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About Anika Nailah
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Blog postOkay, so I’m walking down the street in my mostly white New England neighborhood. Let me also state that I don’t live in a city, so I have the privilege of physical space, which means bringing my mask just in case I need it during a walk around the block. I see a white woman in the distance. She's walking towards me. As we get closer, I wonder, “Is she going to move out of the way so we can social distance?” (By the way, this is a common occurrence.)
Immediately, I remember my maternal gra -
Blog postGetting Ready to Hit the Road
Hey, Everyone,
The 30 Black Moments Experience is alive and well! In a few days, I'll be in Connecticut, and then in New York City to begin the first CT/NYC tour. They won't just be signings, but workshops where you'll interact with the illustrations by using the activities in the back of the book and remixing those racial microaggressions so they can be reborn as triumph and resilience. Can't wait to meet you!
Stay tuned for deets!....... -
Blog postYes. I've done it again. Published another book! I enabled it for international distribution a few days ago on September 13, 2018. It's all very exciting and overwhelming---discovering Swiss and Australian bookstores and seeing my name and the cover of this new book and my earlier book, Free & Other Stories.
So let me tell you a bit about my newest creation...
Inspired by Langston Hughes' final work Black Misery , it is an undisguised, sometimes -
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Blog postI'm working on a new book...
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Blog postSHEDDING THE GUILT OF NOT WRITING
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” --Maya Angelou
Has it been days, weeks, months, (years maybe) since you've written what's deep inside you? I've noticed that words unwritten find ways to drip out, the tortured flow of a cut I haven't tended to, expression once pooling redly, now released. Some wound I've denied the oxygen of re-creation.
A doughnut appears in my hand. A letter to a friend gets written out of -
Blog post"Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything. If you don't write stories you love, you'll never make it..." (Ray Bradbury)
Hello, Dear Readers,
It's been exactly a year since I've posted here. Much has happened, not all of it good, but it's been awhile since I've had the feeling I had today when I woke up---JOY. Why? I knew I would be writing in the morning before I dove into the concerns of my day. There is nothing like the feeling of wanting to g -
Blog post"Sometimes you've got to let everything go—purge yourself . . . If you are unhappy with anything . . . whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out."
---Tina Turner
A new year. With all my hopes, energy, and inspiration flowing from the river of youth standing up in Soweto-USA, the legacy left by my parents, all those who have spit, danced, create -
Blog post“Just remember: In dictatorships, only one person is really allowed to speak. And when I write a book or a story, I too am the only one speaking, no matter how I hide behind my characters.”
― Junot Díaz
Something beautiful happened in San Francisco. I came there to deliver a mini-performance of my National Liberation Poetry Tour Experience and was blessed with an affirmation about what really matters.
The first stop was a high school. Not just any high s -
Blog postI was going to block it out. I was going to click the remote off every time I saw a commercial for Father’s Day. Run from the pain. Turn the page of the ad in the paper. Shut out the hurt. Plug the empty space with a lie. Change the subject of celebration into the object of forgetfulness. Forget it happened. Forget it’s true. Forget the anger. Block the shock.
Lies have a way of catching up with your secrets.
The truth is: in your love, Dad, I have nothing to hide. No reason to not -
Blog post“we write every day, we fight every day, we think and scheme and dream a little dream every day. manuscripts pile up in the kitchen sink, run-on sentences dangle around our necks. we plant purple prose in our gardens and snip the adverbs only to thread them in our hair. we write with no guarantees, no certainties, no promises of what might come and we do it anyway. this is who we are.”
--Tahereh Mafi
KEEP FIGHTING. KEEP WRITING. -
Blog postI thought of a couple of titles for this post---A Truckload of Excuses, Fighting For Your Writing, I Want My Routine Back, etc. But they all seemed mired in guilt and desperation, neither of which are the reasons why I first picked up a pencil when I was a little girl, and began to write. Over the past few months, I've been hyper focused on just plain survival---paying bills, securing gigs, looking for funding for my Tour Experience. In the process, I lost my writing rhythm. I
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Blog post"...provocative and disturbing.." --R. Paul Shaw, World Bank Institute Ever read a book that you can't put down and wish would never end? This is the one. From the jacket: 'Economic hit men,' John Perkins writes,'are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder.'...Perkins should know--he was an economic hit man. His job
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Blog postMy father was an intense, short, brown-skinned man with an unassuming mustache and glasses. When I think of him in his quiet moments, he is alone, sitting at his desk, surrounded by his books. His time and attention, precious things--he spent very little time on the phone, for example--he is reading, always reading, highlighting, and underlining sentences in one book of many about the beginnings of the early civilizations of the Nile Valley. He devoted much of his life to gathering books,
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Blog postLast night, something extraordinary happened at Smith College in Northampton, MA. It was one of those occasions when words were triumphant. Beah Richards once said, "Words have meaning. And they can pierce you right through your heart and free you from all the chains and things that bind your mind and your body." And while I performed my liberation poetry for a small crowd of mostly academics and students, I felt every word that came from me land on their hearts. Never had I experience
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Blog postThat's right, dear readers, I am taking the leap to fully put all of me into my National Liberation Poetry Tour Experience. It's blowing up. Opportunities abound---Oakland, St. Croix, NYC, Western MA. I can barely keep up with the offers I've gotten in the last month alone. So it's time for me to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. And if you believe in what I'm doing, maybe you'll do the same??
I've got 60 days to raise $10,000 on my online fundraising campaign. Every plac -
Blog postA backstage peek that first night, August 25, 2012, after I performed the liberation poems publicly for the first time...Visit anikanailah.com for more information about my National Liberation Poetry Tour.
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Blog post"If there's a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."--Toni Morrison
Dearest Sister Toni Morrison,
You continue to honor us with your lyrical truths as you show us the joy and strength and beauty within us. May your 82nd year of life on this planet be as rich as the legacy you have crafted from the genius of your life. Write on!
Love,
Anika -
Blog post"What's the worst that can happen to me if I tell this truth?"--Audre Lorde
You gave us your courage. You gave us your words. Most importantly, you gave us back our hearts through the giving of your own. We thank you. We honor you. Dearest Sister, Audre, you and your words will NEVER be forgotten. -
Blog post"An artist can show things that other people are terrified of expressing. " --Louise Bourgeois
On New Year's Eve Eve, in Hartford, CT, at Vibz Uptown , for the Tastemakers Soul Hartford, I was in the company of artists. I was among singers, those who created jewelry, movies, music, books, folks who had radio and television shows, and who owned magazines. I even sat on a panel with songwriters. Initially, I was so focused on selling my new book and -
Blog postAt last! My new book, The National Liberation Poetry Tour Experience is complete and available for sale. This is the book that culls all of the poetry I have been performing on my Tour, plus social justice resources, a workbook to help process the strong emotions that social justice evokes, next steps in your anti-racism work, and even a place to create liberation poetry and/or other forms of self-expression. Please go to my website to learn more.
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Blog postLike anyone else, life has given me its fair share of highs and lows. I’m aware of the many people who love me, and whom I love dearly, even though living the writing life sometimes makes it difficult to give the kind of attention to them that they would probably like. I’ve also lost people whom I could never imagine living without. But the one constant in my life has always been my writing. After a heart-rending breakup, after giving up on sleep at 3 o’clock in a restless morning, even while si
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Blog post"Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
Last night. It was standing room only. I was about to go onstage under the masterful vision of seasoned director, Ingrid Askew with Kate Rushin, acclaimed poet and Ruth Bass Green, a musician who can make some of the most delectable sounds I have ever heard come out of a keyboard. It was Griot Women Productions presenting me. I was supposed flow some of the poetry from -
Blog postOctober 12, 1908 – April 28, 1997
You were one-of-a-kind! Thanks for the love and inspiration. Your sacrifices and efforts were not in vain... -
Blog postI invite you to learn more about me and my National Liberation Poetry Tour across America by visiting my new website. Leave me a message. Let me know what you think of it. Happy writing! Happy thriving---despite it all...
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Blog postIf you're in the Springfield, MA area this evening at 8:35P, you can hear me live on 90.7 WTCC (you may be able to listen online) broadcasting from Springfield Technical Community College. I'll be interviewed by Darryl Moss on the Reflections show.
I'll be talking about my National Liberation Poetry Tour and my next stop--Renaissance Artspace on this Friday, October 12, 2012 @7P! Come see me perform the You Cannot Break Me Show--all about reconnecting with and reclaiming one's p
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