Terpischore’s Atrium with Kalisha Buckhanon

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I am happy and blessed to share my interview with Shinjini Bhattacharjee, Editor-in-Chief of the fine new literary journal Hermeneutic Chaos, which published a portion of my new novel with much encouragement and interest. My interview appears in the journal’s companion blog Morphemic Morphology. I hope our words inspire you. Blessings, Kalisha

Morphemic Morphology

Welcome to Terspischore’s Atrium, where the Hermeneutic Chaos editors find delight in the elfin task of  confronting their contributing authors with some really tough questions.

Today, our Editor-in-Chief Shinjini Bhattacharjee interviews Kalisha Buckhanon, who is undoubtedly one of the most talented writers in the contemporary literary milieu. Her debut venture, Upstate, was published in 2006 to massive critical acclaim, and won an American Library Association ALEX Award and an Audie Award in Literary Fiction for its audiobook, besides being a Hurston-Wright Foundation Debut Fiction finalist. Her sophomore novel, Conception, was greeted with much greater enthusiasm, and won a Friends of American Writers Adult Literature Award. Kalisha has been awarded an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Prose; a Zora Neale Hurston/Bessie Head Fiction Award at the Gwendolyn Brooks Black Literature and Writing Conference, for her short story “Card Parties” ; the Terry McMillan Young Author Award at the National Book Club Conference; an Honorable Mention in…

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A Solemn Summer…

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In my hometown of Kankakee, Illinois, in August.

I hope, as this summer played out and I was blessed with many beautiful experiences from SOLEMN, my elders were looking down smiling and watching and knowing how much I appreciated their influence in my life, to bring me the opportunities they dreamed their hard work and sacrifices would yield for others. Continue reading →

Tales From a Women-Activated Universe: Author Lisa B. DuBois on her debut story collection, OF LOVE AND SOUND MIND

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Lisa

Lisa B. DuBois radiates like a ball of citrus sunshine, yet her imagination is unafraid of the rum moons we all drink but only a writer or shrink cares to best describe. I first collided with Lisa on the Brooklyn … Continue reading →

I solemnly swear…

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I am so happy to share this Solemn book review and audio interview completed by my friend, history professor Sharony Green, whom I myself interviewed in 3 Parts here on Negression this past Women’s History Month, for her book “Remember Me to Miss Louisa: Hidden Black-White Intimacies in Antebellum America.” I truly hope you enjoy her insights in this other window into me, my work and my creative collaborations.

Life through fiction | The University of Chicago Magazine

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1605_Gregg_Life-through-fiction

My interview with The University of Chicago Magazine: Author Kalisha Buckhanon, AB’99, AM’07, discusses the power of storytelling, Trayvon Martin, and how professor William Veeder changed her life. Continue reading →

SOLEMN: A Novel by Kalisha Buckhanon releases in e-book and hardback wherever books are sold.

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Solemn

From the writer whose debut novel UPSTATE was celebrated as “wild and beautiful” (Sapphire), “heartbreaking and true” (Dorothy Allison), and “a poetry uniquely its own” (Elle), and awarded by Terry McMillan as “capturing real emotion,” comes a powerful new story of unseen black youth: Solemn Redvine, a girl whose life winds to unexpected directions as she lives with simple people but complicated circumstances in a Mississippi mobile home community.
Continue reading →

April in Harlem….

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April in Harlem

God is good…I have to truly say this was probably my best birthday month ever, starting with friends in Chicago and going to beautiful life in Harlem, NY. Continue reading →

A fitting end to Women’s History Month: Dr. Terri Francis talks of Josephine Baker & the burlesque

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Josephine

Dr. Terri Francis will be in Chicago this Friday night April 1 at 7PM for a screening and conversation with Kevin Jerome Everson at Black Cinema House! For those unable to make it, please enjoy and share this Women’s History Month Q & A with her on Josephine Baker, Black women in film, and “the burlesque.” Continue reading →

“I am not sure there was a better place”… Part 3 of Q & A with Dr. Sharony Green on “Fancy Girls,” women and more in American history

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Piquet

“I think as more scholars and laymen are courageous enough to tell and discuss these messy stories, the stain will be there although inside a larger narrative. The stain is the multi-layered pain. The stain is also complacency with old stories that rightly emphasize real oppression, although to the exclusion of evidence that complicates the oppression.” -Sharony Green…from the final installment of her interview for her recently-released book, Remember Me to Miss Louisa: Hidden Black-White Intimacies in Antebellum America (Northern Illinois University Press; 2015; $24.95; ISBN: 978-0-87580-723-2). Continue reading →

“I never let white men get off easy…”: Q & A with author and historian Sharony Green on black-white intimacies in antebellum America (PART 2)

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Sharony Green

“Yes, it’s hard to write and publish a book like this with Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and Freddie Gray and so many others no longer with us. Trayvon attended my sister’s church. His mother still does. These souls and racism are right here beside all of my messy evidence, past and present.” -Dr. Sharony Green, historian and author
Continue reading →

Kalisha Buckhanon 

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I am so happy my friend Erika Rose gave me my first ever “fun” interview on her blog Word Crafting Me. We go way back…like, way back. So, read if you dare find out I am not nearly as serious as I know I probably look.

Word Crafting Me


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Kalisha and I met in eighth grade back at Kankakee Junior High School about twenty-four years ago. We reunited online in 2005 when she sent me a copy of her first book Upstate. Her career is pretty impressive and I have looked to her as one of my mentors in this process. This is not one of those “what is your book about” interviews because, I plan on buying her book. I can’t wait to see her this spring, bake cinnamon rolls for her, and really catch up.

What do you like to be called?

K: The best writer on the planet.

Is creating your day job or night fling?

K: Both.


In six or fewer sentences describe your usual routine?

K: Wake up. Go to the bathroom. Get a drink of water and turn on a computer, or turn on a computer and get a drink of water…

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“Remember Me To Miss Louisa”: Q & A with author and historian Sharony Green

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Remember Me to Miss Louisa

“Critical study of womanhood, in all its complexities, is needed for today’s women who are still living through so many oppressions. Not that much has happened that we get to escape societal agreements about our sanity, our worth, our ability to contribute, our need for rest and to be protected and to protect and so on.” Dr. Sharony Green, on her work and book “Remember Me to Miss Louisa: Hidden Black-White Intimacies in Antebellum America” Continue reading →

Billy Strayhorn: An Illustrated Life

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Strayhorn

The gospel-influenced and classically-trained pianist and composer is in renaissance of interest and celebration thanks to the establishment of Billy Strayhorn Songs in 1997. The family-owned company’s efforts include marking the centennial of his birth in 2015. The Bill Strayhorn Foundation, Inc’s is committed to deepening appreciation for jazz music in general, starting with Strayhorn. Now longtime fans and new discoverers can enjoy Strayhorn: An Illustrated Life, a fine biographical coffee table book available from Bolden Books/Agate Publishing in Chicago. Continue reading →

Solemn is out on NetGalley today.

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Solemn

SOLEMN is out to request on NetGalley today, after a great weekend where my interview “10 questions with a local author who made it big” ran and THE HEALING author Jonathan Odell gave me a beautiful quote. Continue reading →

10 Black Women Who Lost Their Lives to Violence

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Eleanor Bumpurs

This gallery contains 8 photos.

The women I want the world to start remembering forever are pictured here. Please click on their photos for more information about their lives and stories, as well as ongoing activism in their memories for this remainder of Black History Month. #SayHerName Continue reading →

Chicago play ‘Lines in the Dust’ Takes on Families and Residency Fraud in Public Schools.

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Lines in the Dust

It would be a disservice to relegate the play Lines in the Dust as a compulsory offering of social protest fiction and bandwagon outpour, seeking attention on entitlement that audiences passively care about its themes and subjects to indict structural racism in America. To applaud it on … Continue reading →

Behind A Bitter Pill… Q & A with author Tiffany Gholar

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Tiffany Gholar

One book with four different covers is just one aspect of the special story and brilliance behind ‘A Bitter Pill to Swallow’, just released from Blurb Books as the debut novel from writer and visual artist Tiffany Gholar. ‘A Bitter Pill to Swallow’ is a literal and figurative testimony of perseverance, triumph and concern for humanity in a novel debut more than twenty years in the making. Continue reading →

2015 will be hard to top but let’s try…

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Happy New Year

I could not have asked for a better 2015…In ways I could have never planned or imagined, nearly every part of my life as a constant and lifelong writer flourished in its own organic way: fiction, non-fiction, stories, novels, theater, entertaining, reading, teaching and activism. I was just totally blessed. Continue reading →