Blog Entries tagged 'interviews'
Blended Nation
I was thrilled to write the foreword for this book of images and narratives of multiracial people in America.
OBHF #1 Top Shelf Pick in SF Chronicle
Nonfiction
One Big Happy Family, by Rebecca Walker: A fascinating collection of essays on the varieties of the American family.
Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: A Collection of Kids' Letters to President Obama, edited by Jory John: We can always depend on children to be both funny and truthful. In paperback.
Shakespeare Wrote for Money, by Nick Hornby: The author chronicles his battle between "books bought" versus "books read." Brilliant. In paperback.
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, by George Johnson: Johnson illustrates how science, art and beauty can occasionally be the same thing. In paperback.
Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Idea, by Alice Waters: A chronicle of the transformation of one abandoned plot of land at a Berkeley public school into the Edible Schoolyard - a model for institutions everywhere.
This article appeared on page J - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle
One Big Happy Family chosen a Cool Mom Pick. Cool.
Nice, nice, nice from our friends over at Cool Mom Picks:
"I may have a family that looks like we come from a 1950s-era sitcom,
complete with curly-haired children and a husband who carries a
briefcase, but ours isn't the only recipe for domestic bliss.
Acclaimed writer and activist Rebecca Walker delves into the details of modern family units in her new anthology, One Big Happy Family. These eye-opening essays helped me more fully appreciate the commitment
that every family makes to staying together. In fact, I'd say that
I've got it pretty easy by comparison.
Die Mommy Die: Women talking about babies in workplace, from ELLE
Interesting piece about women waxing rhapsodic about motherhood at the office and how it affects non-moms and moms who don't necessarily think motherhood is the beginning and end of the world. My two cents on second page and nice mention of OBHF:
By Nancy Hass
Arranging the interview took months of patient pleading with the CEO’s staff, and now that I’ve been waiting for almost an hour in the chief’s vast beige and teak inner office, one thought keeps running through my head: She better be as brilliant as everyone says.
Ten minutes later, the CEO walks through the door, smoothing her pantsuit and flashing a purposefully desperate smile. “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” she says, plopping down in the sleek armchair next to me as I reach out to shake her hand, “but my nine-year-old had a bad night because of a test today—throwing up and everything—and she just called in to say she thinks she aced it. Everything is so dramatic with that one; all her stress goes right to her stomach.”
I try to cut her off with a tight grin, barely enough to pass as polite. I don’t like where this is going.
One Big Happy Family on the Marc Steiner show
It's a Family Affair: One Big Happy Family in CLUTCH
It's always strange reading what people write about me. To see myself through their eyes. Sometimes it's heartbreaking. Sometimes it's enlightening. Sometimes it makes me think about how I said something or what I really want people to understand.
This is an interesting piece by Zettler Clay on One Big Happy Family on Clutch today. I'm pondering how I feel about this profile. I don't think of myself as an "inveterate zealot," but I feel I should at least consider the possibility.
I also don't think I've spent thirty-nine years seeking my mother's attention, but perhaps that's what it looks like to others. Alas--this profile is thought provoking. Quixotic, natch.
What do you think?
An excerpt:
"But who, pray tell, is Rebecca Walker?
She is a woman who has spent a good part of her 39 years on earth seeking her mother’s elusive approval. She’s the Jewish-Nubian who spent considerable parts of her childhood being shuffled from coast-to-coast, enduring ridicule from classmates because of her lineage and looks, while imbibing the rich customs of Jews and African-Americans alike. She is a woman who attended Yale University, graduated cum laude, wrote several treatises, books and articles, all while haunted by the memory of a lost baby and the fear of not being able to have another one.
She is, in essence, a woman of omnivorous tastes; a counterculture spokesperson and literary commuter who is still ultimately seeking her halcyon environment, if not understanding, of how to make the world a better place. A quixotic being, but certainly not apathetic."
My, my.
Living the Divine Masculine, an Interview with Shantam Nityama, Sexual Healer
I conducted this interview a few years back for What Makes a Man: 22 Writers Imagine the Future where you can listen to the full audio, but it seems relevant for One Big Happy Family, too.
When I did the interview for KPFA in Berkeley, I was exploring the way men can, through supporting women, support a part of themselves. Nityama has taken this to an incredibly dynamic place, and spends his life offering sessions of sexual healing to women
This version is from the site Extatica.
RW: Tell me a little bit about what you do and how you came into this work.
SN: It is sex that brings us onto the planet. We must realize that if we have difficulty with the primal energy that brought us here, then we are going to be mired in self-hatred and be confused about the very thing that has brought us into being.
Mixed Chicks Chat, Interview with Heidi Durrow and Fanshen Cox
I share this hour-long interview (which I did from the Costco parking lot!) with Louie Gong, President of Maven. I come in after first half-hour--and have a lot of fun with the chicks.
We talk Buddhism, coming to the end of identity, and much more--all while trucks and cars and huge shopping carts careen past. I love these chicks. We met when they invited me to give the inaugural opening keynote at their baby, the Mixed Roots Film and Literature Festival in Los Angeles.
Listen.
