THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE MEDIUM WRITERS CHALLENGE JUDGES (Part Six)
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(really just stuff I found out about these people while procrastinating, which I turned into multiple articles, and can now call “research”)
(This is PART SIX of a six-part article. Click here to begin at PART ONE.)
Imani Perry
As stated previously, lead me down a James Baldwin rabbit hole. I don’t remember the entire intellectual drunken stumble to her wise, challenging and brazen Twitter feed, but here is how the Baldwin / Buckley sojourn occurred.
“The World of the Imani” intrigued me instantly, partially due to the above tweet, but also because she is from Alabama.
I know, I know, but I can’t help it. If someone is clearly not an overt racist, I can’t help that leap in my heart that goes “My people, let’s talk Southern!” regardless of skin color, or even actual state of birth, provided it is actually Southern — detailed explanation forthcoming — they feel like “my people.” I will be totally honest, my heart does not do that same leap so much for Texans. In part because even Texans usually just think of themselves as Texans and only “heart-leap” for other Texans, am I right?…
Obviously, those deemed “Southern” would be those from “The South,” which is South of The Mason-Dixon Line. Generally, my own “heart-leap” connection is for folks from states considered “The Deep South,” I reckon, but also I include Tennessee (cuz I went on choir tour there), North Carolina (cuz I went to summer school there) and Kentucky (cuz I taught Bible school to mountain folk poorer than me there.) Why these states are not considered “The Deep South” I have no idea. I have gotten into entirely unnecessary debates about the “Southern” legitimacy of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia and Virginia as I do not believe they are truly “Southern,” but I am a different person now and have asked for forgiveness from The Creator of all states and hope those Southern wannabes forgive me too.
Back to TRUE Southerner, Imani… who knows how to “slow read” James Baldwin, and no doubt, anything that is important.
Imani wins my “Most Makes Me Want to Spend the Day at the Library Making Up For My Lame-Ass Colonized Education, After Getting a Cute Top and Doing Something With My Hair” Award. Just reading interviews with her is a revelation, but what can I say, I love her style!
(Sue me if I am not higher-minded than lusting after Eve L. Ewing’s shoes and Imani’s excellent curl management when I have barely been out of my pajamas in a year and a half. I am a woman still evolving.)
Imani can speak pointedly on “liberation feminism” and the life and work of Lorraine Hansberry, teach Ivy Leaguers, navigate an autoimmune disease, and raise two sons, all while wearing cute outfits and having many good hair days. (I swear I have a dress I saw on her Insta on one of my vision boards.)
And though her work is steeped in research, and her academic lettering will make her head spin, like all the best writers, she brings her full self to the party. When she talks about her book Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation in the above referenced interview it is clear she knows that when a malignant force attacks a whole system, you don’t just treat the symptoms.
Feminism is ultimately a way of reading the world with an eye towards reducing or eliminating unjust forms of domination, violence, and exploitation. ~ Imani Perry
Imani has also kicked the asses of racist police… metaphorically speaking. (In case you haven’t gotten the memo, things are not pretty for Black people just driving their cars and minding their business in our country. I’ll leave it there.)
Which actually leads me back to Mr. Baldwin…
Imani’s tweet also caused me to recollect my super naïve, but fervent 6th grade book report on James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. (The book was banned in our elementary school library at the time so I had to check it out of the public library.) I am certain the report, somehow accepted by my teacher, and which I’m sure I didn’t show my parents, had a very “Y’all need to ‘get woke’” tone. Bless my heart. Now I want to read the book again, or at least watch the movie, which I somehow missed entirely!
Let’s talk about what Imani has done for the art form that saved my life.
Theatre!
As a theatre-maker myself, anyone writing in-depth about iconic theatre-makers has my respect. Discovering how Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs finally came to the stage is something I should have learned in Theatre History at the fancy performing arts college I went to, but I did not. (I want to be fair and say that could have been a week I was viciously depressed and don’t remember.) Nor did I know there was a collection of Hansberry’s work post- A Raisin in the Sun. I am beyond excited to read Imani’s Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry AND Hansberry’s other work.
(Interestingly, in this interview Imani talks about Hansberry’s What Use Are Flowers?, a play I’d never heard of, and in it a character questions the purpose of flowers. I was stunned and moved. When a family member of mine shot and killed herself I wrote a short play for a festival I was producing, one for which I normally would not have written a piece. It was called Dying Before We Get There. All the characters were flowers. They describe the joy of being flowers, then their horror, and finally their fury, about people being killed by guns, as none of them want to be tasked with consoling the inconsolable. I love this play and the way the actors rendered it. I wrote it in about 8 hours and it was one of those times I really felt I did something good with my talent, but knowing Ms. Hansberry had questions similar to mine, and that she didn’t get to ask more of those kinds of questions, made my heart ache. I am grateful to Imani for that discovery about her.)
The final inspiration I share from my Perry-lous adventure (yes, these are the jokes, folks), is an excerpt from a letter Ms. Hansberry sent to her boyfriend, Robert Nemiroff, whom she would later marry.
1. I am a writer. I am going to write.
2. I am going to become a writer.
3. Any real contribution I can make to the movement can only be the result of a disciplined life. I am going to institute discipline in my life.
4. I can paint. I am going to paint.
The END
What she said. Except, I don’t paint well. I do other things though, and I DO have a glue gun, so anything could happen.
Natalie Portman
So ya think ya know ? I can assure you I did not think that. I am one of the five people who have not even seen Black Swan. I am not a horrible person, nor do I consider myself an uncommitted actor.
Let me explain not viewing Natalie’s Oscar winning performance. (See her humble Oscar speech below.)
As I believe I stated previously, I went to a performing arts conservatory for college and there I watched ballet dancers struggle with weight and scary competitiveness, and near insanity, so I have had quite my fill of that. I also have personal experiences with mental illness that caused the dark cinematic gem that is Black Swan to get gently shuffled to the back of my “To Watch” list, but it IS on it. (P.S. 2010 was also a hard year for me, not one I’d “Black Swan” all over.)
I’m ready now for Black Swan. Maybe even this week. Not Friday though. That’s Ted Lasso night. Even Natalie would understand those priorities, given the world we are living in.
I had a huge embarrassing light bulb moment when I opened “La Porte de Natalie” (that is genius, accepting ZERO feedback on that bit of wordsmithery). I realized the little girl in Léon: The Professional who looked like my little sister was Natalie Portman!
WHA-?!
Not too long after graduating from the aforementioned performing arts conservatory, I watched Léon: The Professional, alone in a darkened theater in Boston, riveted. Fancy school, perhaps. “Gifted,” maybe. Brilliant, at putting 2 and 2 together? Not so much, apparently.
Here are some definitely worth-knowing things about Natalie outside of her impressive acting career. (By the way, I’m an actor. Acting is hard, and it’s enough, but she has done other cool stuff, too.)
ACTUALLY, let me pause for a moment and say this…
Winning an Oscar IS awesome.
Or an Emmy.
Or a Pulitzer.
Or a PEN .
Or a Hugo.
Having a podcast is killer.
Yes, writing a book… or several, is pretty rockstar.
But writing even one SENTENCE that is yours makes you a walking vision board!
Living your dream for ONE minute is brave.
TRYING IS ENOUGH!
If there is any part of you comparing yourself to these judges, or thinking, “I should have already…” or “I haven’t won…”, if you’re writing ANY unhelpful story in your head that makes you feel shitty, stop that!
That’s not the point of this article. The ONLY requirement of life is to really try, and as someone who was FROZEN for YEARS, knowing what I was capable of, but unable to make myself do any of it, I can honestly say IT ALL COUNTS… even when you can’t move.
I have no idea why I plopped that right in the middle of my commentary on Natalie. Perhaps because I definitely thought, sitting in that dark theater in Boston so many years ago, that I would be somewhere very different now, and for a long time, that was excruciatingly painful, and now, I wouldn’t change a thing. And I have a lot of compassion for those who feel that same pain, who don’t know yet they are exactly where they are supposed to be.
You’re perfect over there. You are.
(Oh, and if you’re doing evil stuff… that is coming down the pike too, but I’m not exactly talking to you at the moment.)
Aaaaand back to Natalie (who does not appear to be evil.)
Here’s a very cool thing. Natalie works with FINCA International, an organization that promotes micro-lending to help finance women-owned businesses in developing countries.
If you check out the below video you’ll be reminded how far a little generosity goes. Be sure to give generously to yourself, before you give to others, or else things could go Black Swan.
So what qualifies Natalie to judge your writing? Here’s an interesting little tidbit. Now, like our good friends Kurt Andersen, Eve L. Ewing and Imani Perry, Natalie went to Harvard University as well.
Now, I dated a couple of guys who went to Harvard when I went to school in Boston, not all geniuses. I also dated one really sweet guy who went to MIT and lived in the fraternity next door. That fraternity’s walls bled beer. So Ivy League cred alone does not necessarily make a reliable judge… of anything. (For the record, my own discernment has improved.)
But Natalie was considered an exceptional student and her paper on new methods of lie detection earned her an A+ — the highest grade in the class.
She graduated with a Psychology degree. So, obviously, she’ll be poking around in your head Space (hint, hint) when she does her evaluating. 😆
And you might not know that she re-crafted some classic children’s stories into a children’s book. Yup, Natalie Portman’s Fables… crafty. These re-tellings put particular emphasis on patience, resilience, hard work, and being eco-friendly (likely that was a given when these tales were originally penned, but now something that should be leaned into.) There is also a message of anti-materialism.
“You don’t need all that stuff.”
If I recall, in most fables everybody is just trying to stay alive, wolves and witches excepted, who are often on killing sprees, made to look like a greedy, evil lot. So prejudiced. Natalie gives villains a bit of a break as well.
(Note to self: Brainstorm “Trailer Park Fables.” Old dogs, feral cats, and abandoned tires that give sage advice.)
Take a peek at her version.
Bonsu Thompson
’s LinkedIn profile makes no apologies about what he has been up to in his career and he has a dapper pic to go with it. I wish Bonsu had been available when I applied for my first-ever grant this past April (50k, go big or go home, right?), when it was time for me to write the “Artist Narrative.”
I am absolutely not getting this grant because I 100% failed myself where this narrative is concerned. When I was a wee lass it would have been ALL ABOUT the narrative. Now I am like, “Please don’t ask me say why I need or want an unrestricted grant, why I am the worthiest one, or what my grand plans are. Can you just look at my work, please?”
Am I the only one who feels this way? I feel like Bonsu could have killed this part of the grant. I am not a woefully apologetic person. I know how to own a room. I coach people on how to gracefully take ownership of themselves and their creativity. I prepared the other stuff for months; artistic samples, glowing letters of recommendation. I didn’t even remember doing some of that stuff those people said I did!
“Damn, I thought, I am worthy!”
Still, I waited until the last minute, because I didn’t want to sound needy or grandiose, even though, in general, people who apply for grants need money and want to do good in the world. I ended up starting my Artist Narrative about an hour and half before the deadline. Instead of sounding humble, as intended it ended up coming across like, “Ya know, it’s cool. Whatever. Thanks for the opportunity.” It was eye-opening. (Why yes, I am addressing this in therapy. Thanks for asking.) Anyway, Bonsu, I’m following you on Instagram now, so look for my messages. Just in case you’re willing to help a fellow writer out. AFTER the challenge is over of course.
I was moved and inspired by Bonsu’s humble and dear Insta-story vlogging of his Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab experience. I have not yet had the courage to apply to the institute, despite writing several screenplays and now a TV pilot that found me in quarantine. Again, Monsieur Thompson, lit a fire. (If you watch his Sundance journey you can watch him light fires, literally trying to keep his writing butt warm up there, in some serious snow.)
BOTH of Bonsu’s articles on fellow South Carolinian, actor and angel-gone, Chadwick Boseman, wrecked me and made me want to “Get on Up” and see everything Chadwick did. (His hometown is an hour from mine. Something about that. Ever feel that way?) The way Bonsu described Chadwick’s near-maniacal commitment to storytelling as an actor made me feel truly I had lost a kindred spirit, being a person who, more than a few times, has been perceived as “distant” when I was off in a corner, attempting to find the next layer of a character.
For those of us who write for theatre or film, actors like Chadwick mean the world. To them the script is not a suggestion. It is a Bible. Bonsu knows this too. In this article Bonsu mentions what Chadwick said he would like to take away from playing James Brown.
I would like to hold onto that swagger and pull it out when I need it. ~Chadwick Boseman
He sure did. Right up to the end. Perhaps Bonsu got some of that magical swagger dust on him too.
This is what a producer with swagger looks like. This is not what I look like when I’m producing. Film, documentaries, “Vibe”ing live events. Yeah, he does all that. I do suggest you check out The Prelude in particular. Honestly, watching someone basically be made a star overnight is kind of scary. I felt the precariousness of being human when a dream much bigger than human imagining comes true.
And finally, even if it is easily accessible on Medium, I would be remiss if I did not mention the eye-opening experience brought to me by Bonsu via this article, about the oppression of Black women in the Olympics. (Every time I say ,”Oh my God!” about some new BS like this, my Black friends say, “Oh, bless your heart,” as in, “Welcome to the party, grab a drink.”) But still, damn.
This piece is great a window into Bonsu’s verbal swagger and what he keeps his eye on.
I’m happy writers like Bonsu are taking up Space (yes, that’s a hint, too) in the world, without apology and telling truths that need to be told. Because, while not all writers share their journey via Instagram stories, it is important to be reminded every artist’s voice fills a void only they can fill, with or without cool sunglasses.
You guyyyyyyys, this thing is almost over. I’ll miss you. Be sure to write. People say they will, but then they don’t, ya know?
Before we part ways I’d like to point out something important for those of you pondering the fate of your challenge entry now in the hands of The Medium Writers Challenge Intelligentsia (you love this name now too, don’t you?)
Julio and Susan have appeared on Kelly’s podcast. Jude reviewed Roxane’s book. Imani was on Eve’s podcast. Eve was on Roxane’s. Roxane did a thing at Princeton where Imani moderated. Saeed interviewed Roxane, too. (She’s kind of a thing, I guess.) Robert and Kurt appeared at the same bookstore just a few weeks apart (okay, that’s just weird, or a coincidence or maybe there is some stalking I don’t know about… kidding, guys!)
THE POINT IS… HELP EACH OTHER.
Personally, I’m facing the fact that I have helped others more than I have helped myself career-wise over the years. (Yes, getting help for this. Thanks for asking.) I have accomplished a lot of things, just not allowed myself to succeed… not yet, not really. But I know it is ALL perfect and I have zero regrets about helping people. It’s the best.
I know my calling and am living it, and part of it is helping people. That’s why I wrote this, THESE, articles. I hope they helped in some way.
There are a lot of awards and accolades among The Medium Writers Challenge Intelligentsia, and I can’t say whether these folks are happy, following their calling (though most seem to be) or whether your challenge entry will be their jam.
I can only say they ignited my curiosity, and made me want to show up more for the gifts I have, and give them more effectively. And, GOD KNOWS, they made me want to work on my editing!
Many of them speak truths I believe in. Some of them have the kind of voice in their writing I dig, and that makes me want to up my game. So all that makes this THREE WEEK LONG writing endeavor worth it… even though I ended up not entering the challenge.
NOPE.
Don’t worry, I revisited a short story I began a bit ago and I am really excited about it. (Like you were worried.) It is the best writing I have ever done. (Totally worth the next 50k Medium decides to give away. 😉) Rushing it would have been a bad idea. (It would have been for the Death category… NO WAY, Kelly!)
I leave you with what I hope will be some inspiration for your journey.
Take as you will and write on.
Regarding my “To Watch/Read/Review and Listen To” List, I am linking to the books on Amazon but encourage you all to please use your local libraries, and purchase books from your local independent bookstores when possible.
Here is some compelling food for thought…
In 2020, Owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos gave 5.3% in charitable contributions of his near 200 billion dollar fortune. His ex-wife gave more than 7% of her 4 billion dollar fortune and has remarried, a science teacher. I’m just saying. (This is my insane rabbit-hole article, so I can do whatever I want.)
¹ “To Watch/Read/Review and Listen To” List (no certain order, because I wrote in no certain order, and I’m tired, y’all.)
TO READ
- True Believers by
- Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
- Another Country by James Baldwin
- The Evidence of Things Not Seen by James Baldwin
- Tell Me More by
- Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side by
- Electric Arches by
- Dead Blondes & Bad Mothers Monstrosity Patriarchy & the Fear of Female Power by
- Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice by bell hooks
- Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation by
- Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by
- Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays / The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers? by Lorraine Hansberry
- Every Day is for the Thief by
- Open City by
- The Movement Made Us by (out in 2022)
- Hunger by Roxane Gay
- Trick Mirror by
- Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice by bell hooks
- Wounds of Passion: a writing life by bell hooks
- Ironheart by (and others)
- How We Fight For Our Lives by
- The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
- Hidden Valley Road by
- Princeton voices: Speaking out against systemic racism and police violence in the nation (This whole page is a treasure trove of books, articles, podcasts, and shows I am very interested in delving into)
TO WATCH
- If Beale Street Could Talk (movie based on book by James Baldwin)
- All of Chadwick Boseman‘s work (as actor, writer, director)
- Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (movie)
- Black Swan (movie w/ )
- Lost Girls (movie, based on the book by )
- Bad Education (movie, based on the book by )
- Team Marco (movie — written and directed by )
TO LISTEN
- Bughouse Square — podcast
- Here to Slay — and
