Moon Mami Writes

My sweetie took me to see FELA the musical in New York on my birthday this past Saturday and I had a ball. The play was simply amazing. As a playwright, my dream, of course, is to have at least one of my plays make it to Broadway in my lifetime, but even if FELA wasn't on Broadway, it would be a play to see. Good lord this play was phenomenal. The actor Kevin Mambo is worthy of a gazillion awards for his portrayal of Fela Kuti. I've watched documentaries and old footage of Fela performing and speaking and Mambo had it down pat. Phenomenal actor. Fela Kuti was such a character that his life amazes me on so many levels. Here you have a polygamist who said at one point that having more than one wife made sense because if you're married, you're going to sleep around, so you might as well just bring all the women in the house! He said that. And, he married 27 women. But, then, he created Afrobeat and was such a strong leader, almost fearless, you can't just think one way...

I facilitated a workshop on how to engage youth in "Story Quilting" in 2009 at the conference So, as I told you earlier , this past weekend was the Mosaic Literary Conference , and I was traveling to the Bronx in NY to present for the third time. I presented in both 2008 and 2009, meeting wonderful educators who work with young people. This recent visit was, by far, my most enjoyable group so far. The diversity of the participants was amazing and this time, I actually chose to forgo a powerpoint presentation to accompany my workshop and just focused on implementing the lesson activities for the group, instead of telling them about them. My session was about using plays and dialogue in novels to spark discussion that ultimately aids young people in synthesizing information and critical thinking about themes that are in the work they are reading. In 2008, I facilitated my first workshop for the Mosaic Literary Conference, Called Re: Verse then. The workshop participan...

So, I'm still reading tweets from ladies preparing to arrive in NY t his week for the BlogHer '10 conference and the excitement is contagious! I'm looking forward to participating on the panel on Saturday about blogging for/about your art and its always fun to meet new folks, but, I'm most excited about hanging with my 6 year-old in the Big Apple. Yup.You read right. I'm bringing the kid with me, and I have to admit, I think I will be one of a handful who will be bringing a kid who is not nursing or requiring of a stroller. The thing with me is that I don't get to vacation as often as I like, so, whenever I perform or present in events, particularly in fun or out of state places, I bring the fam along. My spouse would be coming with us if we weren't leaving while he was at work. I realize that, for me, having my family along is not a hassle or headache because I had healthy number of opportunities throughout my 20's to travel alone or with girlfriends,...