VIDEO: “Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth” Indiegogo Campaign > Shadow and Act

“Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth”

Indiegogo Campaign

A few months ago I mentioned Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth an upcoming documentary feature film by award-winning British filmmaker, Pratibha Parmar, about the titular writer and activist.

The film, which will include contributions from Danny Glover and Steven Spielberg, among others, has been four years in the making and is 85% complete. However, in order to complete a rough cut, the crowd funding route is being taken via an indiegogo campaign. To find out more about it, you can visit the campaign page HERE.

For a sneak peek at the film, take a look at the video below.

Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth - Trailer from Kali Films on Vimeo.

 

ECONOMICS: We're Rich B*otch! > kiss my black ads

We're Rich B*otch!

 

African-Americans' buying power is expected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to The State of the African-American Consumer Report, released yesterday at a Washington, DC press conference.

The document was collaboratively developed by Nielsen, a leading global provider of insights and analytics into what consumers watch and buy, and The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a federation of more than 200 Black community newspapers across the U.S.

This growing economic potential presents an opportunity for Fortune 500 companies to examine and further understand this important, flourishing market segment. Likewise, when consumers are more aware of their buying power, it can help them make informed decisions about the companies they choose to support.

"Too often, companies don't realize the inherent differences of our community, are not aware of the market size impact and have not optimized efforts to develop messages beyond those that coincide with Black History Month," said Cloves Campbell, chairman, NNPA. "It is our hope that by collaborating with Nielsen, we'll be able to tell the African-American consumer story in a manner in which businesses will understand," he said, "and, that this understanding will propel those in the C-Suite to develop stronger, more inclusive strategies that optimize their market growth in Black communities, which would be a win-win for all of us."

The report, the first of annual installments in a three year alliance between Nielsen and NNPA, showcases the buying and media habits and consumer trends of African-Americans.

The 41st Annual Legislative Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Conference week's activities set the backdrop for the announcement. Flanked by civic, business and legislative leaders, Nielsen and NNPA executives spoke about the relevance and importance of the information shared in the report and the fact that it will be distributed in NNPA's 200+ publications, reaching millions of readers and online viewers.

"We see this alliance with NNPA as an opportunity to share valuable insights, unique consumer behavior patterns and purchasing trends with the African-American community," said Susan Whiting, vice chair, Nielsen. "By sharing, for example, that African-Americans over-index in several key areas, including television viewing and mobile phone usage, we've provided a better picture of where the African-American community can leverage that buying power to help their communities," she said. "Likewise, the information points businesses in the right direction for growing market share and developing long range strategies for reaching this important demographic group."

Consumer trends in the report include facts such as:

• With a buying power of nearly $1 trillion annually, if African-Americans were a country, they'd be the 16th largest country in the world.
 

• The number of African-American households earning $75,000 or higher grew by almost 64%, a rate close to 12% greater than the change in the overall population's earning between 2000 and 2009. This continued growth in affluence, social influence and household income will continue to impact the community's economic power.
 

• African-Americans make more shopping trips than all other groups, but spend less money per trip. African-Americans in higher income brackets, also spend 300% more in higher-end retail grocers more than any other high income household.

- There were 23.9 million active African-American Internet users in July 2011 -- 76% of whom visited a social networking/blog site.

-33% of all African-Americans own a smart phone.

- African-Americans use more than double the amount of mobile phone voice minutes compared to Whites -- 1,298 minutes a month vs. 606.

- The percentage of African-Americans attending college or earning a degree has increased to 44% for men and 53% for women.

The report is also available at www.nielsen.com and www.nielsen.com/africanamerican -- Nielsen's microsite which highlights tailored information to the African-American community. 

 

 

 

__________________________

Special Report:

The State of the African American Consumer

As businesses  look for opportunities to grow their companies and gain market share, it is critical that they understand new and emerging demands from consumers. It is also important for consumers to understand the value of their purchasing power as well. For example, African-Americans are projected to spend $1.1 trillion by 2015.

To address the growing needs of this diverse consumer group, Nielsen and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) have developed The State of the African-American Consumer Report.

We'd love to hear your thoughts about the report. Join the conversation on Facebook.

>via: http://www.nielsen.com/africanamerican

 

 

 

SOMALIA: K'Naan - Returning to Somalia After 20 Years > NYTimes.com

A Son Returns

to the Agony of Somalia


Toyin Odutola, Untitled 2011, Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, NY

K'Naan is a musician and poet.

Related in Opinion: Op-Ed Columnist: On Top of Famine, Unspeakable Violence (September 25, 2011)


Nabil.com  / K'naan, far right, among Somalis who just arrived to the refugee camp in Daadab, Kenya.

 

MOGADISHU, Somalia

ONE has to be careful about stories. Especially true ones. When a story is told the first time, it can find a place in the listener’s heart. If the same story is told over and over, it becomes less like a presence in that chest and more like an X-ray of it.

The beating heart of my story is this: I was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. I had a brief but beautiful childhood filled with poetry from renowned relatives. Then came a bloody end to it, a lesson in life as a Somali: death approaching from the distance, walking into our lives in an experienced stroll.

At 12 years old, I lost three of the boys I grew up with in one burst of machine-gun fire — one pull from the misinformed finger of a boy probably not much older than we were.

But I was also unusually lucky. The bullets hit everyone but me.

Luck follows me through this story; so does my luckless homeland. A few harrowing months later, I found myself on the last commercial flight to leave Somalia before war closed in on the airport. And over the years, fortune turned me into Somalia’s loudest musical voice in the Western Hemisphere.

Meanwhile, my country festered, declining more and more. When I went on a tour of 86 countries last year, I could not perform in the one that mattered most to me. And when my song “Wavin’ Flag” became the theme song for the World Cup that year, the kids back home were not allowed to listen to it on the airwaves. Whatever melodious beauty I found, living in the spotlight, my country produced an opposing harmony in shadows, and the world hardly noticed. But I could still hear it.

And now this terrible year: The worst famine in decades pillages the flesh of the already wounded in Somalia. And the world’s collective humanitarian response has been a defeated shrug. If ever there was a best and worst time to return home, it was now.

So, 20 summers after I left as a child, I found myself on my way back to Somalia with some concerned friends and colleagues. I hoped that my presence would let me shine a light into this darkness. Maybe spare even one life, a life equal to mine, from indifferently wasting away. But I am no statesman, nor a soldier. Just a man made fortunate by the power of the spotlight. And to save someone’s life I am willing to spend some of that capricious currency called celebrity.

We had been told that Mogadishu was still among the most dangerous cities on the planet. So it was quiet on the 15-seat plane from Nairobi. We told nervous jokes at first, then looked to defuse the tension. The one book I had brought was Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast.” I reached a chapter titled “Hunger Was Good Discipline” and stopped. That idea needed some contemplation. The very thing driving so many from their homes in Somalia was drawing me back there. I read on. Hemingway felt that paintings were more beautiful when he was “belly-empty, hollow-hungry.” But he was not speaking of the brutal and criminally organized hunger of East Africa. His hunger was beautiful. It made something of you. The one I was heading into only made ashes of you.

By now, the ride was bumpy. We were flying low, so I could see Baraawe and Merca, beauties of coastal towns that I had always dreamed of visiting. The pilot joked that he would try to fly low enough for my sightseeing, but high enough to avoid the rocket-propelled grenades.

FOR miles along that coast, all you see are paint-like blue water, beautiful sand dunes eroding, and an abandoned effort to cap them with concrete. Everything about Somalia feels like abandonment. The buildings, the peace initiatives, the hopes and dreams of greatness for a nation.

With the ocean to our backs, our wheels touch down in Mogadishu, at the airport I left 20 years before to the surround-sound of heavy artillery pounding the devil’s rhythm. Now there is an eerie calm. We clear immigration, passing citizens with AK-47’s slung over their shoulders.

It’s not a small task to be safe in Mogadishu. So we keep our arrival a secret until after we ride from the airport to the city, a ride on which they say life expectancy is about 17 minutes if you don’t have the kind of security that has been arranged for me.

Over breakfast at a “safe house,” I update my sense of taste with kidney and anjera (a bread), and a perfectly cooled grapefruit drink. Then we journey onto the city streets. It’s the most aesthetically contradictory place on earth — a paradise of paradox. The old Italian and locally inspired architecture is colored by American and Russian artillery paint. Everything stands proudly lopsided.

And then come the makeshift camps set up for the many hungering displaced Somalis. They are the reason I am here. If my voice was an instrument, then I needed it to be an amplifier this time. If my light was true, then I needed it to show its face here, where it counts. Nothing I have ever sung will matter much if I can’t be the mouth of the silenced. But will the world have ears for them, too?

I find the homeless Somalis’ arms open, waiting for the outside world and hoping for a second chance into its fenced heart. I meet a young woman watching over her dying mother, who has been struck by the bullet of famine. The daughter tells me about the journey to Mogadishu — a 200-mile trek across arid, parched land, with adults huddling around children to protect them first. This mother refused to eat her own food in order to feed abandoned children they had picked up along the way. And now she was dying because of that.

The final and most devastating stop for me was Banadir Hospital, where I was born. The doctors are like hostages of hopelessness, surrounded and outnumbered. Mothers hum lullabies holding the skeletal heads of their children. It seems eyes are the only ornament left of their beautiful faces; eyes like lanterns holding out a glimmer of faint hope. Volunteers are doing jobs they aren’t qualified for. The wards are over-crowded, mixing gun wound, malnutrition and cholera patients.

Death is in every corner of this place. It’s lying on the mattresses holding the tiny wrists of half-sleeping children. It’s near the exposed breasts of girls turned mothers too soon. It folds in the cots, all-knowing and silent; its mournful wind swells the black sheets. Here, each life ends sadly, too suddenly and casually to be memorialized.

In this somber and embittered forgotten place, at least they were happy to see I had come.

 

 

LIBYA: What is Libya’s new democracy if it is built on racial hatred?

What is Libya’s

new democracy

if it is built on racial hatred?


With the support of the great and the good, Libya is inching ever closer to what we hope will be a democratic future.

On 1 September 2011, leaders from some 60 countries gathered in Paris for a conference on the future of Libya and to deliberate on ways to support Libya’s government-in-waiting – the National Transitional Council (NTC).

The “friends of Libya” meeting hosted by French President, Nicholas Sarkozy and the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, pledged to maintain military pressure of Colonel Gadaffi and to release funds to support the NTC and a transition to democracy in Libya. Speaking at the event, Sarkozy said: “We are all committed to returning to Libya the money of yesterday for the building of tomorrow.”

Much would have surely been discussed at the event, not least, as the Russian media suggests,the scramble for Libya’s oil. But one important issue would have surely been ignored: the ongoing racially-motivated attack on Libya’s black population by the rebel forces.

These attacks on both African immigrants and black Libyans (part of the legacy of 19th Century slave trade) have largely remained on the periphery of mainstream media . The political establishment, supporting the rebels, have done even less to acknowledge these atrocities that tarnish the rebels’ pursuit of democracy.

The plight of Africans in Libya is nothing new. As far back as 1998, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed concern about Libya’s racist attacks on black migrant workers. In 2006, Human Right Watch documented instances of human right abuses against migrant workers. And again, the 13th session of the UN Human Rights Council, in February 2010, called on Libya to end “the racial persecution of two million black African migrants.” But violent attacks have escalated and by the end of August 2011, Africa Union chair, Jean Ping, made a plea for intervention.

At the start of the rebellion, the international media broadcasted reports from Libya that Colonel Gadaffi could be using African mercenaries, though humanitarian organisations have yet to find evidence of this. What there is evidence for however, is the indiscriminate killing of migrant workers, first by Gaddafi’s troops and then by the NATO-backed rebel forces.

In Misrata, a rebel slogan salutes “the brigade for purging slaves, black skin“. Looking at the mounting evidence, the blog, Human Rights Investigations has gone on to call it the “Libyan rebel ethnic cleansing and lynching of black people.”

With the involvement of NATO and now a diverse group of states offering support to Libya, these atrocities can no longer be ignored. Surely, though it is the rebels that pull the trigger, the blood of innocent black people is on all our hands?

In a joint letter published in the International Business Times in April, Obama, Cameron and Sakrozy spoke about the need to act in Libya stating: “We are convinced that better times lie ahead for the people of Libya…Our duty and our mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that.”

Does that concern for Libyans extend to its black population whose women are being raped, sons hanged and husbands murdered at random?

As the mainstream media remains largely apathetic to the plight of African migrants and focuses on the ‘heroic’ advance of the rebels, I fix my eyes on President Obama who, whether or not he knows it, likes it or accepts it, his election as the first black president of America brought hope to millions of black people located in various parts of the world. Will he give substance to that hope? Will his legacy include the pursuit of justice for the voiceless and persecuted?

It is worthwhile noting, not just for our elected leaders but for us all in whose name they act, the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, who once said: “A time comes when silence is betrayal”.

This footage from Al-Jazeera English examines the threat migrant workers were facing at the start of the rebel movement. Since then,  more shocking videos of the murder of black people have been posted on You Tube.

 

 

 

TROY DAVIS: Troy Davis’ last letter: Never stop fighting for justice and we will win! > San Francisco Bay View

Troy Davis’ last letter:

Never stop fighting for justice

and we will win!

September 24, 2011


by Troy Davis

 

To all:

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to human rights and human kindness. In the past year I have experienced such emotion – joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today. As I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health. But as she tells me, she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see firsthand, I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all. It compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis – this is a case about justice and the human spirit to see justice prevail.

I cannot answer all of your letters, but I do read them all. I cannot see you all, but I can imagine your faces. I cannot hear you speak, but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world. I cannot touch you physically, but I feel your warmth every day I exist.

So thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form. But because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time. And no matter what happens in the days and weeks to come, this movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated.

There are so many more Troy Davises. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can’t wait to stand with you. No matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing, “I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”

Never stop fighting for justice and we will win!

Troy Davis was murdered by the state of Georgia at 11:08 p.m. Sept. 21 for the murder of a white off-duty police officer in 1989, when he was 19. During the 19-plus years he’s been on death row, seven of the nine eyewitnesses have contradicted or recanted their testimony, there never was any physical evidence tying Troy to the crime, and the doubt that he committed it is as deep and wide as the ocean. But although more than a million people signed petitions, made phone calls, sent emails and rallied all over the world to save and free Troy, everyone who could have prevented his patently wrongful execution – from the Georgia Board of Pardons to the U.S. Supreme Court – refused. To send his grieving family, who worked so hard for his freedom, your love and condolences, email troyanthonydavis@yahoo.com.

 

Troy Davis’ family, who fought valiantly and tirelessly for his freedom from the time he was arrested 21 years ago until the state murdered him on Sept. 21, face multiple challenges. Troy quit school to help support and care for his younger sister Kim (left) when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, his older sister Martina (right) has led the fight for Troy while battling stage four breast cancer for the past decade and last year their mother (sitting beside Troy in front) died “of a broken heart,” the family said, when the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his last appeal. Troy's beloved nephew De'Jaun, who he helped raise, now 17, was the orator who electrified the crowd on execution day.

 

 

 

 Watch four videos (below) from All Things Harlem of the Day of Outrage for Troy Davis Sept. 22 in New York City

 

 

 

VIDEO: Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy": A Neuroscience Reading > Brain Pickings

Bobby McFerrin


Bobby McFerrin’s

“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”:

A Neuroscience Reading

by Maria Popova

Unpacking the lyrics of the iconic happiness anthem to find surprising science-tested insights on well-being.

In 1988, Bobby McFerrin wrote one of the most beloved anthems to happiness of all time. On September 24 that year, “Don’t Worry Be Happy” became the first a cappella song to reach #1 on the Billboard Top 100 Chart. But more than a mere feel-good tune, the iconic song is brimming with neuroscience and psychology insights on happiness that McFerrin — whose fascinating musings on music and the brain you might recall from World Science Festival’s Notes & Neurons — embedded in its lyrics, whether consciously or not.

To celebrate the anniversary of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” I unpack the verses to explore the scientific wisdom they contain in the context of several studies that offer lab-tested validation for McFerrin’s intuitive insight.


In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double

Our tendency to add more stress to our stress by dwelling on it is known is Buddhism as the second arrow and its eradication is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. But now scientists are confirming that worrying about our worries is rather worrisome. Recent research has found prolonged negative cardiac effects of worry episodes, following a 2006 study that linked worrying to heart disease.

Here, I give you my phone number
When you worry call me
I make you happy

Multiple studies have confirmed the positive correlation between social support and well-being, and some have examined the “buffering model,” which holds that social support protects people from the adverse effects of stressful events.

Harvard physician Nicholas Christakis has studied the surprising power of our social networks, finding profound and long-term correlation between the well-being, both physical and mental, of those with whom we choose to surround ourselves and our own.

Cause when you worry
Your face will frown
And that will bring everybody down

Mirror neurons are one of the most important and fascinating discoveries of modern neuroscience — neurons that fire not only when we perform a behavior, but also when we observe that behavior in others. In other words, neural circuitry that serves as social mimicry allowing the expressed emotions of others to trigger a reflection of these emotions in us. Frowns, it turns out, are indeed contagious.

Put a smile on your face

Pop-culture wisdom calls it “fake it ’till you make it”; psychotherapy calls it “cognitive behavioral therapy“; social psychology call it story editing. Evidence abounds that consciously changing our thoughts and behaviors to emulate the emotions we’d like to feel helps us internalize and embody those emotions in a genuine felt sense. Paul Ekman, who pioneered the study of facial expressions, found that voluntarily producing a smile may help deliberately generate the psychological change that takes place during spontaneous positive affect — something corroborated in the recently explored science of smiles.

Don’t worry, it will soon pass
Whatever it is

In 1983, UCLA psychologist Shelley E. Taylor published a seminal paper [PDF] in the journal American Psychologist proposing a theory of cognitive adaptation for how we adjust to threatening events, based on evidence from a number of clinical and empirical studies indicating that we grossly overestimate the negative impact of the events that befall us, from cancer to divorce to paralysis, and return to our previous levels of happiness shortly after these negative events take place.

As Daniel Gilbert puts it in Stumbling on Happiness, one of our 7 must-read books on the art and science of happiness, “The fact is that negative events do affect us, but they generally don’t affect us as much or for as long as we expect them to.”

* * *

So there you have it: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” timeless oracle of mental health science. For more on the profound and fascinating intersection of music and mind, see our omnibus of 7 essential books on music, emotion, and the brain.

 

VIDEO: Kern Koppen « AFRICA IS A COUNTRY

Kern Koppen

Music Break / Kern Koppen

September 23, 2011

by Tom Devriendt

Kern Koppen (met Zulu Boy, Zonke en EJ von Lyrik)

SKOP GAT

You might remember the Dutch band Kern Koppen from last year’s collaboration with South African artists Zuluboy, Zonke and EJ von Lyrik. (At the occasion of the World Cup, they called it Skop Gat.) Why their subsequent hit ‘Me Eigen’ didn’t travel beyond Holland’s airwaves, I still don’t know. The above music video (‘Geen Zweet’/No Sweat) is more recent. Low Countries soul at its best. About all those orange hatters plunging themselves into the sea: that’s what they do, each New Year.

 

PUB: The Kenyon Review — The International Journal of Literature, Culture and the Arts

Patricia Grodd Poetry Contest logo


The Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers recognizes outstanding young poets and is open to high school sophomores and juniors throughout the world. The contest winner receives a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop. In addition, the winning poem will be published in The Kenyon Review. The runners up will also see their poems published.

The contest is named in honor of Patricia Grodd in recognition of her generous support of The Kenyon Review and its programs, as well as her passionate commitment to education and deep love for poetry.

The final judge of the contest is KR poetry editor David Baker.

Submissions will be accepted electronically November 1 through November 30, 2011. The link to the submissions page for the contest will be active from this webpage on November 1, 2011.

Guidelines:

Only one submission per entrant

Must be a high school sophomore or junior to enter

File must be in one of the following formats:
.PDF (Adobe Acrobat)
.DOC (Microsoft Word)
.RTF (Rich Text Format)
.TXT (Microsoft Wordpad and Notepad, Apple TextEdit.)

 

 

 

 

PUB: 2012 International Letter Writing Competition for Young People (Posta Kenya) > Writers Afrika

2012 International

Letter Writing Competition

for Young People (Posta Kenya)

Deadline: 28 February 2012

Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) invites young people aged 15 years and below to participate in the 2012 International Letter Writing Competition for Young People.

The topic is: “Write a letter to an athlete or sports figure you admire to explain what the Olympic Games mean to you”.

Competition Rules are as follows:

1. The composition should be presented in the form of a letter.
2. The composition MUST include the first and surname, date of birth as well as sex of the participant.
3. The composition should not exceed 800 words.
4. The participant should indicate both private and school addresses for ease of communication. We will appreciate if the telephone number is also included, where available.
5. Parents and teachers should NOT assist in the essays.
6. The essays must be submitted by 28th February, 2012.
7. All letters must be sent by Post to the address given below. Appropriate postage stamps should be affixed on each envelope.
8. Only One entry will be allowed in each envelope posted.

All entries to be sent to:

Postmaster General
Postal Corporation of Kenya
P. O. Box 34567, GPO
NAIROBI, 00100

Attn: Manager/Corporate Communications

The prizes for the top three entries will be as follows:-

First prize - Kshs.50,000
Second prize - Kshs.30,000
Third prize - Kshs.20,000

Postal Corporation of Kenya will award the prizes to the three winners during the World Post Day celebrations to be marked on 9th October 2012.

For further information, don’t hesitate to contact our offices on the above address or telephones 3242472 / 3242064 / 3242102.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: info@posta.co.ke

For submissions: Postmaster General, Postal Corporation of Kenya, P. O. Box 34567, GPO NAIROBI, 00100

Website: http://www.posta.co.ke

 

 

PUB: Guerilla Basement

GB FICTION CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Guerilla Basement is calling for short fiction entries. This particular call for entries is in commemoration of “Cancer Awareness” month in October.

The aim is to explore the use of certain themes in both creative and experimental ways in literary fiction.

Submissions should be based on the theme of “Cancer”. The four stories selected will be published on the Guerilla Basement website through the month of October.

Deadline for submission is SEPTEMBER 25th, 2011

 Submission Guidelines

Stories must be previously unpublished and must be the exclusive work of the entrant.

Stories must be between 600 and 750 words.

Entry is free.

Only one submission per entrant is permitted.

Only online submissions are acceptable.

Entries should be emailed to wana@guerillabasement.com .

Paste story in the body of the e-mail. Use ‘Guerilla Basement Fiction’ in the subject line. Entries with attachments will be disqualified.

The email must contain the entrant’s name, the title of story, and the entrant’s physical address and contact phone number.

Simultaneous submissions are NOT acceptable.

Entries must be in English. 

Judging the entries will be award winning writer Chika Unigwe. Unigwe has been shortlisted for the Caine Prize, she has won the Commonwealth Short Story competition, written two children’s books and her short stories have appeared in several journals, anthologies and magazines. She is the author of The Phoenix and the critically acclaimed On Black Sisters Street.