<![CDATA[A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence]]>https://celysewrite.substack.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eW78!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd46ad3ca-4c80-4be3-ab90-7b3152df50ea_1080x1080.pngA Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentencehttps://celysewrite.substack.comSubstackSun, 10 May 2026 15:57:50 GMT<![CDATA[Symbol of Unconventional Freedom]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/symbol-of-unconventional-freedomhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/symbol-of-unconventional-freedomFri, 06 Feb 2026 01:05:23 GMT

Hi Friends:

To honor Black History Month in the most bookish way possible, AfroReads is hosting a discussion of Toni Morrison’s Sula, which I am facilitating. Widely regarded as a foundational Black feminist novel, it features a protagonist who embodies radical independence, rejects norms, and creates her own identity outside traditional female roles.

Frequently celebrated for its deep exploration of Black womanhood, friendship, and community resilience, it highlights non-conformity and the tension that exists when individual freedom doesn’t align with societal expectations.

Often defined as an accurate analysis of the Black experience of segregation post-emancipation, it’s one of the richest forms of literary craft ever published and an exploration of how history shapes setting, theme, and character.

As readers and writers, we don’t just study life; we study the specific ways in which individual lives are contextualized; we explore methods and facts and become better critical thinkers.

Join us in a literary-focused celebration of agency, resistance, and identity, and join the discussion on how nonconformity enabled one Black woman to escape the predictable.

When: Saturday, February 28th, at 3 pm EST.

Where: Zoom

How: Register here

By the way, to eliminate Zoom bombers, unregistered attendees will not be granted access to the Zoom room!

Thanks for reading A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

]]><![CDATA[Serendipitous Alternative Endeavor]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/serendipitous-alternative-endeavorhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/serendipitous-alternative-endeavorSun, 28 Dec 2025 18:00:30 GMT

Bring on the New Year Adventure Begins book

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t contingent on circumstance, this issue includes:

A sip…

The muse contends that slow actualization is an engineered Attack of Opportunity….

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” – Audre Lorde

A shout out…

To you, Dearest Reader:

After 2.5 incredible years of sharing content with you, an opportunity arose.

This is not an easy choice, but I am pivoting. With a joyful heart, I am starting a new venture that prevents me from continuing weekly publications. Beginning January 1, 2026, A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence will switch from paid to free. All the past (and paid) content will become openly accessible.

If you are a monthly subscriber, you will no longer be charged. If you are an annual subscriber, Substack will automatically issue a prorated refund for the unused portion of your subscription.

As I have always affirmed, my Substack exists because Zora Neale Hurston strongly suggested that a woman should have the nerve to walk her own way, however hard, in search of her reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusion. With that, I am not walking away; I am continuing my walk, my own way.

I must say, the way I’ve consistently earned your loyalty constantly motivates me. Your enthusiasm for A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence energizes me, and I am eternally grateful. I am also incredibly proud of the work I accomplished, and of the vibrant community we built while exploring cocktails, recipes, travel routes, and the lives and legacies of authors.

Still, it is time to evolve; I am not abandoning A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence. Rather, I am taking time to move beyond profiling others’ work to focus my efforts on larger creative endeavors.

Honestly, this has been a productive wild ride. Consistently connecting with like-minded people, such as yourselves, is the reason an opportunity arose. And for that, I am, again, eternally grateful!

In a sentence… Stay creative, take it easy, and thanks for rockin’ with me,

]]><![CDATA[Incredibly Adaptive, Expressive, and Versatile ]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/incredibly-adaptive-expressive-andhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/incredibly-adaptive-expressive-andMon, 08 Dec 2025 21:02:44 GMT

black and gold star print book
Photo by pure julia on Unsplash

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t an impressive supposition, this issue includes:

A sip…

If allowed to suppose, the muse would infer that Living Reflection is more than tentative conjecture….

“Discomfort is always a necessary part of enlightenment.” ― Pearl Cleage

A shout out…

To toot one’s own horn implies excessive self-promotion and is often viewed as immodest, especially when highlighting success. And to suggest that A Sip, A Shout

Out & A Sentence is possible without avid readers like you is more than attention-seeking… It’s indulgent arrogance.

This journey is shared, one that affords endless opportunities to discover little-known facts about well-known authors, while connecting with and expanding the community. More importantly, it’s not possible without you.

I am grateful for your readership and look forward to sharing more inspiration with you. I am taking a short break to celebrate my Diamond Jubilee/60th birthday and to regroup.

As promised, I have paused your subscription payments until January 1st. If you are an annual subscriber, I am not sure whether you will receive a refund as a result, but I will investigate and get back to you

Thanks for rockin’ with me, and for being a part of my community. May the spirit of the Season bring you peace, new adventures, endless discoveries, and most of all, prosperity!

A sentence…

Prompts inspired by becoming a sexagenarian/60-year-old:

“Life is just beginning.”

“What is the best that can happen?”

“Looking like new money, and aging well.”

“You don’t get to run my business better than me.”

“It’s not who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.”

“Nah… don’t just bring it. I am done with being the strong one.”

“I will not spend the next year doing the same shit I did this year.”

“The second biggest lie ever told: respect yourself and people will respect you, too.”

“That old identity… the proscribed one… the one you inherited without awareness… yeah, well, fuck it and the bequeather… do what you want.”

A book list…

A few titles featuring protagonists shaped by life-changing truths:

Hell of a Book, by Jason Mott

The Names, by Florence Knapp

My Friends, by Fredrik Backman

The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore

Good Dirt, by Charmaine Wilkerson

All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker

The Lion Women of Tehran, by Marjan Kamali

The River We Remember, by William Kent Krueger

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife, by Anna Johnston

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books, by Kirsten Miller

A few useful tips…

On writing through milestone birthdays:

Act with urgency;

Address illogical plot twists;

Fictionalized the dark secrets;

Be your own antagonist or protagonist;

Be and remain understandably complex;

Write as if life is the required core conflict;

Make the consequences even more significant;

Amp up the intrigue by including unanswered questions;

Revisit the danger that others forced you to believe existed;

End each chapter on a high note or with an unanswered question;

Remember, life is simply one difficult ethical question with limited options; and

It’s okay to write through feelings of disconnection from what was once enjoyable -it’s called growth.

A few contests…

The Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award

The Blossom Contest

Boulevard Literary Magazine Short Fiction Contest

The Caribbean Writer Prizes

Defenestration.net Lengthy Poem Contest

Discoveries 2026 Prize

Disquiet Literary Prize

Eggtooth Editions Chapbook Contest

The Gabo Prize for Literature in Translation & Multilingual Texts

Intrepid Times Travel Writing Competition

Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction

Lilith Magazine Fiction Contest

The Lyric Magazine College Poetry Contest

Minotaur Books / Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition

Poetry Society of America The Four Quartets Prize

Rattle Chapbook Prize

The Welkin Writing Prize

Virginia Woolf Award for Short Fiction

Diana Woods Award in Creative Nonfiction

Your Paper Quest Writing Competition

A creative reset…

A fee-based accountability/retreat/workshop opportunity…

Self-Paced and On-Demand

Single Session

Series

A few fellowship/grant/scholarship opportunities…

Anarchists United Writers Discovery Fellowship for Scripts

Fellowship Access Fund

Fine Arts Work Center Fellowships

Jack Hazard Fellowship

The Rona Jaffe Foundation Fellowship

The Leon Levy Centre for Biography: Biography Fellowships

Pittsburgh Area Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator Grant Program

San José State University: Center for Steinbeck Studies – The Steinbeck Fellows Program

The Joan Shorenstein Fellowship

A retreat & residency opportunity…

The Notre Dame Kylemore Residency

A few freelance opportunities…

The BREAK—DOWN is seeking pitches of argumentative essays, memoirs, original translations, photojournalism, reportage, and dispatches from around the world.

Eleven seeks a freelance editor.

MIT Technology Review is looking for pitches on the theme of nature.

RUNHER seeks ambitious pitches about women’s running.

Silicon Prairie News seeks NE-based freelance writers to tell stories about entrepreneurship and innovation across the state.

A few submission opportunities…

Baffling Magazine seeks speculative stories that explore science fiction, fantasy, and horror with a queer bent.

Belmont Story Review seeks fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Bourbon Penn is looking for highly imaginative stories with a healthy dose of the odd.

Chestnut Review seeks submissions of flash prose.

The Deadlands seeks fiction and speculative poetry.

Electric Literature seeks submissions of personal essays.

The Ex-Puritan seeks fiction, non-fiction, experimental/hybrid work, interviews, reviews, poetry, and poetry in translation.

Extra Teeth is open for fiction and creative non-fiction.

Fourteen Poems seeks work from queer poets about queerness and nature.

Hyden’s Ferry Review has extended its submissions window.

Intrepid Times is on a mission to publish at least one travel story from every country on the planet.

The New York Times Modern Love seeks honest personal essays about contemporary relationships.

Nightfall Poetry Anthology seeks poems that explore what nighttime means to you.

Ninth Letter seeks prose and poetry that experiment with form, narrative, and nontraditional subject matter, as well as more traditional literary work.

Plott Hound seeks submissions of stories with anthropomorphized animals as viewpoint characters and protagonists.

Salt Hill Journal seeks submissions of new poetry, fiction, essays, and art.

SmokeLong Quarterly seeks flash narratives – including fiction, non-fiction, and hybrid works.

Unidentified Funny Objects Anthology is open for submissions of speculative stories with a strong humor element.

Virginia Fantastic invites you to weave strange and wondrous speculative fiction that reimagines the Commonwealth of Virginia as a land of mystery, magic, and the unexpected.

A few sessions & workshops…

An open critique/open mic opportunity...

A few virtual artist/author/book launch/publisher events…

A few virtual book/script clubs and discussions…

Berwick Book Club

The Bloody Book Club

The Book Sanctuary - A Wellness Book Club

Bring Your Own Book Club

Ebony Book Club

Fat Lib Book Club

The Good Death Book Club

Inspiring Reads Book Club

Khoj Book Club: Slow Read Series

The Library for the Performing Arts Play Club

Lit & Lovely, a Book Club for Women

Mystery Book Club: The Spiral Staircase by Ethel Lina White

Reel Reads Collective, Book & Movie Club for Storytellers & Book Lovers

Spiritual Soul Sister Book Club

Survivors Book Club

Virtual Graphic Novel Book Club

Virtual Romance Book Club: The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch

A volunteer reader opportunity…

  • The Common is accepting applications to join its Reading Staff.

And a final thought…

Hi there,

As usual, this one has embedded links, and if you purchase a book through one of them, I will earn a small commission that won’t make a dent in my student loan payments, but a woman can always dream.

I shall be drinking lots of wine over the next several days -if your ear itches, it’s because I raised a glass to you!

I hope your Season is merry, bright, and filled with enough family and friends for you to have something to write about.

Take it easy, and thanks for rockin’ with me,

A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[Cultured, Empowered, and Globally Prominent ]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/cultured-empowered-and-globally-prominenthttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/cultured-empowered-and-globally-prominentMon, 01 Dec 2025 13:32:10 GMT

brown and white floral card on brown wooden table
Photo by Jornada Produtora on Unsplash

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t restricted by longitude, latitude, or other geographic boundaries, this issue includes:

A sip…

If being A Lonely Island Lost in the Middle of a Foggy Sea floats boats, the muse may join the flotilla…

“I know that many writers have had to write under censorship and yet produced good novels; for instance, Cervantes wrote Don Quixote under Catholic censorship.” — Guillermo Cabrera Infante

A shout out…

Suppose experience is the mother of invention, and the classics influence creativity. In that case, it should come as no surprise that political events and feminist perspectives

lend well to Isabel (Angelica) Allende (Llona) being considered the first internationally successful female Latin American author.

A former editor, journalist, and romance novel translator who eventually took good advice and began writing novels, she is best known for her vivid imagination, talent for magical realism, and ability to educate readers through intrigue peppered with significant historical events.

Described as a feminist force in Latin America’s male-dominated literary world and a literary legend, she lived for many years in exile. A master at weaving love, individual liberation, and politics into her works, she reportedly will not begin a new title until January 8th and proudly maintains a strict six-day-a-week, ten-hour-a-day writing schedule.

A Chilean-American from Peru who writes in her native Spanish. Her bibliography includes essays, fiction, memoirs, and children’s literature. The author of twenty-seven titles, including Island Beneath the Sea, her works have been translated into 35 languages and have sold over 70 million copies worldwide.

Active for more than thirty years, she is a human rights advocate, the founder of a charitable foundation dedicated to protecting and empowering women and girls, and the recipient of dozens of awards and tributes, including the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award (2012) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2014).

A sentence…

Prompts inspired by Island Beneath the Sea:

“The slave who dances is free ... while he is dancing.”

“There is room in the human heart for all the divinities.”

“He who did not abuse power did not deserve to have it.”

“As Sancho said, money does not buy happiness, but it does buy nearly everything else.”

“All the women and girls she knew, free or not, belonged to a man: father, husband, or Jesus.”

“We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.”

“Sometimes I have these premonitions, and I don’t forget them, so I will be prepared when they happen.”

“A slave lacks incentives; for him it is better to work slowly and badly, since his effort benefits only the master, but free people work hard to save and get ahead, that is their incentive.”

“I called him Grandfather, because according to him, you do not have to be of the same blood or same tribe to be a member of the same family, but in truth, I should have called him Maman. He was the only mother I ever knew.”

“Not all Negroes are slaves, nor all slaves black. Africa is a continent of free people. Millions of Africans are subjected to slavery, but many more are free. Slavery is not their destiny, just as is also the case with thousands of whites who are slaves.”

“Their most notable defect was that they considered work a virtue, even manual labor. They were materialists, conquerors, and they were infused with a messianic enthusiasm for reforming those who did not think as they did; they did not, however, represent an immediate threat to civilization.”

A snack pairing…

Featuring raw fish marinated in lime juice with chili peppers and onion, ceviche is iconic, unique, healthy, and an aphrodisiac!

A sweet melody…

First developed by enslaved Africans, Festejo/Afro-Peruvian is a genre of music that blends West African and Spanish musical traditions of storytelling, rhythmic phrases, and multiple musical structures and instruments that change over time.

A book list…

A few more inspired by the complex exchanges resulting from colonization:

Grace, by Paul Lynch

James, by Percival Everett

Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See

The Rabbit Hutch, by Tess Gunty

An Untamed State, by Roxane Gay

The Lamplighters, by Emma Stonex

Dreaming in Cuban, by Cristina García

The Lonely Londoners, by Samuel Selvon

Restless Dolly Maunder, by Kate Grenville

When the Moon is Low, by Nadia Hashimi

The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd

Three Apples Fell from the Sky, by Narine Abgaryan

The Blue Between Sky and Water, by Susan Abulhawa

The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye, by Briony Cameron

A literary listicle…

With two central districts, Lima, Peru, isn’t just the birthplace of Isabel Allende. One of South America’s largest cities, its inspiration includes:

The Catacombs;

The Nazca Lines and Geoglyphs;

Afro-Peruvian cuisine at El Rincón Que No Conoces;

The styles and product offerings at Prieta Peru Salon;

A chance to admire the craggy coastline along Miraflores boardwalk;

Verano Negro/Black Summer -the annual Afro-Peruvian music, dance, and food festival; and

The history and Black presence documented at El Museo Nacional Afroperuano/The National Afro-Peruvian Museum.

A few useful tips…

On writing historical fiction:

Avoid overwriting;

Pick a time period;

Balance fact and fiction;

Decide on past or present tense;

Use period-appropriate language;

Extensively research the time period;

Align major plot points with the timeline;

Conflict and a sense of jeopardy are essential;

Balance historical accuracy with creative license;

Don’t allow historical details to overshadow the narrative; and

It’s imperative to honor the complexity of the past, not to simplify it.

A conference…

The Martha’s Vineyard Summer Writers’ Conference

A few contests…

Boulevard Literary Magazine Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers

Eggtooth Editions Chapbook Contest

The Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards

Intrepid Times Travel Writing Competition

J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards

Minotaur Books / Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition

The Sine Qua Non Prizes for Prose and Poetry

Story Unlikely Short Story Contest

VII International MicroFiction Contest

Women’s Pamphlet Competition

Your Paper Quest Writing Competition

A creative reset…

A few fellowship/grant/scholarship opportunities…

International Women’s Media Foundation Kim Wall Memorial Fund

The 2026 Jason Reynolds / Simon & Schuster Travel Grant

A few freelance opportunities…

ABC7 Los Angeles is seeking freelance television newswriters.

RVO Health is looking for a freelance writer for its online chronic conditions communities.

Kirkus Media seeks freelance book reviewers of English and Spanish-language titles.

Reach Plc seeks US-based freelance news reporters.

Publicis Health seeks freelance copywriters.

The Scottish BPOC Writers Network is looking for pitches on the theme of Speaking with the Ancestors.

A few submission opportunities…

Adventitious seeks speculative, surreal, and literary fiction.

Allium seeks submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction.

ELA Literary Magazine has a call for submissions from authors who are 18+ on the theme of Sultry Monstrous Untamed Tales (or S.M.U.T.) or a “new” way to look at old relationships.

The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts seeks compressed fiction, creative nonfiction, and prose poetry.

Plott Hound seeks speculative fiction and poetry starring animals.

Procrastinating Writers United (PWU) seeks multimedia submissions of prose, poetry, illustration, comics, and multimedia work for an I Haven’t Made It Home Yet themed anthology.

Variant Literature is accepting submissions of poetry, flash prose, and fiction.

A few sessions & workshops…

A few virtual artist/author/creative events…

A few virtual book/script clubs and discussions…

Black Women Read Between the Wines Book Club

Books by Ky Book Club

Breast Cancer Book Club

December Afternoon Book Club: Manifesting Miracles

December Lattes and Literature: Book Club For Moms

Empathy Circle Book Club

Fascinating Health Book Club

Feminist Book Club: The Other Significant Others by Rhaina Cohen

Kingdom Reflections Virtual Book Club: All She Wants by Rhonda McKnight

Learning Tree Book Club

Survivors Book Club

And a final thought…

Hi there,

Happy December!

This happens to be my favorite month of the year, not because of the Holidays, but because I have a December birthday, and I tend to celebrate ME all month long.

That said, know that the party has officially begun!! Have an extra sip and toast me while you are at it!

And, as usual, this one has tons of embedded links, and if you purchase a book through one of them, I will earn a small commission.

Take it easy,

A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[Urban, Righteous, and Contemporary ]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/urban-righteous-and-contemporaryhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/urban-righteous-and-contemporaryMon, 24 Nov 2025 13:25:33 GMT

white paper on white surface
Photo by Barbara Maroń on Unsplash

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t a standard metaphorical connection, this issue includes:

A sip…

The muse contends that there is little difference between a white lie and nonsense… either way, one should not call Horsefeather…

“I’m probably a little silly, perhaps, about the banning of my books. I tend not to pay an awful lot of attention to it; most of the instances I know about fall into the category of the absurd.” — Toni Morrison

A shout out…

Versatility suggests that one be chosen or selected... having work included as a Book of the Month pick, Good Morning America buzz pick, Target Book of the Month,

New York Times Editors’ pick, and as an Indie Next, is an excellent indication of why Erika T. Wurth is among the select group of Good Housekeeping’s 20 Best Native Writers.

An urban descendant of several Native Nations, she is a creative writing professor well known for her intentional efforts to include writers from Black, enrolled, unenrolled, urban, and reservation backgrounds in the Native American fiction writing community.

Lauded for her ability to chronicle poverty with compassion and respect, she is a vocal critic of the publishing industry who deliberately writes beyond stereotypes and respects the rights of other Native writers to incorporate autobiographical background.

An alumna of Fort Lewis College (B.A., English) and the University of Toledo (M.A., English), she is the author of four standalone novels, including White Horse, three novella/short story collections, two poetry collections, and a picture book.

A narrative artist and a Kenyon and Sewanee fellow who writes across genres, her work is incorporated within Meow Wolf Convergence Station, and also appears or is forthcoming in several anthologies and journals.

A chaser…

B&N #PouredOver: Erika T. Wurth on White Horse:

A sentence…

Prompts inspired by White Horse:

“And that’s when I sensed something. Something unnatural.”

“I wish I could cry, but I can’t, I’m broken that way. Just fucking broken, like a clock on the wall. Stopped in time.”

“Daddy was brittle. His mind was like a boat lost at sea. Sometimes it came close to the shore, only to push back. I didn’t want to make it so it never made anchor again.”

“What was it with married people, especially ones with kids? They always thought they had it harder than everyone else, and they always thought that having kids meant they were doing something heroic.”

“I thought of my mother, her life taken by a man who, if not a literal beast, nonetheless, someone shaped by the shape of someone else’s pain, who only knew to take that pain and try to give it to someone else, thinking it would take the pain away from himself.”

“I am healed. But I don’t realize that healing requires scars, and I am still rough beneath them; I still have pain locked behind that ropy skin. And there is weakness there, there is vulnerability, a thing I have always been terrified of. A thing that has festered. A thing that can take me down into the dark. And feed. And feed.”

A snack pairing…

Known for prioritizing locally sourced food, Denver’s diverse food scene is also well-known for Rocky Mountain Oysters, and despite the name, they are not seafood.

A sweet melody…

Denver Sound is often described as melancholic, gothic, country-punk, which incorporates massive dubstep, bass, riddim, and jazz; you be the judge:

A book list…

A few more with characters haunted by the past:

Play Nice, by Rachel Harrison

Lone Women, by Victor LaValle

Model Home, by Rivers Solomon

Victorian Psycho, by Virginia Feito

Diavola, by Jennifer Marie Thorne

Indian Burial Ground, by Nick Medina

The Eyes Are the Best Part, by Monika Kim

When the Wolf Comes Home, by Nat Cassidy

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, by Grady Hendrix

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, by Kylie Lee Baker

Killer on the Road / The Babysitter Lives, by Stephen Graham Jones

A literary listicle…

Because of its altitude, Denver is called Mile High City. One of the first in the nation to have a Black business district, formally called the Harlem of the West; it is Erika T. Wurth’s hometown, and its inspiration includes:

The living Japanese American legacy known as Sakura Square;

The continuum of Jewish culture housed at the Mizel Museum;

The rich and poignant history of the Little Saigon Business District;

The galleries, shops, and restaurants located in the Art District on Santa Fe;

Museo de las Americas, the only museum in the region devoted entirely to Latino culture;

The extensive collection documenting Black history in the West at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library;

The Black American West Museum & Heritage Center detailing the contributions of Blacks to the settlement of the West; and

The vast representation of Indigenous cultures and tribes on display at the Denver Art Museum’s Indigenous Art Collection.

A few useful tips…

On writing horror and mystery blend:

Foreshadow;

Distort perception;

Build suspense slowly;

Create a sense of violation;

The stakes must be realistic;

Create a chilling atmosphere;

Remember, fear is subjective;

Maintain a pensive sense of fear;

Balance the unknown with the dread;

The protagonist can be unsympathetic;

Push the envelope beyond perceived rules and reality;

Establish compelling and escalating dread from the start;

Make readers question reality and the character’s sanity; and

This is the genre in which the antagonists can be anything other than human.

A few contests…

The African Poetry Book Fund Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry

After the End Poetry Competition

Dark Poets Prize

Neville Dawes First Book Prize for Emerging Caribbean Poets

Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest

Do Wha(ts) Write Prize

Four Tulips Cozy Writing Contest

The Hudson Review Short Fiction Contest

Inspot Inaugural Short Story Competition

McGovern Center Writing Awards in Fiction

Vellum Prize

W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections

JF Powers Prize for Short Fiction

Quill Press Award

Servicescape Short Story Award

Uncharted Novel Excerpt Prize

A creative reset…

A critique opportunity...

Murphy Online Writing Critique

A fee-based accountability/retreat/workshop opportunity…

Single Session

A few fellowship/grant/scholarship opportunities…

Assets for Artists (Massachusetts)

Catalyze Grants

Creative West Artist Fund

Elevate Austin Grants

Gulliver’s Travel Grant

Kenyon Review Developmental Editing Fellowship for Emerging Writers

The Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Fellowships

Nieman Fellowships

Poets & Writers Grants (New York)

Southarts Creative Practice Grants

Summer Fishtrap Scholarships

Texas Commission for the Arts

We Need Diverse Books Emergency Grants

A retreat & residency opportunity…

The Hugo Burge Foundation Residencies

A few freelance opportunities…

Balls & Strikes is accepting pitches of critical, progressive, and bullshit-free commentary about courts, judges, and the legal system they uphold.

The Bold Italic is seeking freelance reporters interested in contributing reported or personal articles celebrating the free-wheeling spirit of the Bay Area.

Compose.ly seeks talented freelance writers passionate about manufacturing content.

Little White Lies is always seeking pitches from film writers.

New Scientist seeks freelance journalists who write about health and medicine.

The Oval Update is seeking track-and-field article pitches for its opinion, interview, and coaching sections. h

A few submission opportunities…

Folding Rock seeks new creative fiction and non-fiction in, from, and connected to Wales.

Kismet Magazine seeks book reviews.

McSweeney’s seeks flash fiction, translations, and other formats.

NonBinary Review seeks speculative work from unexpected angles.

A few sessions & workshops…

A few virtual artist/author/creative events…

A few virtual book/script clubs and discussions…

The Black Writers Book Club: J.A. Mensah’s Castles from Cobwebs

Binding of Black Voice Book Club

The Book Sanctuary – a Wellness Book Club

Lit&Lovely, a Book Club for Women

Spooky Book Club: Eat the Ones You Love

Wine for an Hour Book Club

Women’s Winter Book Club

A virtual conference/festival…

And a final thought…

Hi there,

From December 22nd to January 4th, I will pause your subscription payments while I take a publishing break.

Since I plan to completely detox from social media and other sources of external chaos during that same time period, please don’t take my silence on your quality writing personally.

As usual, this one has tons of embedded links, and if you purchase a book through one of them, I will earn a small commission.

Happy Holiday, in advance!

Take it easy,

A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

]]><![CDATA[Time Continues to Run Short]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/time-continues-to-run-shorthttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/time-continues-to-run-shortFri, 21 Nov 2025 20:30:58 GMT

vintage brown and white watch lot
Photo by Heather Zabriskie on Unsplash

If Simone de Beauvoir is correct, “One is not born, but rather one becomes a woman,” and Spike Lee’s adaptation of Richard Price’s Clockers is proof that one is not born, but rather one is conditioned to become a drug dealer.

Set in and around the fictional Nelson Mandela Houses, if the opening scene filled with bullets and bodies doesn’t grab attention, then the run-down, yet post-modern complex with explicit references to urban decay and social neglect as Westernized Apartheid should.

A co-written feature, its critical acclaim remains relevant, as does its urgency.

Released when older members of Generation Y entered middle school, members of Generation Z may not be familiar with the title or recognize that epidemics include widespread outbreaks of violence linked to the post-19th-century drug trade. Rampant and uncharted, the illicit trade has always been most prevalent in economically distressed areas.

This film’s primary relevance has always been its ability to illuminate several facts: illicit drugs are, for all intents and purposes, an untaxed industry; drug dealing has always been a lucrative, albeit underground, profession; and drug addiction is an equal opportunity and non-discriminatory issue.

Few films and even fewer book adaptations feature twin anti-hero protagonists; this one keeps viewers shifting between Strike/Ronald/Ronnie, a well-read, stressed-out man-child who deals crack cocaine, and Rocco Klein, the middle-aged, burned-out, marginally corrupt cop destined to connect the dots in a rival street entrepreneur’s murder.

Both operate in the murkiest shades of morality, share a warped sense of order and logic, and cynically justify the use of questionable power tactics.

Symbolic of both a wise elder and a trickster, Rocco gossips to connect, bends the truth to uphold justice, and has a talent for placing institutional failures exactly where they don’t belong, on the backs of the urban and working poor.

A toy train fanatic and a sugary drink imbiber, Strike is prodigal because he isn’t the gainfully employed or educated son his mother hoped to raise. Instead, he is a frugal yet ambitious teenager who deals drugs steps from her doorstep to make sure her watchful eye stays on him.

Both Strike and Rocco are character studies of men worn down by urban decay. Despite their bravado of good versus evil, perceptive viewers will notice that ambiguity clouds morality, and each is compelled to accept that being seen as a protector in an urban setting is always influenced by personal experiences.

Aware that they are both products of their environment, neither is immune to using violence as a form of agency. However, both choose to and actively utilize the intelligence needed to maintain their status, which includes bragging to boost street cred, lying to preserve influence, and standing firm in their belief that truth and justice are not mutually exclusive.

With its indeterminate timeframe, viewers are compelled to empathize with the reluctant witness, played by Spike Lee.

Gainfully employed and dressed to reflect that status, he remains knowingly silent, presumably because he openly indulges in the most harmful yet socially accepted vice, alcohol. Seemingly harmless, he is very aware that the environment suggests there are no clear heroes, as urban settings imply that policemen and drug dealers can be seen as benevolent villains.

An allegorical, sensory, and symbolic feast, the unknowns do not distract from the implicit messages or the central themes: family loyalty runs deeper and is more crimson than blood, the sanguine life force that flows; morality is complex because childhood is a convoluted concept; and nobility is as fluid as the deception necessary to bend free will to align with circumstances.

Because social implications are usually viewed as affecting only minorities and the poor, this film intentionally critiques aesthetics related to addiction, race-based policing, and the false belief that drug trafficking only harms the most vulnerable.

Additionally, it shows that narrowly compensated civil service and the marginalization of large parts of society are cyclically destructive, because efforts at redemption are often based on flawed ideas about who has the right to seek and achieve absolution.

Truth is ambiguous and becomes more so as perspective shifts.

Part of this film’s power lies in its ability to subvert betrayal as a survival mechanism and to portray violence as elemental but not necessarily effective. Perhaps this is why the police station, as depicted, appears in greater disrepair than the public housing complex — in short, awareness is crucial because aesthetics can be deceiving.

Beneath the plot, this one is a scathing critique of social decay and the tendency to ignore institutional stagnation, which, if unchecked, leads to the gross exploitation of childhood through theft.

Sharp viewers will notice the reference to bond being equal to ten percent of the demanded bail, and the talented tenth neglecting its duty to the remaining ninety percent. Because environmental factors outweigh spiritual intervention, passive viewers will not miss the metaphorical references to keeping watchful maternal eyes.

Beyond highlighting the difficulties of resisting overt, external evil, this film also directly addresses abuse of authority.

Through the secondary character, Officer Andre, viewers see the inherent commission required of social servants. An anomaly because he gives a damn, he isn’t taken seriously until he descends into reactive reflection of the people he has chosen to protect and serve.

Implicitly, no one realizes true benefit from illicit drug trades, and rap music is the inferred lyrical expression of validly repressed rage. Perhaps this is why the film features two train engines colliding: life is unflinching, and where the tracks do not diverge, destructive impact is the final step.

So why was the book optioned for a film, and what remains significant?

With immediacy, viewers are compelled to recognize the symbolic social neglect depicted in the public housing complex. Cyclical, destructive, and tangential, its inward route seems progressive. Without light, indulgence is muted, and outward routes are diametric, diagonal, and linear.

Similarly, evil is like a hexagon; inherently opposing, it stands completely against nourishment, even though it has the potential to grow unchecked.

This blunt and clear statement about the absence of genuine good and universal evil offers a broad view of illegal drug economies. It realistically illustrates the resilience needed to survive inner-city life.

Upon release, it was praised for its era-specific portrayal of gritty realism and for highlighting the compounded dangers of being a lethal yet illegal heroine. Today, the dirt thrown on single mothers, the working poor, and others living within the margins is judged because their choices are limited by broken systems, which remains evident.

Clockers is worth a re-watch because reframing street culture as culture aligns with the idea of justice being blind, and because the role models include anti-heroes.

For your reading pleasure, here are a few comparable titles:

And, for your viewing pleasure, a few comparable films:

  • Sugar Hill, directed by Leon Ischaso

  • Boyz n the Hood, directed by John Singleton

  • American Gangster, directed by Ridley Scott

  • New Jack City, directed by Mario Van Peebles

  • Menace II Society, directed by the Hughes Brothers

]]><![CDATA[Half-Month, Inclusive History]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/half-month-inclusive-history-678https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/half-month-inclusive-history-678Thu, 20 Nov 2025 23:28:37 GMT

November Black History

Established to address the deep-seated dissatisfaction with the history of slavery and to honor Black Culture and history, today, November 20th, is National Day of Zumnbi and Black Consciousness Day in countries like Brazil, and because it is, do you know that November Black History also includes:

  • 16th - Nigerian author Chinua Achebe was born (1930); Zina Garrison was born (1963); Lisa Bonet was born (1967); Pam Johnson was named publisher of the Ithaca (NY) Journal, and became the first Black American woman to head a daily newspaper (1981);

  • 17th - Omega Psi Phi Fraternity was founded on the campus of Howard University (1911); Susan Rice was born (1964); Barbara Jordan and Andrew Young made history as the first Black Americans from the south to be elected to Congress since the Reconstruction era (1972); WHHM, the first Black-operated radio station, aired for the first time at Howard University (1980); Audre Lorde succumbed (1992); Esther Rolle succumbed (1998);

  • 18th - Sojourner Truth was born (1787); Warren Moon was born (1956); Sinbad was born (1956); United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young was awarded the Spingarn Medal (1978); Cab Calloway succumbed (1994);

  • 19th - Roy Campanella was named MVP in National League Baseball for the second time (1953);

  • 20th - Howard Seminary (later Howard University) was founded (1865); Pauli Murray was born (1910); Garret T. Morgan received the patent for the traffic signal (1923); Dominique Dawes was born (1976);

  • 21st - Granville T. Woods received the patent for the electric railway conduit (1893);

  • 22nd - Marcus Garvey gave his speech outlining “The Principles of The Universal Negro Improvement Association” (1922); Elijah Muhammad established the Nation of Islam (1930); Guion “Guy” Bluford, the first Black astronaut, was born (1942); Colonel Frederick D. Gregory became the first Black American to lead a space mission (1989);

  • 23rd - A.J. Beard received the patent for the “Jenny Coupler”, still in use today to connect railroad cars (1897); John L. Love received the patent for the pencil sharpener (1897); Bobby Lee Rush was born (1946); Robin Roberts was born (1960); August Wilson received the Pulitzer Prize for drama (1990 );

  • 24th - Scott Joplin was born (1868);

  • 25th – Thirty-five formerly enslaved survivors of the Amistad returned home to Africa (1841); Ralph J. Bunche was awarded the Spingarn Medal (1949); Bill “Bojangles” Robinson succumbed (1949); Suriname gained independence from the Netherlands (1975); Flip Wilson succumbed (1998);

  • 26th – Tina Turner was born (1939); Charles Gordone became the first Black playwright to receive the Pulitzer Prize (1970);

  • 27th – Christopher J. Perry founded The Philadelphia Tribune (1884); Jimi Hendrix was born (1942); Dorothy Height was elected as president of the National Council of Negro Women (1957); Robin Givens was born (1964); Jaleel White was born (1976); Charles Johnson received the National Book Award for Fiction (1990);

  • 28th – Berry Gordy was born (1929); Richard Wright succumbed (1960); Ernie Davis became the first Black to win the Heisman Trophy (1961);

  • 29th - Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was born (1908); Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was born (1908); Alice Childress became the first Black woman to receive an Obie Award (1955); Coleman Young succumbed (1997); Singer Rihanna was named the National Hero of Barbados (2021); and

  • 30th - Samuel R. Scottron received the patent for the curtain rod (1889); J.A. Sweeting received the patent for the cigarette-rolling device (1897); Gordon Parks was born (1912); Shirley Chisholm was born (1924); Judith Jamison debuted with Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theatre (1965); Coleman Young received the Springarn Medal (1891)?

]]><![CDATA[Exclusionary Sanctioned Remembrance]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/exclusionary-sanctioned-remembrancehttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/exclusionary-sanctioned-remembranceMon, 10 Nov 2025 15:48:38 GMT

Armistice Journal

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t regimented, this issue includes:

A sip…

The muse contends that The Unknown Soldier is entitled to honor…

“Once you make something forbidden, it becomes all the more attractive.” — Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom

A shout out…

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Everything is Somehow Connected]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/everything-is-somehow-connectedhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/everything-is-somehow-connectedFri, 07 Nov 2025 20:30:34 GMT

a woman with a crown on her head
Photo by Mukul Kumar on Unsplash

The subtle difference between coincidence and synchronicity is that the latter involves seemingly meaningful events, whereas the former involves concurrent events with no causal link. Still, neither is uncommon; however, repetition isn’t necessary for either.

When life is lived on the edge, existence often involves a series of repetitive acts that may lack meaning but are necessary for survival. Although subsistence is an economic indicator, external factors usually lead people to focus solely on meeting basic needs.

Through a series of connected stories, The Madonna’s of Echo Park captures the history and transformation of the working-class inhabitants of a Mexican American neighborhood. Spanning several decades, the stories feature first-person narratives from nine accounts of the impact of a single traumatic event.

Using the Madonna, the central icon of Catholicism, to symbolize faith, it serves as an introduction to cultural traditions related to carrying medals, building altars, and tattooing images of the Virgin Mary. Considered the most morally grounded —perhaps because she is the mother of Jesus —her importance in each story reflects the perseverance needed to uphold one’s heritage, even as one gradually assimilates.

A comparison and analysis of the differences between American citizenship versus undocumented status and living on Ceded Lands—along with the nuances involved in racial versus ethnic identification—each story provides a realistic, present-tense account of distortion and disorientation.

Despite the absence of a single central protagonist, round-trip gentrification serves as the symbolic antagonist and remains a key figure throughout. Using paradox, decaying buildings symbolize dehumanization, poverty is depicted as self-imposed mental instability, and social distance is transformed into tangible emotional distance.

A layered ode to how often seemingly disconnected paths cross, intersect, and diverge, this explores what it means to be Mexican and Mexican American, and how ‘othering’ occurs both within and outside ethnic and racial groups within marginalized communities.

A debut by Brando Skyhorse, a dual-race and dual-heritage former resident of the characterized neighborhood, each tale shows that the past is nostalgic because its loss leads to mourning. A linked recording of how people, space, architecture, and neighborhoods change, each story voices the visibly invisible and prompts readers to question the seemingly inconsistent encounters that give life meaning.

A collection that explores both what gives residents a sense of belonging and whether race and culture provide shared meaning will be overlooked by readers with strong opinions that lean toward stereotypes, who will miss the subtle details that make this more of a tapestry than a worn-out rug.

A lyrical nod to the internal trait called resilience, this multi-voiced collective story was published before the social unrest that united nearly every part of Generation Z. The urban setting, fragmented plot, and focus on the erasure of immigrant, second, and third-generation communities will make this notable for readers who support ideas related to empowering women and the poor.

Rating: ★★★★

Similar titles exploring:

]]><![CDATA[Young, Gifted, Black and British]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/young-gifted-black-and-britishhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/young-gifted-black-and-britishMon, 03 Nov 2025 13:15:08 GMT

a pencil and a paper
Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t cured by scribbling a to-do list, this issue includes:

A sip…

Rare is the instance when the muse cannot decide, and that is why there are several Blacklisted options…

“Many times my books are banned by people who never read two sentences.” — Maya Angelou

A shout out…

Apparently, the 31st birthday is significant because it marks a milestone in personal growth, self-reflection, and goal setting. However, some achieve great things before

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Half-Month, Inclusive History]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/half-month-inclusive-history-fb2https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/half-month-inclusive-history-fb2Sat, 01 Nov 2025 19:54:21 GMT

November Black History

November marks the following significant events in US Black History:

  • 1867: Freedmen in Virginia registered to vote for the first time.

  • 1922: The Harlem Renaissance began.

  • 1935: Two Black teenagers were lynched by a mob of 700 white people in Colorado County, TX.

  • 1957: Texas officials threatened and jailed NAACP officers for not disclosing their membership.

However, do you know that November Black History also includes:

  • 1st – The first free school, the African Free School, opened (1787); Mississippi approved the use of literacy and understanding test to disenfranchise Black citizens (1890); C.W. Allen received the patent for the self-levelling table (1898); W.E.B. Du Bois began publishing the NAACP’s Crisis Magazine (1910); Florene Mills succumbed (1927); John H. Johnson published the 1st issue of The Negro Digest (1942); John H. Johnson published the 1st issue of Ebony Magazine (1945); Dr. Charles S. Johnson became the first Black president of Fisk University (1946); John H. Johnson founded Jet Magazine (1951); Clarence Thomas was formally seated as the 106th Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1991); South Africans voted in their first all-race local government elections, completing the destruction of the apartheid system (1995); Stanford University introduced its African American History Couse concentrating on the Modern Freedom Struggle (2007);

  • 2nd - Menelik II, the former emperor of Ethiopia, was crowned King of Kings of Abyssinia, Ethiopia (1889); Haile Selassie was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia (1930); Charles C. Diggs was elected Michigan’s first Black congressman (1954); Condoleezza Rice was born (1954); Nelly was born (1974); President Ronald Reagan officially signed the law declaring the third Monday in January as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (1983); Carol Mosely Braun became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate (1992);

  • 3rd - John W. Menard made history as the first Black person elected to Congress (1868); John Baxter Taylor, the 1st Black American Olympic Gold Medalist, was born (1882); J.H. Hunter received the patent for the portable weighing scale (1896); Paul Robeson was presented with the Spingarn Medal (1945); Larry Holmes was born (1949); John Conyers Jr. was elected to the House of Representatives (1964); Thirman L. Milner was elected mayor of Hartford, CT, and became the first Black mayor in New England (1981); Jesse Jackson announced his candidacy for President (1983);

  • 4th - Cathay Williams, the only known female Buffalo Soldier, was born (1844 ); Thomas Elkins received the patent for the refrigeration apparatus (1879); Patricia Bath was born (1942); Hulan Jack was elected borough president of Manhattan and became the highest ranking Black municipal official at the time (1954); Sean Combs was born (1969); Zina Garrison became the first Black to win the Junior Singles Tennis Championship at Wimbledon (1981); President-elect Barack Obama delivered his historic victory speech (2008);

  • 5th - Theo Wright became the first Black American to receive a Theology Degree (1836); Ike Turner born (1931); the Maryland Court of Appeals ordered the University of Maryland to admit Donald Murray (1935); Art Tatum succumbed (1956) Shirley Chisolm became the first Black woman elected to Congress (1968); Walter E. Washington became the first elected Washington, DC Mayor since Reconstruction (1974); George Brown (CO) and Mervyn Dymally (CA) were elected lieutenant governors respectively, becoming the first two Blacks in the nation to hold the position (1974); Damon J. Keith received the Springarn Medal (1974); The governor of Arizona officially refused to acknowledge Dr. King Day as a national holiday (1986); Shirley Verret succumbed (2010); Jonathan Scott Holloway was inaugurated as the first Black president of Rutgers University (2021);

  • 6th - George Poage was born (1880); James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson composed “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, widely regarded as the Black national anthem (1900); W.E.B. Du Bois was awarded the Spingarn Medal (1920); W.A. Scott Jr. founded the Atlanta Daily World newspaper (1928); Sharon Pratt Kelly became the first woman mayor of Washington, D.
    C. (1990);

  • 7th - Meharry Medical College was founded at Central Tennessee College (1876); Arthur L. Mitchell defeated Oscar DePriest in Chicago to become the first Black Democratic congressman (1934); L. Douglas Wilder was elected governor of VA, and became the nation’s first Black governor since the Reconstruction (1989); David Dinkins became the first Black mayor of New York City (1989); Jimi Hendrix inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1991);

  • 8th – The racially motivated Wilmington Massacre, occurred in Wilmington, NC (1898); Ester Rolle was born (1933); Crystal Bird Faucet was elected state representative in PA and became the first Black woman to serve in a state legislature (1938); Alfre Woodard was born (1953); John H. Johnson was awarded the Spingarn Medal (1966); Edward W. Brooke was elected the first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction (1966);

  • 9th – Benjamin Banneker was born (1731); Howard University Medical School opened (1868); Powell Clayton called out the Arkansas State Militia and declared martial law in 10 counties in a bid to put down a Ku Klux Klan-led insurrection (1868); William Monroe Trotter founded The Guardian newspaper in Boston, MA (1901); Dorothy Dandridge (1922); Mattiwilda Dobbs became the first Black person to sing a romantic lead at the Metropolitan Opera (1956); Sisqo was born (1975);

  • 10th - Granville T. Woods received the patent for the electric railway (1891); George H. White introduced the first anti-lynching legislation in the U.S. Congress (1898); Charlie Sifford won the Long Beach Open and became the first Black to win a major professional golf tournament (1957); Andrew T. Hatcher was named associate press secretary by President John F. Kennedy, and became the first Black person to hold the position (1960); Wilson Goode was elected and became Philadelphia’s first Black mayor (1983); Carmen McRae succumbed (1994);

  • 11th - Nat Turner is executed after leading a slave revolt in Southampton County, VA, and white mobs killed many other Blacks in response to his revolt against slavery (1831); George R. Carruthers received the patent for the image converter for detecting electromagnetic radiation (1969); Angola proclaimed its independence (1975); The Civil Rights Memorial was dedicated in Montgomery, AL (1989);

  • 12th - General George Washington issued an order barring free Blacks from serving in the army (1775); Henry Ossawa Tanner won the silver medal at the Paris Exposition (1900); Sigma Gamma Rho, Sorority Inc. was founded by Mary Lou Allison Gardner Little, Dorothy Hanley Whiteside, Vivian Irene White Marbury, Nannie Mae Gahn Johnson, Hattie Mae Annette Dulin Redford, Bessie Mae Downey Rhoades Martin, and Cubena McClure (1922); Madame Lillian Evanti founded the National Negro Opera Company (1941); Ernest Nathan Morial made history as the first elected Black Mayor of New Orleans, LA (1977); Alex Haley awarded the Spingarn Medal (1977); Wilma Rudolph succumbed (1994);

  • 13th - The Liberty Party, the nation’s first anti-slavery political party, was formed in Warsaw, N.Y. (1839); Albert C. Richardson received the patent for the casket-lowering device (1894); Dr. Daniel Hale Williams became the first Black elected to the American College of Surgeons (1913); the Harlem Renaissance began (1922); Janet Collins became the first Black ballerina to appear with the Metropolitan Opera Company (1951); Whoopi Goldberg was born (1955); The United States Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling which banned segregation on public buses in Montgomery, AL (1956); Carl Stokes elected as mayor of Cleveland, Oh, and became the first Black elected Mayor of a major American city (1967); Dwight Gooden became the youngest pitcher to win the Cy Young award (1985);

  • 14th – Booker T. Washington succumbed (1915); Valerie Jarret was born (1956); or

  • 15th - Payton Johnson received the patent for the swinging chair (1881); Arthur Dorrington became the first Black person to play organized hockey (1950); Professor Arthur Lewis received the Nobel Prize in economics, and became the first Black person to receive the award in a category other than peace (1979); Rosa Parks awarded the Springarn Medal (1979)?

]]><![CDATA[Philosophical, Surreal, and Revelatory]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/philosophical-surreal-and-revelatoryhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/philosophical-surreal-and-revelatoryMon, 27 Oct 2025 12:16:26 GMT

Flowers rest on an old, open book.
Photo by Oxana Daeva on Unsplash

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t well-versed, this issue includes:

A sip…

Because of heat tolerance, the muse is unfazed by Satan’s Breath…

“To ban a book is to limit our understanding and knowledge. And this goes against our right to freedom.” — The Concordian

A shout out…

If writing what you know makes sense, ignoring a rule isn’t the same as breaking one. Perhaps that is why Salman Rushdie hasn’t taken time to fictionalize the racist taunts

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Relatable Flawed Representation]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/relatable-flawed-representationhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/relatable-flawed-representationFri, 24 Oct 2025 21:49:43 GMT
a close up of a man
Photo by Dylann Hendricks | 딜란 on Unsplash

Tired, average, expected to take up slack… This is the unofficial mantra of almost any woman on the planet, especially those who run the race in worn-out and worthless stilettos. Perhaps this is why change isn’t limited to good; it is a necessity.

Enter Juanita, the protagonist of the similarly titled film. She is fed up because she’s too old for bullshit, too young to retire, and suffering from a common psychological condition called midlife crisis. As a single mother to three adult children who still act like kids, she’s caring but also triggered by long-buried desires from before they were even a consideration.

A film about taking risks when money is tight, friends are few, and sanity is all that remains for one to seek. It stars Alfrie Woodard in a role that could inspire anyone to move beyond melancholy and escape from a never-ending cycle of disappointments and useless pursuits.

Second chances are not reserved for the adventurous because the soul doesn’t seek validation to get what it innately wants. Directed by Clark Johnson and released in 2019, this won’t appeal to entitled brats, grandmothers who willingly accept free babysitter status, or others who claim adulthood but behave as if just breastfed.

“I ain’t got to do shit for y’all, no more,” is a line from this film and the battle cry of every woman with a nest that refuses to empty. Culturally, the unyielding desire to remain tethered is likely epigenetic; all shades of minority children have historically been forcibly removed or separated from their lineage long before land masses were continuous.

Set initially in an urban environment, a more beat-down than fed-up Juanita declares, “I’m a fuckin’ ghetto cliché,” and casts fate to the wind. A quick check-in with her cash-positive best friend peels back any reservations and gives her the push to hop on the next Greyhound bound for wherever and ends up right in the middle of Montana.

With its open landscape and unobstructed views of vast mountain ranges, one would expect Juanita to grow, and she does. Romantic love blooms during her brief 6-to-8-week stay with a fine example of an Indigenous American called Jess. The owner of presumably the only French restaurant in the state, he is a war veteran and binge drinker drawn to her feisty attitude, and significantly more mature, yet younger, than any man she’s ever been with.

Given that the entertainment industry is driven by commerce, however, this film’s lack of box office appeal is actually the key to its brilliance. Adapted from the screenplay by Roderick M. Spencer and based on Sheila Williams’ novel Dancing on the Edge of the Roof, it makes a dynamic backstory unlikely within a 90-minute runtime. More importantly, the focus on underlying structural failures that exacerbate urban blight is documentary, not dramatic, in format.

Escapism isn’t unique to human experience; in fact, all mammals, birds, and reptiles exhibit a state of daydreaming. A psychological need driven by instinct, it allows data gleaned from inner thoughts to shift toward clarity. Portrayed as impulsive, Juanita’s impromptu departure is the shit that single, working-class women, regardless of matriarchal status, long for.

Criticized for its “lack of urgency,” this film explores the process of self-actualization. More than casual viewing is necessary to distinguish leisure from indifference and routine from a nuanced expectation to stay within one’s designated space. As a subtle challenge to cultural norms about reclaiming identity, it symbolically implies that, because aging is slow, self-discovery is also unique and equally time-consuming.

Brimming with colloquial meta-narrative, it’s a form of open diary written as a love note to its target audience—middle-aged minority women. Often overlooked, demonized, and expected to be averse to melancholy because of having borne children, this piece is a middle finger and loudly suggests that life, with its miasmal dirt and decay, and as previously lived, should fuck completely off.

Because personal agency and inner truth work together, any woman who hasn’t let her soul shout, “I ain’t ya mama,” is suffering from strong woman syndrome. A form of segregation, it’s a cruel, neglectful type of insecurity that keeps women from balancing the innocence of childhood with the disappointment of adulthood.

Being middle-aged and female has always suggested that women have passed their prime, not entered it. This film’s joy includes Juanita’s declaration of independence from fantasies that typically depict romance, as well as those that suggest approval is necessary for the heart and mind to grow together.

Maybe it is less emotional and introspective than other box-office hits; however, that does not diminish its cultural importance. With an open ending that directly challenges complete closure, Juanita is a film about triumph, freedom, and the bravery to pursue whatever form of healing the mind seeks.

A contemporary and blatantly honest slice into the interiority of minority mothers, this one omits a vulnerable wallflower. A direct interrogation of why guilt and shame should not be attached to refusal to breastfeed beyond lactation, its significance is its illumination of middle-aged minority women’s right to claim space for actual, not stereotypical, self-love.

For your reading pleasure, here are a few more titles by Sheila Williams, the author whose novel inspired Juanita:

And, additional titles that draw on themes of self-discovery/reinvention, like the film Juanita:

]]><![CDATA[Transformed Focused Realities]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/transformed-focused-realitieshttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/transformed-focused-realitiesMon, 20 Oct 2025 12:35:15 GMT

white notebook beside white ceramic mug on brown wooden table
Photo by Susan Weber on Unsplash

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t necessarily incremental, this issue includes:

A sip…

After one too few, the muse confused calls for Sherman with a male stripper by the same name…

“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.” ―Henry Louis Gates Jr.

A shout out…

Besides writing The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian—one of the most frequently banned and challenged books in the US—novelist Sherman Alexie is an

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Literati and Libations]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/literati-and-libations-d43https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/literati-and-libations-d43Fri, 17 Oct 2025 07:02:33 GMT

a glass of alcohol sitting on top of a bed
Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

Once again, it’s 5 pm… somewhere, and because it is, why not raise an additional glass in celebration of more literary greats with October birthdays, including:

  • 16th

    Noah Webster, compiler of the first American language dictionary (1758); Oscar Wilde, author (1854); Eugene O’Neill, playwright (1888); and Günter Grass, novelist and playwright (1927);

  • 17th

    Jupiter Hammon, first Black American published poet (1711); Georg Buchner, dramatist (1813); Elinor Glyn, novelist, scriptwriter and romance writer (1864); Nathanael West, novelist (1903); Arthur Miller, playwright (1915); Lerone Bennet, Jr., editor, Black historian and writer (1928); and Les(lie) Murray, poet (1938);

  • 18th

    [Bernd] Heinrich [Wilhelm] von Kleist, romantic dramatist and poet (1777); Thomas Love Peacock, poet, essayist and novelist (1785); H(arold) L(enoir) Davis, reporter, poet and novelist (1894); Philip Pullman, fantasy novelist (1946); Ntozake Shange, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1948); Wendy Wasserstein, playwright (1950); and Terry McMillan, novelist (1951);

  • 19th

    Sir Thomas Browne, writer (1605); [Pierre Ambroise Francois] Choderlos de Lacloc, epistolary novelist (1741); [James Henry] Leigh Hunt, poet and essayist (1784); Vincas Kreve-Mickievicius, poet and playwright (1882); Fannie Hurst, novelist and short story writer (1889); Miguel Angel Asturias, poet and novelist (1899); and John Le Carré -aka- David John Moore Cornwell, spy novelist (1931);

  • 20th

    Thomas Hughes, author (1822); Daniel Owen, novelist (1836); Arthur Rimbaud, poet (1854); Frederic Dannay -aka- Daniel Nathan, screenwriter (1905); Art Buchwald, columnist and author (1925); and Robert Pinsky, poet (1940);

“I drink to not giving a damn . . .” ― Sheridan Hay, The Secret of Lost Things

  • 21st

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and critic (1772); Alphonse [Marie Louis de Prat] Lamartine, poet and man of letters (1790); and Ursula LeGuin, sci-fi and fantasy writer (1929);

  • 22nd

    Ivan Bunin, poet and novelist (1870); Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak, writer, translator, and children’s poet (1887); Dámaso Alonso, philologist, critic, and poet (1898); Sidney Kingsley, playwright and screenwriter (1906); and Doris Lessing, novelist (1919);

  • 23rd

    Robert [Seymour] Bridges, poet (1844); Emily Kimbrough, editor and memoirist (1899); Michael Crichton, novelist (1942); and Gordan Korman, children’s and YA author (1963);

  • 24th

    Moss Hart, playwright (1904); Denise Levertov, poet (1923); and Elaine Feinstein, poet, novelist, and biographer (1930);

  • 25th

    [Henri] Benjamin Constant [de Rebecque], writer (1767); Thomas Babbington Macaulay, poet and historian (1800); Eduardo Barrios, novelist (1884); Henry Steele Commager, historian (1902); John Berryman, poet (1914); Harold Brodkey, novelist and writer (1930); and Anne Tyler, novelist (1941);

“Here’s to all the guys better looking than us. May they all die first.” ― Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim

  • 26th

    [Desiderius] Erasmus, humanist and writer (1466); Charles Sprague, poet (1791); Beryl Clutterbuck Markham, memoirist (1902); John Arden, novelist and playwright (1930); Pat Conroy, writer (1945); Robb Forman Dew, novelist (1946); and Andrew Motion, biographer and poet (1952);

  • 27th

    Dylan Marlais Thomas, poet (1914); Sylvia Plath, poet (1932); Enid Bagnold, author (1889); Neil Sheehan, author and reporter (1936); and Fran Lebowitz, humorist (1950);

  • 28th

    Ivan Turgenev, novelist, poet, and playwright (1818); Velimir Khlebnikov -aka- Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov, futurist poet; Evelyn [Arthur St. John] Waugh, novelist (1903); and Ayi Kwei Armah, essayist and novelist (1939);

  • 29th

    James Boswell, diarist and biographer (1740); Guillermo Valencia, poet and translator (1873); Jean [Hippolyte] Giraudoux, playwright and novelist (1882); and Henry Green -aka- Henry Vincent Yorke, novelist (1905);

  • 30th

    Richard Brinsley Sheridan, playwright (1751); André Marie de Chénier -aka- Constantinople, poet and political journalist (1762); Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, novelist (1821); Paul Valéry, poet and essayist (1871); Ezra [Weston Loomis] Pound, poet and critic (1885); and Larry Woiwode, novelist and poet (1941); and

  • 31st

    John Evelyn, diarist (1620); John Keats, poet (1795); and Dick Francis, novelist (1920).

“We drink to those who love us, we drink to those who don’t. We drink to those who fuck us, and fuck those who don’t!” ― Tamsyn Bester, The Line Between

L’chaim!

Thanks for reading,

Thanks for reading A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

]]><![CDATA[Half-Month, Inclusive History]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/half-month-inclusive-history-77ahttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/half-month-inclusive-history-77aWed, 15 Oct 2025 07:02:47 GMT

Fall into Black History

It is still Black History Month in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, and because it is, do you know that October Black History also includes:

  • 16th - Million Man March was held in Washington, D.C. (1995); Black Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who engaged in a silent protest on the medal stand to bring light to the racial discrimination and violence against Black people in the U.S., were met with hostility by white supporters and the media (1968);

  • 17th – Capital Savings Bank of Washington, D.C., was organized (1888); Mae Jemison was born (1956); Congressman Elijah Cummings succumbed (2019);

  • 18th - Ntozake Shange was born (1948);

  • 19th - Byrd Prillerman, co-founder of Virginia State College, was born (1859); Joseph H. Rainey, Robert C. Delarge, and Robert B. Elliott became the first Black Republicans elected to the House of Representatives (1870); Paul Robeson opened in Othello at the Shubert Theater in New York City (1943); Harriet Ida Pikens and Frances Wills were sworn in as the first Black females in the Navy (1960); 52 individuals, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were arrested in Atlanta following a sit-in protest (1960);

  • 20th - Colonial Virginia authorizes enslavers to kill enslaved resisters (1669); John Merrick, Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore, and Charles Clinton Spaulding founded the first Black owned insurance company, North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance (1898);

  • 21st – Abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison attacked by a white mob in Boston, MA (1835); James H. Conyers became the first Black admitted to the US Naval Academy (1872) Dizzy Gillespie was born (1917); Mary Louise Smith was arrested for refusing to give up her seat in the “whites only” section of a Montgomery, AL city bus (1955); Lois Alexander opened the Black Fashion Museum in Harlem (1979); Bertram M. Lee and Peter C.B. Bynoe purchased a controlling interest in the Denver Nuggets and became the first Black Americans to own a controlling interest in an NBA team (1989);

  • 22nd - Clarence S. Green became the first board-certified Black neurological surgeon (1953);

  • 23rd - The National Urban League (1911); the NAACP petitioned the United States on racial conditions in the U.S. (1947);

  • 24th - Republic National guilty of discrimination against Black Americans and women (1980); Italy invaded Ethiopia (1935); ‘Mulatto’, a play by Langston Hughes and the first long-run Black play, opened on Broadway (1935); Kweisi Mfume was born (1948); Birmingham City Officials announce plan to close city parks rather than permit racial integration (1961); the African nation of Zambia gained independence (1964);

  • 25th - The Black newspaper owners’ group—the NNPA (Na­tional Newspaper Publishers Association) was founded (1940); Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. became the first Black general in the United States Army (1950); an estimated 10,000 students led by Jackie Robinson, Harry Belafonte, and A. Phillip Randolph, participated in a march for integrated schools in Washington, D.C. (1958); Gov. George Wallace granted a full pardon to Clarence “Willie” Norris—the last known survivor of the nine “Scottsboro Boys” (1976); Toronto Blue Jays, Cito Gaston became the first Black American to manage a team to the World Series (1992);

  • 26th – The British parliament legalizes slavery in the American colony, which would become known as Georgia (1749); B.F. Randolph was assassinated (1868); Texas passed a law to restrict Black people from testifying in Court (1866); T. Marshal received the patent on the fire extinguisher (1872); Mahalia Jackson was born (1911);

  • 27th – P.B. Downing received the patent for the street letter mailbox (1891); Ruby Ann Wallace -aka- Ruby Dee was born (1924); President John F. Kennedy intervened to get Martin Luther King Jr. released from the Georgia State Prison (1960); Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., became the first Black Brigadier General in the US Air Force (1964); Andrew Young was elected mayor of Atlanta, GA (1981);

  • 28th - Levi Coffin (White), one of the founders of the Underground Railroad, was born (1798); Edward M. McIntyre became the first Black elected mayor of Augusta, GA (1981);

  • 29th - Alonzo G. Moron becomes the first Black American president of Hampton Institute (1949); U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, ruled that public school districts must end segregation “at once” and operate only unitary, integrated schools (1969); Pearl Primus succumbed (1994); A report was published suggesting that the old self-hate mantra of “I am Black enough; I don’t need any sun­shine” by Dr. Jonathan Mansbach’s lends well to American are not getting enough sunshine or more specifically, vitamin D—the sunshine vitamin, and an astonishing 90 percent of Black children being vitamin D deficient;

  • 30th – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy were arrested and forced to begin serving sentences in a Birmingham jail (1967); Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman (1974); Richard Arrington was elected the first Black mayor of Birmingham, AL (1979); and

  • 31st – Ethel Waters was born (1896); Booker T. Washington was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans (1945); Earl Francis Lloyd became the first Black player in the National Basketball League (1950)?

]]><![CDATA[Dialectic Testament of Survival ]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/dialectic-testament-of-survivalhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/dialectic-testament-of-survivalMon, 13 Oct 2025 12:31:23 GMT

pink folder with green leaves
Photo by Covene on Unsplash

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t easily pushed over, this issue includes:

A sip…

The muse contends that Push Pop Sour is slutty, as well as slushy and sweet…

“The Freedom to Publish... Is Also the Freedom to Read and... Write What You Want.” -Ta-Nehisi Coates

A shout out…

Like a developing mind, mineral crystals can be dissected, adorned, and polished. Perhaps this was why author and poet Sapphire devoted a decade to teaching adult

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Foundationally Invariable Invalidation]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/foundationally-invariable-invalidationhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/foundationally-invariable-invalidationFri, 10 Oct 2025 19:15:15 GMT

If it were as simple as leaving the devil over ‘there’ and allowing it to remain where it is, exploration of foreign lands would not exist.

Societies in general are complex, and to a noticeable extent, forcibly enmeshed, because differences, although appreciated, often expose shadowed ghosts. This is especially true when displacement results in homogenous environments becoming more diverse.

If violence isn’t the answer, bullying should be punishable, and because it isn’t, retaliation shouldn’t be surprising. With intensity, readers are introduced to Salomé Atabong, a mixed-race Dutch girl of Cameroonian descent. A high-achieving student at a private school, she is further stripped of agency when sentenced to detention at a juvenile facility.

An English translation, Confrontations, addresses intergenerational trauma caused by race-based alienation and gender-based injustice. Set in circular surroundings, it’s a coming-of-age story that critiques structural violence and the support systems that allow it to escalate when aimed at girls and women.

Written in lyrical prose by Simone Atangan Bekono, it offers an unfiltered exploration of how silence functions as a form of criminalization and how violence acts as a reflexive act of resistance. This title will challenge those who deny the existence of institutionalized microaggressions.

Structured mainly as a non-linear, present-tense internal dialogue, the author employs a reflective tone to evoke a sense of isolation, uses bold images to symbolize freedom and assimilation, applies achromatic colors to express resilience and trauma, and metaphorically portrays isolated natural environments as the body politic responsible for enacting harmful immigration policies.

With less emphasis on teen angst, this work offers an intimate look into juvenile incarceration as a clear example of disposability, and readers will identify alienation and marginalization as forms of tactical oppression. Unique in its stream-of-consciousness presentation of rational anger, it also accurately depicts systemic attacks against women of color.

Reframing anger as agency and reclaiming space, this honest critique of structural sexism also redefines violence as the absurdity linked to refusing to see racialization as supremacist behavior.

An impactful and emotionally raw depiction of institutional indifference, readers prone to misinterpreting their contributions to reactive rage, and others doubtful of the impact of racism on personal identity will not find an embedded social justice message in this work.

Dense yet broad, readers unfamiliar with stylistically disruptive character arcs or those seeking neatly resolved problems might feel restricted. Conversely, those craving realist fiction and others driven by indignation and defiance will breeze through this 179-page debut.

Rating: ★★★★★+

Similar titles:

  • Exploring police/state violence: The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas

  • With emotionally raw narration of trauma and race: Push, by Sapphire

  • With young women navigating alienation: Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor -and- Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo

]]><![CDATA[Insightfully Immersed and Influential ]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/insightfully-immersed-and-influentialhttps://celysewrite.substack.com/p/insightfully-immersed-and-influentialMon, 06 Oct 2025 12:15:21 GMT

blue tune on white notes
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Hi Friends:

Because writer’s block isn’t the same as censorship, this issue includes:

A sip…

Although absinthe was banned, the muse contends that statutory illegality would cause Sazarac to be considered non-existent…

Stupid is contagious; perhaps it is time to ban/challenge ignorance, not books? -Anonymous Well-Dressed Grey Haired Lady at Recent Wine Tasting

A shout out…

If youth is wasted on the young, author, producer, and speaker Angie Thomas is old enough to be among the first to dispute that. Living proof that many good things

Read more

]]><![CDATA[Literati and Libations]]>https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/literati-and-libations-617https://celysewrite.substack.com/p/literati-and-libations-617Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:44 GMT

a glass of alcohol sitting on top of a bed
Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

It’s 5 pm… somewhere, and because it is, why not raise a glass in celebration of literary greats with October birthdays, including:

  • 1st

    Sergey Aksakov, novelist (1791); Louis Untermeyer, poet (1885); Faith Baldwin, novelist (1893); and Daniel Boorstin, historian (1914);

  • 2nd

    Wallace Stevens, poet (1879); and Graham Green, novelist (1904);

  • 3rd

    Sir Fulke Greville, poet (1554); Mikhail Lermontov, poet and novelist (1814); Henri Alain-Fournier, novelist (1886); Thomas Wolf, novelist (1900); James Herriot, writer (1916); and Gore Vidal, playwright and writer (1925);

  • 4th

    Edward Stratemeyer, creator of the Stratemeyer Syndicate (1862); Damon Runyon, short-story writer and humorist (1884); Jackie Collins, author (1941); Anne Rice, author (1941); and Luis Sepúlveda, writer (1949);

  • 5th

    Jonathan Edwards, sermon writer (1703); Denis Diderot, encyclopedist, literary critic, and man of letters (1713); John Addington Symonds, historian and writer (1840); Frederic Morton, aka Fritz Mandelbaum, writer (1924); Vaclav Havel, playwright (1936); and Marie-Claire Blais, novelist (1939);

“’Tis a pity wine should be so deleterious, for tea and coffee leave us much more serious.” -Lord Byron

  • 6th

    Caroline Gordon, writer (1895); and Thor Heyerdahl, adventure writer (1914);

  • 7th

    James Whitcomb Riley, poet (1849); Everett LeRoy Jones -aka- Leroi Jones -aka- Amiri Baraka, poet and playwright (1934); Thomas M. Keneally, novelist (1935); Vivian Leopold James -aka- Clive James, literary critic, poet, lyricist, novelist and memoirist (1939); and Anita Shreve, novelist (1946);

  • 8th

    John Hay, poet (1838); John Cowper, novelist, essayist, poet, and orator (1872); Frank Herbert, sci-fi writer (1920); Faith Ringgold, children’s author (1930); and R[ichard] L[awrence] Stine, YA author (1943);

  • 9th

    Tadeusz Różewicz, poet, dramatist, and writer (1921); Jill Ker Conway, writer (1934); and Ciaran Carson, poet (1948);

  • 10th

    Aleksis Kivi, playwright, novelist, and poet (1834); Ivo Andric, novelist (1892); and Harold Pinter, playwright (1930);

“The man that isn’t jolly after drinking is just a driveling idiot, to my thinking.” -Euripides

  • 11th

    Steen Steensen Blicher, poet and short-story writer (1782); François Mauriac, novelist, poet, and playwright (1885); and Elmore Leonard, crime fiction writer (1925);

  • 12th

    George Washington Cable, novelist and short story writer (1844); Maurice Donnay, playwright (1859); Eugenio Montale, poet and translator (1896); Ann Lane Petry, novelist, short story writer, children’s author (1908); Alice Childress, playwright and novelist (1920); Charles Gordon, playwright (1925); Robert Coles, author (1929); and William J[ames] Raspberry, syndicated newspaper columnist (1935);

  • 13th

    Conrad Richter, novelist (1890); Arna Bontemps, poet, novelist, children’s author, and librarian (1902); and Frank Gilroy, playwright and screenwriter (1925);

  • 14th

    Masaoka Shiki, haiku and tanka poet and diarist (1867); Katherine Mansfield, short story writer (1888); and e(dward) e(stlin) cummings, poet and playwright (1894); and

  • 15th – Virgil, poet (79 B.C.); Helen Hunt Jackson, novelist (1830); Sir P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, novelist (1881); C[harles] P[ercy] Snow, novelist (1905); John Kenneth Galbraith, political writer (1908); Arthur Schlesinger Jr., historian and biographer (1917); Mario Puzo, author (1921); Italo Calvino, novelist (1923); and Evan Hunter -aka- Ed McBain, crime writer (1926).

“There is an ancient Celtic axiom that says, ‘Good People Drink Good Beer.’ Which is true, then as it is now”. - Hunter S. Thompson

Saúde!

Thanks for reading,

Thanks for reading A Sip, A Shout Out & A Sentence! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

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