we go, I thought. I sucked on my drink. I didn't have any more questions. I tried like hell not to order a second. I searched my heart to find some shred of interest in the Laker game on the television. I bided my time. Return to story.

***

(4) The hostess came and got me. The professional shopper didn't look to see who was meeting the old fat guy. I flipped her off, without anyone seeing, before I left. The hell with it, I thought. Return to story.

***

(5) Funny, she looked exactly like I suspected. I mean exactly. She was small; all movie stars are small. Or I am big. (See footnotes 9, 20, 22, 26, 30, and paragraphs throughout the body of the text referring to my weight and/or my apparent resemblance to romanticized, overly friendly bears.) Her skin: flawless. Her hands: finespun, delicate, untroublesome to her as she talked. Eyes: clear as a glass of water, eyelashes ticked with mascara. Or maybe not. I could see she was exhausted with the thought of me even then, within a moment of meeting me. I knew that face. It was the face that says, I got forty-five minutes for you, no more. Return to story.

***

(6) I never like meeting celebrities. Worst part of the job, really. Invading someone's life, if only for a moment -- lousy. Everything you do is built upon a trust that is illusory at best, an utter lie at worst. The subjects have something they're supposed to say, and they've said it many times in the weeks prior. They let you into their lives grudgingly and utter everything through an unseen megaphone, clear and safe, sometimes staring at the recorder so that everyone will hear. There's the recorder to fuss with and a transcript to produce. And me? I don't want to be noticed in a restaurant. My coats are jenky, my pants hang badly, and my hair, just fuck it. I never want my photo taken. Though I like movies, I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would want to be an actor. I generally throw up all morning or sit around in my Yankees T-shirt like a depressed frat boy watching The Price Is Right in my hotel room. Esquire writer at large Scott Raab told me he feels sickest in those moments before the car picks him up to go to the dinner or whatever. That's when he has to remind himself that they asked him to do this. That's what I was telling myself then: They asked me. Me. It's somehow valuable to know that the term "freakish monster" comes to mind for H.B. But, hey, they asked me. Return to story.

***

(7) I really object to this whole "teddy bear" thing. "Grizzly bear" would be fine. Return to story.

***

(8) I just got a haircut. Return to story.

***

(9) I was buzzed. It takes the danger out of me. Maybe the harmlessness I projected had to do with the fact that I was still turning over Redd Foxx's words in my head. What is it? I kept asking. What it is, I answered. It was the only question I could think of now. Worse, I knew that face and I could see she was exhausted by the thought of me, like I said. I wanted to ask H.B., What is it? But she looked me up and down and I felt like a fat goofball. What it is, I told myself. Return to story.

***

(10) Every person in that restaurant, and there were maybe forty, said her name softly when she came in, to the person they were with, to themselves, to the air, I guess. And what it sounded like was a retarded chorus, something like hallabell, hallabell, hallabell. And even though everyone was whispering politely, pretending to be unfazed, you heard it like a giddy hiss of some dim frequency as we moved toward our table. She took no notice, didn't duck out of the attention, and walked straight through. I saw her do that again and again over the next two days. The woman could walk a steel wire through an ice storm. In heels. Always in heels. (She is small. They all are.) Return to story.

***

(11) I love this phrase. The thing about H.B. was she had lots of these little homespun sayings, which she would say mostly under her breath, so I would either have to ask after what she just said or simply laugh and pretend I heard. Return to story.

***

(12) It was like this: We were sitting together at one end of a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Night had fallen hard enough that the world outside wasn't recognizable. Neither of us was eating much. (See footnote number 5 on my weight issue.) We'd been there for two hours. I had a digital tape recorder in my pocket, and I kept thinking about taking it out. But things were going well. And I knew it would never work if we went on the record. She kept looking at the space on the table between us, that little strip of tablecloth where the recorder goes, the space that signifies "This is a working dinner" to everyone -- waiter, writer, celebrity herself, passerby -- so that no one worries this might just be two friends talking. And I just didn't take the recorder out. I just sat there, thinking I'd better memorize every detail of this event. What she ate (can't remember). What her hair looked like (can't remember). What sort of jewelry she wore (can't remember). What she was wearing (a knit dress, some cleavage, it looked expensive), if she made eye contact (she did, much more than I), how she used her fork (properly, I thought). And when I told her the list of things I didn't care about -- nakedness in Swordfish, sex in Monster's Ball, if she wanted to have a baby -- she laughed and said, "Then I will kiss your feet." So I left the recorder in my pocket, and we sat there talking about our own failures in marriage and how much we loved the people we were with now. But she misquotes me. Let's make that clear at the outset. And she really has no excuse, since I gave her the pen myself. I even gave her the paper to write on. Return to story.

***

(13) I did not say this. She did ask me about teaching, and my answer was long and nuanced. I tried to speak quickly enough so that she would have a hard time taking notes, hoping that she might ask for my recorder. Fast talkers are tough. That's where a writer panics a little. But she seemed to know some sort of shorthand. And I babbled. I enjoy reading, I told her. I believe in the power of stories. I dove in and told her about teaching Invisible Man the year before. I rambled. At one point, she followed up: "Do you like being around twenty-two-year-old women?" I believe I shrugged and said, Sure, who doesn't? Hence, that answer. It's true, but it isn't. I could sense that she was setting a trap with it, but I figured the context would keep me safe. When I see it now, I think, Very smart. Return to story.

***

(14) I did not say this, either. Return to story.

***

(15) This was not my answer. These were the answers to three follow-up questions over fifteen minutes. Return to story.

***

(16) Let me explain. I told her my ex-wife used to come home from work and ask me how my day went. I would tell her I gave three B's, two C's, went to one committee meeting, and played a game of pickup basketball. Dull. Hey, I was a college professor living in Indiana. Then I'd ask her how her day went, and she would describe pulling a baby the size of her hand from the womb of a crack-addled thirty-year-old who spouted Scripture in lieu of an epidural. She would cry like hell, too. Nothing linked up for us, I told Halle. Nurses, I said, have better stories. I was perfectly willing to explain. I just didn't want to talk about my ex-wife. H.B. mixes and mingles the answers for effect. I admire her for it. The rest of that had nothing to do with her story. Return to story.

***

(17) I said all this. Of course, it was after an eight-minute description of the play itself, after a fifteen-minute description of the depth of my love for this woman (Chris), after I told her that drama tended to bore me, and after she talked about how she (Halle) maintained a residence in New York mostly so she could go to plays. Did she quote any of that? Of course not. She left all that behind -- the way a good profiler does -- because what the subject wants you to know is not what you're after. It's what they guard that matters to the reader. She smiled when I brought up Rae Dawn Chong. She seemed to know her and was impressed that she was in the play. I said, "I know. It's pretty cool of her to come out to Indiana to do this." H.B. replied: "Pretty hot." I probably nodded my big head, my fat face, my shaggy mop, like a fool. I probably went on chewing without thinking I had said a goddamned thing. I'm certain I concurred in some way. So I brought it on myself; it's that way with reporters. But I did not say this. Halle Berry is the one who thinks Rae Dawn Chong is hot. (She is, too.) But I didn't say it. Return to story.

***

(18) I have so many objections to this I could spit. I would never say "okkkkkaaaayyyy." I don't even know what that word sounds like. She was the one who asked, "You didn't like the orange bikini?" And I said, "Well, sure. Yes. I liked it. I mean, it was fine." Then I looked at her and said, "Great bikini," like a jackass. Return to story.

***

(19) I do like B.A.P.S., for which she has always taken a bad rap. If you're Jim Carrey doing Dumb and Dumber, you're some sort of genius. If you're H.B., just as self-consciously messing with ghetto stereotypes, then you're a fool. It was her question, so I didn't ask, but there was no regret in her voice when she talked about it. She laughed when I brought it up, smiled while I held court on physical comedy. She agreed. The fat man is right: That shit was funny. Return to story.

***

(20) Here she reveals that she knows how reporters misquote her or ignore the depth of her answers. She connects sentences that came minutes apart. She condenses. I get it. There's nothing else to do. A writer has only so many words. The clock dwindles on a dinner with every bite you take. You get a few lines to capture what the subject thinks about her next movie. (H.B.'s is called Perfect Stranger, which I just now realized -- only after reading her article twenty times in draft -- is why she keeps using the phrase over and over. Lord, I'm a dumbass.) So, Perfect Stranger: Bruce Willis. Murder. Online love. She kisses him, I think.

When she asked to write the piece herself, I told her all of that and more. I said, You have to look at the other person and ask, What gives him staying power? Why do people like him? Then you have to determine one thing that you learned through close physical proximity, one thing that no one would know from watching him on film. That's the hard part. "You have to risk humiliating the person," I said. "That's the key: risk."

She nodded and wrote that word down.

"What have you learned about me?" I said.

She looked at me again. Now she could see me. "You're pretty nice," she said.

I took a bite of my fish, eschewing my mashed yams. "So what? Some people think ferrets are nice. What did you learn that the reader might not know?"

"You're big," she said.

"So? You're small. Means nothing. I'm not even going to mention it. Who doesn't know that?"

"Well," she said, looking me up and down. "You're heavy?"

"Heavy? You aren't writing an article about gravity. Risk humiliating me."

She drank a little and said, "You're fat."

"Right!" I said, taking a forkful of grilled endive. I spun it around like I was working with a group of musicians, half conducting, half asking the performance to begin. "Play that up. Show them what you see." (What a horrible fucking mistake.)

"That's the only rule?" she said.

I shrugged and forked around in the remains of my mango chutney. "That, and never mention what the person is eating for dinner. That's pretty old hat for a magazine profile." Return to story.

***

(21) Here she opens up the conceit. She's saying, "No one knows me." No big secret -- they all think that, movie stars. But this is the one assertion that H.B. both guards and asserts in everything she does, from the way she glides through the lightning storm of photographers that swings behind her on an invisible rope of attraction to the way she orders a liquor-soaked cake for a party (see note 22) with a distant, somehow quizzical look, the one she patented in Bulworth and Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, a look conveying both a level of hurt and the presence of real sinew. She glances away when she orders, counting her friends on an invisible hand. Then she thinks about it and shrugs. Return to story.

***

(22) I admit that I took out a paragraph here, where H.B. took me to a bakery to buy a cake for her party the next night, because she wrote that she felt guilty bringing a fat man to a bakery. (She used the words pudgy and decadent.) But, Christ, enough already with the weight. I just lost sixteen pounds. I was feeling pretty good until this whole celebrity-profile thing. These people are obsessed. When I asked her who was coming to the party, she said friends. When I asked her who they were, she said, "Friends. You know. Teachers. Veterinarians. People from my neighborhood. Friends." Return to story.

***

(23) But here she is blurring her use of the term "perfect strangers," which is the way she wants to describe the two of us (perfect strangers who hit it off) and the greasy shithead paparazzi who follow her all day and night taking pictures. They were everywhere we went. At this point, sixteen hours into an eighteen-hour relationship, I was sick of them, too. But H.B. is twenty years with this stuff now, and she was graciously indifferent, like a woman in the presence of a shitty ex-boyfriend. There's history. She could say something to them. But she won't. Return to story.

***

(24) "Cuddly Bear?" WTF? What happened to "teddy bear"? Even that was better. Return to story.

***

(25) When I shouted "Fuck you" to them, it seemed to make her immensely happy, and the "Fuck You Twice" thing was really just to get a laugh from her, because it's sweet when H.B. laughs. But check your notes, ace reporter: This happened when we were on the way out. Return to story.

***

(26) I think I ate one sample of Stilton and a piece of Asian pear. Jesus. Return to story.

***

(27) Fuck Kevin Smith, too. Return to story.

***

(28) Now that you can print. Return to story.

***

(29) Not sure what this means. But she's the writer. Return to story.

***

(30) Hey, genius, ever heard of the Atkins diet? Return to story.

***

(31) I heard they were made of metal. I wanted to check. It was. Very cool. Return to story.

***

(32) I looked at her, too. It's what you do in moments like that. On the flight out to L.A., I'd read a fairly useless clip file on her. My preinterview read on the subject was dull. I thought, She gives the same answers every time. Then it turned out the problem wasn't her answers; it was the questions people asked. So I gave the questions over to her.

What I was thinking at that moment, with the pastrami in my fingertips, was: I might be in a lot of trouble. I'd just conducted an interview for a cover story without getting one quote on record, all on the faith that she would actually do what she said she wanted to: write the thing herself. I was thinking, That's never going to happen. Every movie star thinks writing is easy. I was thinking, Fuck me, I am in so much trouble.

She knew I was a little worried. What she doesn't narrate in her piece is that she looked at me there at the deli and asked me Redd Foxx's question: "What is it?"

"What it is," I said, "is that I don't have a single quote from you I can bank on. I might be in a lot of trouble if you don't write your part. Writing can be no fun. It's pretty hard actually."

She told me to take out the recorder then. "What do you see?" she asked, once I pushed the button. "What do you think people see in me?"

I'd been thinking about this. About how she was always alone in pictures. About how hard it is to be twice divorced, to have the world know your troubles. I figured I had it nailed: "I think people assume you have a sadness inside of you," I said. "They respond to some level of pain they pick up in your affect, your face, in you."

She smiled. "Directors always say that. They say, 'I want to work to show your sadness onscreen.' "

Just then, I felt pretty smart. I'd hit on something. She was telling me that I was insightful, like a director. A real pro. Then she went on: "Fans say it. Reviewers say it. I've been hearing it all my career. The truth is, it isn't so. My mother provided for me. I've made money. I've lived a charmed life. I've never been without. And whatever mistakes I made, well, shit, everybody has to learn from the past. You live it or you leave it. I'm not sad. I know what I am. But you don't. I'm monumentally happy, if you want to know the truth."

That was when she handed me the napkin. And she had mustard on her face, too. That was when I noticed the recorder wasn't running after all. Return to story.

***

(33) Tell me about it. Return to story.

Meet The Team

- Watch New Clip From

Noel Clarke's

Sport's Comedy

"Fast Girls"

News by Tambay | May 26, 2012

 

Written by and co-starring Noel Clarke (Kidulthood, 4.3.2.1), the forthcoming drama Fast Girls stars a multiracial cast, and centers on a street-smart runner who forms a rivalry with an equally ambitious wealthy athlete.

Clarke appears in the film as the girls' coach.

Also starring are Lenora Critchlow, Lily James, Bradley James, Lorraine Burroughs, Lashana Lynch and Hannah Frankson.

A new clip from the film has surfaced, which introduces us to the Girls and their coach; it opens June 15 in the UK: