On the radio Monday

Elmaz Abinader and I will be on The Women's Magazine on Public Radio in the Bay, Monday between 1 and 2 pm.

Tara Dorabji sits down with faculty of the Voices of Our Nations writing workshop, the only multigenre workshop for writers of color in the U.S.

June 25, 2012 - 1:00pm on KPFA, 94.1 FM and online at www.kpfa.org
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Star-studded VONA Faculty Reading Thu 6/28!

This annual event is always SRO, always tight, always hilarious & heartbreaking, always free!
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Opening night Mixed Roots Fest

Opening night Mixed Roots Film & Literary Fest: L.A. City Hall declares today Loving Day in honor of Loving v. The State of Virginia.
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2012 Mixed Roots Film & Literary Fest this weekend!

This weekend I will be appearing with my people at the 2012 Mixed Roots Film & Literary Fest in L.A.!

Look for me on Sunday 12:30 – 1:30 PM. The readings will be held in the Tateuchi Democracy Forum at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), 369 East 1st Street, in downtown Los Angeles

Be there, or be mono-ethnic!

The 1968 Exhibit | Oakland Museum of California

The 1968 Exhibit | Oakland Museum of California

This interactive, detailed exhibit does all the research I need for my book - for me! Every month has something heartbreaking or awe-inspiring. The way it's designed is like standing in my grandparents' living room, watching Walter Chronkite reporting on Vietnam, then going into my bedroom to play with my Julia doll, while Mom arranged smorgasbord on stackable plastic plates. My favorite is the Bobby Kennedy exhibit - the viewer is placed at the window of the train taking his casket to Arlington Cemetery, listening to the train chug along and gazing out at all the varied folks gathered along the tracks to say good-bye.    

 

The 1968 Exhibit

March 31, 2012 - August 19, 2012

Experience one of the most powerful years in recent history in this unforgettable exhibition exploring the social, political, and economic events of 1968. A turning point for a generation coming of age and a nation engaged in war, 1968 saw the peak of the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, riots at the Democratic National Convention, Black Power demonstrations at the Summer Olympics, Feminist demonstrations at the Miss America pageant, and much more. Throughout it all, the Bay Area was at the forefront with an emerging California counterculture. Presented as an ongoing collective of historical and personal stories, the exhibition is for those who lived through it, those who’ve heard about it, and those who wonder why it matters. For more information about The 1968 Exhibit, visit www.1968exhibit.org.


OMCA In-the-Mix Series 
Dive deeper into the issues raised by The 1968 Exhibit. Join special intergenerational guests in the 1968 Lounge for thought-provoking conversation. Included with Museum admission.

Protest: Left and Right, or Progressive and Conservative 
Saturday, June 9
1 – 2 pm
1968 Lounge, Great Hall

The Political Scene 
Saturday, July 14
1 – 2 pm
1968 Lounge, Great Hall

Women and the Military 
Aug 11
1 – 2 pm

1968 Lounge, Great Hall
.

Multiculti Anthology Release this Friday!

I was recently asked to blurb The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays, a new anthology that's already racking up awards and sales records. One of my previous VONA students is in it, and the Introduction is by VONA faculty member David Mura. A great teaching tool!

The launch party is this Friday (May 4) in San Francisco at Books Inc. in Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Avenue, at 7 PM.  The book’s release arrives just in time for the annual World Day for Cultural Diversity Dialogue and Development on May 21st, as proclaimed by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Editor Tara L. Masih will open the program, and authors will sign books after the reading. Refreshments will be served. 

The Chalk Circle has already garnered several accolades:

Featured title, NewPages’ “New & Noteworthy Books” list

Winner, 2012 Skipping Stones Honor Award in the Multicultural/International category

Featured title, Amazon’s “Hot New Releases” list

Tara L. Masih has assembled a stunning collection. Disregard the textbook-sounding title and gaze upon the mosaic-like cover. The range of cultural diversity and personal complexity packed into this slim, beautiful volume is staggering and far outstrips any other collection out there. These now-American writers and travelers experience the intercultural encounter at home, overseas, within their own communities, families, and selves. The voices range from adult journalists and Peace Corps volunteers to the children of Nazis and refugees. For some, like Third Culture Kids and the children of survivors, their histories and true identities are hidden, and it is through engaging with food and spirituality, photographs and music, family stories and private letters, global and personal history, that they are able to recover and share the nuances of life on our globalizing planet. Each story is a polished, multi-faceted gem of unprecedented color and clarity, which together form a glittering necklace that redefines what it is to be intercultural—that is, human—in the world today. This is a book I will be teaching and recommending to friends and strangers again and again.

--Faith Adiele, Coming of Age Around the World: A Multicultural Anthology; Meeting Faith: The Thai Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun

SFIFF: When in doubt, Go Native

Yesterday was a full day at the San Francisco International Film Fest. It began with a bang, detoured for a fire alarm and full-theatre evacuation, and ended with a whimper.

First up was The Orator, ostensibly the first Samoan-language feature film, written, directed and starring all Samoans. More later (once I can do some research) on this quiet powerhouse of a tale about an outcast dwarf and his banished wife that had the 3 of us weeping. And laughing. And thinking about the intersections between Pacific and African cultures, between the living and the dead.

Second was The Double Steps, an over-the-top Spanish production set Mali's stunning landscape (the ancient city of Djenne and the Dogon escarpment - 2 of my favorites - make stunning cameos). There appeared to be 3 storylines happening in 3 different temporal spaces, based on a true-life mystery about a French painter who died in 1971. Suffice to say there are same-sex relationships, treatises on art, a breathtaking nighttime scene with albinos in hiding, a rooftop dance scene evocative of the Malian dandy culture of the 60s, and an Easy Rider/Zapatista/Mad Max-like gang of thieves on motorbikes bedecked with cow skulls, themselves sporting Tuareg turbans, artillery shells, mudcloth ponchos, and bushwacker caps.

Last and most certainly least was Sleeping Sickness, a German feature that started out as a possible medical thriller (albeit a very slow one), possible trenchant critique of post-coloniality/aid work in present-day Cameroon and then without explanation jumped 3 years ahead and into Heart of Darkness. Yep, Mr. Kurtz, he dead, alright. And I need a shower.
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Finding Faith | Harvard Magazine Nov-Dec 2004

Finding Faith | Harvard Magazine Nov-Dec 2004

One of my students discovered this old profile. I can't bear to read it, but I suppose I should archive it in some way for posterity (and future biographers!) :-)

Study at Berkeley

So I'm teaching this summer at Berkeley with my old friend Camille Dungy, my old classmate Tony Swofford, my old friend & classmate Shane Book, and my new BFFs (though they don't know it), Daniel Alarcón and Justin Torres! Fun!

6-Week Creative Nonfiction Workshop with Faith

Berkeley Summer Creative Writing Program

May 21-June 28, 2012, University of California, Berkeley

Apply here

Our unique 6-week program offers aspiring, practicing and experienced writers a sustained community in which to create, network and live the writing life. Make lifelong connections while enjoying master classes with renowned authors, meeting with agents, and attending and participating in panels. Specialized intensives such as novel writing and preparing the MFA application portfolio will also be offered. Classes meet Monday through Thursday morning.

Submit to VONA Anthology 3/30!

Have you heard? Thread Makes Blanket Press, in conjunction with VONA, will publish a perfect-bound anthology of writing from past VONA (Voices of Our Nations) participants. Work can be previously published as long as author can obtain permissions. Proceeds will go to support VONA's summer workshops for writers of color. Deadline is March 30th. Get on it! http://threadmakesblanket.submishmash.com/submit