Renee shared excerpts from this story at the 2015 retreat (see featured image). Applications for Kimbilio Fellowships are now open. Meet Behind Mars Renee Simms Dr. Lutz, You’ve requested that I write a statement to the school board about The Night of the Yellow Mustard Penis, and I’ve tried to pull together all of the evidence that […]
Lesley Arimah is a Kimbilio Fellow who, at the last minute was unable to attend the summer retreat. Her story “Who Will Greet You At Home” appears in the October 26 edition of The New Yorker. The yarn baby lasted a good month, emitting dry, cotton-soft gurgles and pooping little balls of lint, before Ogechi […]
CORNROWS Lydia took the rat tail end of the comb and slid it over her daughter’s scalp. The hair’s thickness reminded Lydia of the blue wildrye that Rochelle had braided in the woods behind the domestic violence shelter where they currently lived. “Public art,” Rochelle had said about the closed lotus formation that emerged in […]
Recalling the Buffalo Soldiers, Black Heritage in the Woods Local columnist Desiree Cooper talks African American stereotypes when it comes to wilderness and the historic Buffalo Soldiers When’s the last time you visited a national park? If you’re African-American, the answer is likely to be “never.” According to the National Park Service, only 28 percent […]
…by Melissa Moorer on THE TOAST “Jones’ poetry often invokes a sense of intimate nostalgia — a warm thirst for a moment or a place that was, or that could have been. The verses change pace on a dime. They vibrate.” — Jairo Ramos at NPR: Code Switch. “we tested our faith in stories of […]
Frightful Weather Outside (A You Tube Video) Brian Gilmore (as published in Fjords Review – Black American Special Edition 2015) 2006 Freddie Que dressed up as Santa Claus. Handing out small gifts to kids in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. People around him passing by looking for a cocaine fix and there […]
’13 Fellow Amina Gautier was recently interviewed on FIRST DRAFT for Aspen Public Radio. Click on the link below to listen to the show, and also enjoy a second recording of outtakes from the show: http://aspenpublicradio.org/post/first-draft-amina-gautier
No, you couldn’t be at Kimbilio 2015, but you can read the piece that Deesha shared at the Fellow’s reading: HOW CAN YOU BE MAD AT SOMEONE WHO’S DYING OF CANCER How can you be mad at someone who’s dying of cancer? It helps if you don’t yet know she’s dying, if you think the doctors are just […]
A RAMADAN TALE Near the end of the first day of my third Ramadan, Omar went to the store as the sun set and returned at the brink of the moon, bearing everything I requested except the dried fruit. I specifically said dried apricots and raisins. When he left I had just started to grow […]
