Young Writers' Conference

At Bethany College on March 13th, I'll be keynote speaker for the Young Writers' Conference.
"Prairie-Dogging Your Way to a Story"

My Workshops will be "Creating a Character Out of Thin Air"

I love this!

Why I ride...Love this video I found...

African Folk Tales

When Joseph Mbele visited our class last week, one of the things he talked about is how folk tales can be so very valuable in learning about a culture. He said that's a way to understand what's important and what a culture sees as valuable and moral.  It made me very happy that I had already planned to make (force?) each student in my Humanities of South Africa class to present a South African Folk Tale to the rest of the class.

Joseph Mbele has a book of folk tales himself, which I am purchasing as soon as I get my next paycheck: These folk tales are from Tanzania, and I can't wait to read this.

Since we're studying South Africa, however, I found this book:

 Each student will get one folktale to present to the class through any means they choose:
storytelling
a skit (collaboration is encouraged)
a video/film
a powerpoint with appropriate pictures while telling...maybe even reading in that case
anything else they can think of.
Some of the stories include the following (Aren't the pictures spectacular!!??)

Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales was published by W.W.Norton&Company in 2002.
I can't list all the contributors or artists, but the book is worth checking out.Everything is copyrighted, so I only gave you a little sampling here.
I can't wait to see what my students do with these stories! 

Joseph Mbele's book AFRICANS AND AMERICANS

Our class, "Culture and History of South Africa,"  read Africans and Americans: Embracing Cultural Differences last week. The author, Joseph Mbele came to visit us on Tuesday. It was unanimously considered a DELIGHT.

The book is a fast read, and Joseph Mbele writes in a converational, welcoming style that sucks you right in, keeps you laughing, and keeps you reading. 

In person, Joseph proved to be one of the most brilliant, funny, warm, and gentle human beings I've ever met. My students loved him; the two hours with him flew past.


Africans and Americans: Embracing Cultural Differences by Joseph L. Mbele
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was the most delightful read about the differences between Africans and Americans and how we relate to each other. My students loved it, found it fascinating, and flew through it.


If you have students, friends, neighbors, classmates, ANYBODY you know from Africa, this book is for you. If you are traveling to Africa, like my students and I are, it's a MUST.

Best part? Now whenever I am late (no, that never happens), I can say I'm on AFRICA TIME.

View all my reviews

Dog in the ditch

Dog in the ditch

Please don’t chase me

I’m tired

I can’t outsprint you

Today.

I spent all day pulling students,

A paceline toward understanding

the Harlem Renaissance.

They drafted,

I pulled. We got there but

And I’m tired.

You carve a parallel

path through the snowy ditch,

I rise on the pedals,

Sprint over muddy

Icy gravel

Legs remember

Miles in the bank

I race you

And win

You trot home

Through the snow

Good dog

To remind me

Why I am out here

On this inconsequential gravel road

on my heavy winter mountain bike

And no longer tired

South Africa, here we come.

Three months from now, we will be in South Africa. The reality is sinking in.

South Africa has been on my "bucket list" since I first read The Power of One, probably back in 1992. I'm rereading this novel now because I'm teaching it in my Humanities Special Topics: The Culture and History of South Africa course. It's a long, dense novel, but it gives a sweeping sense of South African history from the turn of the 20th century (the Boer War) to Apartheid.  I've taught the novel in World Lit. and Film class, but this time, I've spent so much time trying to absorb South African history, that it all makes much more sense...and I can see more clearly how it's a historical novel, a political novel, and the story of one man's sense of self and inner strength, and a great criticsim of all racism and prejudice. Realizing that it's based on the author Bryce Courtenay's life is all that keeps the sweeping epic from being unbelievable.

There's a great moment on the first page of chapter 21, where Courtenay says the Nationalist Party won the election and came into power in 1948 because they promised that they'd bring back WHITE BREAD isntead of the healthier, more rustic whole wheat loaf which had been introduced during the war!
Apartheid ensued immediately. A short description follows:

"...for the invention of a new game where black South Africans voluntarily fell on their heads from the third story of police headquarters to the pavement below. It was curious that the whites, renowned for their sporting prowess, never learned how to play this game, and there isn't a single instance of a whilte South African becoming proficient at it. Nobody ever got their Sprinbok blazer for this new national game, even though a lot of very good heads played it with great courage."

"Morrie[the protagonist's best buddy], in a grim pun, said the election of the Nationalists to power was one of the crummiest moments in the history of any people."  (Courtenay 415).

On the other, more practical hand, I'm trying to keep all ducks in a row: the paperwork, the student questions, the planning, the budget (of which Scott is in charge, but I feel responsible for the SCC end of things), trying to be of help in fundraising, etc., etc.

Thursday, Caryn Lindsey, Director of International Programs at MSU came to class and led my students through the application process for their ISICs (International Student Identification Cards).  All of my students have passports. Two more things checked off the TO DO list.

Sout Africa, here we come.

Cited:
Courtenay, Bryce. The Power of One. New York: Random House, 1989.

Medusa, Historical fiction, South Africa, and other thoughts

Medusa!
I revised my Medusa book for Capstone press. It's Medusa's side of the story--with my Greek mythology obsession, it was a FUN book to write. It's moving fairly quickly through the editorial process, but I still don't know when it will be out on the market. I really like how the story turned out.

I think it will be in 2013, which means, at least, that I have had a publication in 2009, 2011, 2012, and maybe 2013. That also means I gotta get CRANKING on revising Slider's Son so there's a chance it come come out by the end of 2014!!!  I've also got some tips that this is not such a bad time for historical fiction as the last few years. Don't know if that's true or not, but I want to go with that thought! I have a three-day weekend. Maybe I can dig in and get something done. I've written so little this year since school started. It's easy to get disheartened, but at least I have great classes and students.

I'm teaching The Power of One in my South Africa Humanities class. I have been wondering for several years why the author Bryce Courtenay moved to Australia for the rest of his life. I JUST found out, doing some research, that it's because while he was a teenager, he started a school for Africans. Blacks were NOT supposed to learn to read under Apartheid, and he was labeled a communist as a result, and exiled from his country at age 17. Holy smoke. No wonder I love this guy. He just died three months ago. I'm sad I didn't make a pilgrimage to go meet the man. -->

Back to the grindstone.