Here are a few favorite Pattern and Outrage posts. I selected some based on my preference and others on what readers select.* Some sections below will also mention a a tag which you can tap on the sidebar and find other posts on that topic. WRITING, RACE, RANTS AND LAMENTS are three for starters.
Morning of Surprise Hearing
Poem / prompt response regarding Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the 1/6 Committee
Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down
Why I Admire Dog People So Much
Peace is a Leaf Sent round the World
Deirdre
A retelling of the ancient Irish tale
about Deirdre, the Princess of Sorrows (and also my namesake)
Joy Harjo and Ted Lasso — What?
Posts related to race, justice, learning:
A shithole country
Written while waiting for the Derrick Chauvin verdict
A long-winded memory share
Thoughts about plantation weddings and Nikole Hannah-Jones, 2022
Reflection on Night in Slave Quarters
Written after spending a night in the slave quarters in Medford, Mass. at the Royall House. The event was organized by The Slave Dwelling Project, 2014
Homage to Harriet Jacobs
Written after visiting the grave site of Harriet Jacobs in Cambridge, Mass., and having read her memoir, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Sent – Hearts for Charleston Quilt
Lots of pictures of the collaborate quilt made for the surviving community at the Charleston Mother Emanuel AME. The Hearts for Charleston Quilt tab on the sidebar will take you to many more posts about this year-long effort.
Ferns, Fractals, and African Textiles
A quick look at some of the interesting points made by Ron Eglash in his book, African Fractals, Modern Computing and Indigenous Design.
He asserts that the broad, sophisticated, and conscious use of fractal mathematics in many sectors of African life is the basis for digital circuitry.
African Burying Ground — for reverence, reflection, learning
A post about a relatively newly consecrated burial ground in Portsmouth, NH
Racism is a Morphing Beast
Report from an anti-racism workshop in Boston
“If you’re gonna dig a hole, at some point someone has to pick up the goddamned shovel.” Leslie Mac on progressive whites’ tendency to get stuck on education and reflection about racism and failing to move on to action.
Our problematic past
A post written after hearing the keynote speaker of the Annual Slave Dwelling Project, 2021. Susan Neiman’s talk was entitled, What Americans Can Learn from Germany’s Racial Reckoning.
Confederate Flag of Truce
A post about artist Sonya Clark’s provocative show at the DeCordova, in Lincoln, MA
The Weight of Cloth posts:
Posts below are related to writing a a work of historic fiction, tentatively titled The Weight of Cloth. It’s set in South Carolina, 1737 – 1744 (with a later epilogue) and primarily told by four women — the historic white figure of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, and three enslaved women, Melody, Saffron, and July. See also posts tagged South Carolina, slavery, and writing.
Bibliography, The Weight of Cloth
Names of the Enslaved named in Eliza L. Pinckney’s Will
Freedom — a deleted excerpt from manuscript
Silence of listening and acknowledging
One of many posts about listening to Black voices and wondering about
being a white writer with Black characters — from 2016
Maroons or the untamed
Window into writing/research during 2nd draft
A series of erasure poems using a letter from Eliza Lucas Pinckney to her father
Writing exercise in imitation of Colum McCann
Captioned Water Was, this piece describes the Middle Passage and early days post-auction for a couple of characters in my novel. I called it Blood and Indigo back then. This chapter is not in the manuscript (lots of them were cut along the way).
Visual work, including some tutorials:
Digital collage — a Diana Photo App Tutorial
Mice-making tutorial
How to sew and dress small mice out of premade felt
Where is your edge
A look at why fiber art takes a while to get good at.
“To find one’s voice with cloth is particularly challenging, I think, because there are so many ways to attach scraps to each other and to a flat surface, and then many ways to quilt or otherwise add texture. And while one is busy trying to figure out what techniques fit with one’s temperament and basic work-tempo, there is the perhaps less-tricky but still not-exactly-straight-forward business of finding one’s basic subject matter.”
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* What readers select is revealed in daily stats, which I check regularly. For some of the mysteriously recurring reads, I try to determine where a link might be (such as Pinterest). Mostly I can’t figure it out.
What an amazing and wonderful journey with your posts!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🖖🏼💖
Thank you Kristin!
Wow, this was a lot of work! Some of them I recall just from the title. I’ll have to poke around a bit 🙂
I chuckled at the checking stats comment…I check mine too, now and then, ever since discovering I could do that early in my blogging days. I’m always amazed at the random old post that show up along side the recent one and the folks who have come to visit that I either can’t identify at all or that come a lot and never comment. What a mystery! 😉
The stats are interesting. Some posts have really endured in inexplicable ways.
love this! I plan to spend the morning browsing through these beauties
I’ve only re-read a couple and all I can say damn you’re good … thanks for putting this together (ongoing though it may be) … I’ll be back for more
Tomorrow I’ll fix the missing links.
Wow. I just read the Black Stallion post (one of my all-time favorite movies) and can hardly wait to dive into the others. Thank you for this compilation. You have inspired me to get off my writing duff and get producing again.
Oh please do!!
I’m not sure that I really believe them as fact.
Your list of posts is like having an advent calendar; unexpected joy in opening the links to read some exceptional writing on a variety of subjects…I keep choosing a post to dip into and read, sometimes more than once BUT how did I miss the Lost Orgasms post.. so searingly well written Dee.
I found myself considering the various decades of my life and what my response would be to reading this post in my 20’s, 40’s, 50’s and now in my 70’s. What I know is that my feelings and considerations have evolved from a place of heat and hurry, to lingering connection, to now, a quiet joy in companionship in all of its manifestations and most of all, a sense of humor and acceptance as age and body changes create a whole other dynamic… but lest you think the heat is now a simmer, well flare ups do occur occasionally and when they do !… the unexpected JOY of them, is such a gift of life.
Leave it to you Marti to add a little spice to the comments!