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SLATTON
rating: 10
SLATTON
Niama L. Williams
Copyright 2008
508 words
It is a good book, Father Mine, earthly father and Heavenly Originator, that makes one want to knock the author a good . . . more
Niama L. is now friends with L.E. C. Jul 20, 2008 5:14AM EDT
Niama L. joined the group OBC Jul 19, 2008 2:49PM EDT
Niama L. shared the post CABBING Jul 19, 2008 1:11AM EDT
Niama L. shared the post SLATTON Jul 19, 2008 1:09AM EDT
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People say I'm:
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Describe Yourself:
Niama Leslie Williams (http://www.blowingupbarriers.com), a June 2006 Leeway Foundation Art and Social Change Grant recipient, and a 2006 (July) participant in a Sable Literary Magazine/Arvon Foundation residential course in Shropshire, UK, possesses a doctorate in African American literature from Temple University, a bachelor's in comparative literature from Occidental College, and a master's in professional writing from the University of Southern California. Dr. Williams' master's thesis at USC earned her an honorable mention in the University's 1991 Phi Kappa Phi competition. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, she currently resides in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Williams has participated in several writers' conferences, including the Squaw Valley Community of Writers (2000), Hurston/Wright Writers Week (1996), and Flight of the Mind (1993). Her work has appeared in Poets & Writers Magazine; Dark Eros: Black Erotic Writings; Spirit & Flame: An Anthology of African American Poetry; Catch the Fire: A Cross-Generational Anthology of Contemporary African-American Poetry; Beyond the Frontier: African American Poetry for the 21st Century; Mischief, Caprice, and Other Poetic Strategies (Red Hen Press); A Deeper Shade of Sex: The Best in Black Erotica, and Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets & Emcees. Check the Rhyme was nominated for an NAACP Image Award (2007).
Her prose publications include essays and short stories in MindFire Renewed, P.A.W. (Philadelphia Artists Writers) Prints, Midnight Mind Magazine, Amateur Computerist, Tattoo Highway #6, Obsidian II: Black Literature in Review, and Sojourner: The Women's Forum. She has 7 titles available for sale on Lulu.com (http://stores.lulu.com/drni), an online print-on-demand publisher based in the U.K.
Dr. Williams hosts "Poetry & Prose & Anything Goes with Dr. Ni" Monday evenings from 6-7 p.m. EST on BlogTalkRadio (www.blogtalkradio.com). The show originally aired from February to April of 2007 on Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio, a station owned by Ms. Lillian Cauldwell of Ann Arbor, MI. Her newsletter rather sporadically appears at http://drnisnotesandnibbles.blogspot.com/. Her short story "The Embrace" was selected for the 2006-2007 Writing Aloud series at the InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia, PA.
Of her purpose for writing Dr. Williams says: "I frequently do not err on the side of caution in my writing, but I believe in the purpose of it: to speak to the things others do not want to speak of, with the hopes of reaching that one woman, or her lover, or her friend, who refuses to deal with her pain, who hides from it, who doesn't think she'll survive it. That's the audience I hope to reach."
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On Gather, I'm Looking For ...:
Community. Clients. Friends with similar interests. Survivors of trauma who would like a gentle, forceful guide, or books that will help them understand what they are experiencing as survivors.
Artists, writers, poets who would like to be doing more of their art, but have yet to find the path that allows them to do so.
Spiritual leaders with a hole in their soul they don't quite know how to fix. Prayer hasn't worked.
Intelligent fellow travelers who believe that spiritual rightness and communication/good relationship with the soul is the key to good living.
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Favorite Music, Artists, Genres:
Barry Manilow,
but the sad ones like "(Woncha Tell Me What'sa) Nice Boy Like Me,
" "Lay Me Down,
" "Say the Words,
" "All The Time,
" "Seven More Years,
" you get the drift. Billy Joel and Sting in a hot race for second. See,
if you can find it,
my poem about Billy Joel's song,
"The Ballad of Billy the Kidd." It's in STEVEN (see my titles on Lulu). My hands down Sting favorite is the song about the Madres and the desaparecidos in Chile; I can never remember the title,
but I've never forgotten the melody. Michael Jackson,
Stevie Wonder,
Aretha Franklin,
Billy Holiday (cause she is so cool),
Simply Red,
Maroon Five,
John Mayer,
RASCAL FLATS!!!!!,
Kris Kristofferson's one lone country album (jammin!!!!),
Phil Collins,
KENNY LOGGINS,
Harry Chapin,
James Taylor,
Carly Simon,
and to quote Yul Brynner,
"et cetera,
et cetera,
et cetera ...."
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Favorite Books, Writers, Genres:
Oh boy Oh boy Oh boy!!!!! My favorite part!!!!!! Okay,
deep breath,
here goes: Anne of Green Gables. My mother was calling me one afternoon and I was laying on my bed reading Anne for the 5th or 8th time and she was calling me but I was not in my room. She literally had to walk from the kitchen and found me sprawled across my bed. She had to call me at my bedroom door twice,
and by the time I came out of the book,
she was looking at me very oddly. "What were you doing?" she asked. "Reading,
" I replied,
rather quizzically. I never forgot the look on her face. I think she began to worry about me right then. T. S. Eliot. I repeat,
T. S. ELIOT. The best and greatest scene in cinema is Willem DaFoe just after he and Vivenne have slept together the first time. He is standing there,
in his shirt,
socks and not much else,
arms across his chest,
staring out of the window. You know he is making up his mind about something,
and you hold yourself still because you know that whatever it is,
it is serious. Just the most perfect moment in cinema ever. Beats,
even,
"Sounder!!!! Sounder!!!!" (yeah,
I'm THAT old) Kate Braverman,
especially her incredible book of poems,
Postcard from August. Any novel,
any poetry by her. I even hear tell there is a memoir. Must buy it. John Edgar Wideman. Everyone raves about Sent for You Yesterday,
but I love Damballah. Hoop Roots made me love a sport I normally have no opinion about. Wideman is,
at all times,
magnificent. Andre Dubus' House of Sand and Fog; the novel,
not the movie. I've never seen the movie. I read the novel and that was all I needed. It is an amazing,
infuriating,
masterful novel. Read it. TONI CADE BAMBARA. The Salt Eaters. Gorilla,
My Love (I say again,
don't miss the "Sort of Preface"!). The Seabirds Are Still Alive. The collected essays (gathered) by Toni Morrison. Alice Walker's THE TEMPLE OF MY FAMILIAR was my hands down favorite novel until I read THE SALT EATERS. The Salt Eaters wiped Auntie Alice off her pedestal,
and Auntie Alice had been up there a long,
long time. THE BLUEST EYE. A truly perfect novel. Like perfectly cut crystal. Not a word out of line,
and every one so true it hurts. Perfectly constructed. A masterpiece. Unassuming,
but a masterpiece. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (remember,
I did say Eliot). Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware novels (the murderers are always very very rich and very very white--love it!),
Robert B. Parkers' Spenser for Hire novels (haven't read the Stone series yet,
but looking forward to it). And need I say Sherlock Holmes? No time for Agatha Christie or Nancy Drew or Hercule Poirot. There was something so wonderful about amazingly astute and terribly flawed Holmes and the oh so normal Dr. Watson ..... So cold,
so calculating,
so passionate,
so flawed .....
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