Liberian Literary Magazine Promoting Liberian literature, Arts and Culture
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I recently presented a paper and read some of my poems at the Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books Tenth Anniversary Conference in August 2015.
Poems published in 2014- 2015 include“ Lost Love,” Women in War, Advocates for Gender Balance, 2015,“ Like Mami Water in Hiding,” Kaleidescope, Writers Abroad, 2015,“ New World Bouillon,” and“ Now Massa Loved Some Hunting,” The Caribbean Writer, vol. 29, 2015,“ Departure and Arrival,” Persimmon Tree( w ww. persimmontree. org / v 2 / summer- 2015 / international-poets),“ The Vengence of Gods and Spirits”, Caribbean- American Heritage Month Literary magazine,( w ww. issuu. com / instituteof caribbeanstudies / docs / ca hm _ magazine _ 2015),
“ Neighbors Sanderson,” poem, in Moko Magazine, November 2014 issue, and poems“ Unwanted Visitors,” and“ Small Island Deprivations,” in Tongues of the Ocean, special feature on Antiguan Writers, Winter, 2014. Fitting into One’ s Skin,” A review of Joanne Hillhouse’ s novel, Oh Gad! in the Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books, summer 2014,“ A Story of Immigrants,” personal essay, The Caribbean
Writer, Volume 28, Autumn 2014, Poems for the Hazara: An Anthology and Collabrative Poem( multilingual), ed. Kamran Mir Hazar, Winter, 2014, several poems and an essay in WomanSpeak: A journal of writing and Art by Caribbean Women. Ed. Lynn Sw eeting, Vol. 7, 2013- 14
What are your current projects?
I am preparing my next book of poems and essays, The Nakedness of New.
What are some of your favorite books by [ a ] Liberian author [ s ] or about Liberia?
As I mentioned earlier, I have just completed, Vamba Sherif’ s novel, Bound to Secrecy. I have read of all Dr. Patricia Wesley’ s books of poems, Before the Palm Could Bloom, Becoming Ebony, The River is Rising, and Where the Road Turns; I have read Bai T. Moore’ s poems, and his novel,
Murder in the Cassava Patch; Wilton Sankawolo’ s, novels, The Rain and the Night, Sundown At Dawn, his folktales, Nobody Knows When He Will Die, and a new collections of folktales, Tales of West Africa, that he planned to publish, before his death; Robert Brown’ s novel, To Seek A Newer world, and short story
collection, After Long Silence and Other Liberian Short stories, many of which were republished in Short Story International; Moses Nagbe’ s poems, and his first collection of short stories( We Are One?); C William Allen’ s The African Interior Mission, Jeremiah B. Menyongai’ s, Poems from Ashes of War, and A Look in The Rear View Mirror. I have also read the work( short stories, poetry, essays) of some of the younger Liberian writers in Seabreeze: Liberia Journal of Contemporary Literature, an on-line journal that now on a hiatus.
Any last words?
Well, I think I have said enough already, but I would like to emphasize that writing requires great discipline and if you want to be a great writer, you have to get feedback on your work. You can’ t just publish work because you think it’ s great. You have to keep your ego in check.
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