Category: Literary
A
A Novel Approach
In July 1814, 16-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin departed her home in England and travelled to France with the already married poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Two years later, during the summer of 1816, they took up residence in Geneva, Switzerland, where, housebound by abnormally low temperatures that earned 1816 the epithet, “the year without a summer,” their companion George Gordon (Lord) Byron, suggested that the group engage in writing ghost stories.
I
It’s a Guy Thing
The Bobos book club can’t help but call attention to itself. For starters, the club’s 14 members belie their well-educated, professionally accomplished backgrounds by calling themselves Bobos. Even club founder Phil Smith, a 67-year-old retired advertising creative director and writer, concedes that the offbeat sobriquet may call to mind “nuts” or “clowns,” although that’s hardly the intent.
G
Glenn North: Truth Teller
Artists have often explored connections across disciplines, resulting in work that can be as surprising as it is provocative — from theater director Julie Taymor and U2 bandmates Bono and The Edge collaborating on the troubled but intriguing musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” to actress Tilda Swinton reclining in a glass box as part of an exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
A
An Ode to True Black Manhood
I grew up in one of those urban neighborhoods that did so much to shape successful black men in America. Located on the northeast end of Kansas City, Kansas, the block I grew up in was bookmarked on both ends by black-owned businesses. On the southwest corner was a mom-and-pop record store where I purchased 45s by the Isley Brothers and Chaka Khan. It was also a candy shop and sometime beauty parlor.
S
Standing Up for Veterans – All of Them
J. Malcolm Garcia has traveled widely — and often dangerously — in his role as freelance journalist, getting his passport stamped from Sierra Leone to Syria, and from Pakistan to Afghanistan. But he calls Kansas City home. So, he qualifies as a local author, albeit one whose writings have documented people and places far beyond the American heartland.