We Love Barbie…But We Need New Dolls: My piece on Artist Tiffany Gholar over at BlogHer.com.

“As a young woman dealing with my own issues of body image, I began to look differently at Barbie dolls. I began to wonder whether my re-emerging interest in fashion dolls was a good or a bad thing. And the more I confronted my own disordered patterns of eating and exercise, the more I realized the extent to which social pressure to conform to such stringent standards was the real issue I was facing.” -Tiffany Gholar, THE DOLL PROJECT

Are You a Joyce Vincent?

In this National Blog Posting Month, I decided to pick my favorite work so far on my blog Negression. My eulogy of a total stranger, Joyce Vincent, remains the most personal piece of writing I have ever done publicly for the sheer emotional response I had to her story's resonance in my life at the point when I wrote it. I think this chilling black female version of a "Sex in the City" tale will always stick out to me and beg attention. It is something I wish I had never had to write, because that means it would have never happened. But since I did have to write it, it was a privilege to learn about myself and my life and what I need to do for myself and for others through the pain of another who was unable to.