: About Me

A poet, playwright and fiber artist, I'd say most of my creative works are about women, culture, folklore, many things Southern, the nature of relationships and current events. My art quilts also use many of these elements and often incorporate original text excerpts from my poems.

On the Helium site, I enjoy writing about anything that helps me remain an avid, lifelong student of our evolving world. So far, that has helped me cover a lot of ground, including:

Culture
Style & Beauty
Ethnic Issues
Divorce
Biographies
Literature
Celebrity
Business
AIDS

In previous career phases, I have worked as a print journalist, small business owner, corporate trainer, marketing writer and creative writing instructor.

I am proud mother to two brilliant children and enjoy spending time near large bodies of water in the Carolinas and Georgia, especially Sweetwater Lake and the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta, Lake Gaston in North Carolina and Ashley Lake in Charleston, South Carolina.

My stage plays have been produced on the U.S. East Coast and in the Midwest. I have published three volumes of poems. My third, Exquisite Heats, was released by UK-based Salt Publishing in November 2008.

I recently helped a friend open a new restaurant in Raleigh, NC.

My passion is ...

Words and Sounds (especially Music)

I know too much about ...

People ... both what I've been told and what I've gathered from avid "people-watching."

My parents always told me ...

"Tell the truth and shame the devil."

My childhood ambition ...

I wanted to be a pediatrician and an attorney.

My favorite memory ...

Watching the clowns pile into the chartreuse VW bug at Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus - ALL 22 OF THEM! My brother and I sat with our mouths open in wonder all the way home.

Why I write ...

Because I must.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Verse plays, movies by Lars von Trier, music by Noel Gourdin, Eric Benet, Adele, Al Green, Sara Bareilles, Eisa Davis, Eva Cassidy, Amel Larrieux and Frank McComb.

My first job ...

McDonald's - it lasted for one whole greasy week.

My best moment ...

Getting my first publishing contract and giving birth to my children.

My inspiration ...

John Coltrane, Gregory Hines, bodies of water, Adrienne Kennedy, my children.

Arts & Humanities > American Literature African-American authors: A modern perspective of the works of Richard Wright

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In 1940, the grisly image of Bigger Thomas beheading Mary Dalton and stuffing her body into a furnace was almost unimaginable. In the age in which Wright's "Native Son" is set - during the U.S. Jim Crow era - the novel's protagonist performs one of the biggest social taboos of the time. Not only has he, a black man, murdered a white woman, but he also has been sexually attracted to her. The racially charged national political stage of the 1940s would have made these two acts by any black punishable by death, both legally and illegally. As a killer, Richard Wright's most memorable antihero ...

More..

Rating:

• 4Writing Contest Winner
• Helium Charter Member