“We each have lessons to learn and to teach, and healing is something we all do together.”—David Bedrick ( Talking Back to Dr. Phil ) Black History Month is a time I usually reserve for purchasing and reading books by and about African Americans to help add functional substance to the month’s cultural and educational value .  It therefore was unlikely that I would read David Bedrick’s Talking Back to Dr. Phil ––after receiving a copy as a gift––any time soon.  This is what happened to change my mind: Just as I was preparing to place the book halfway between a stack of titles waiting for my attention, I took a quick look inside at the acknowledgments page and read this opening sentence: “About twenty-five years ago, I had the privilege of hearing the music and poetry of Etheridge Knight, a freedom-loving black poet living in Boston.” Since Knight was one of my all-time favorite tortured-soul scarred-radical-genius explosively-complex literary heroes, I k...

Though up and live, the website has been adding new content at a moderate pace as students, authors, teachers, historians, researchers and other interested visitors familiarize themselves with it and utilize the unique content to their advantage. The following is an abbreviated table of contents: 100 th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance   Home Page The Harlem Renaissance the Year 2020 The Approaching 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance In Celebration of Literary Cultural Migrations W.E.B. Du Bois and a Lesson from the Master Teacher Known as History Call for 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance Papers Bright Skylark Literary Productions 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance Website Launches - Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Logo for PEN International World Association of Writers The PEN American Center turned all of 90 years old in 2012 and recently decided to give itself a very useful digital facelift. With such cases like that of the Qatari poet Mohammed Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami , Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, and Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega still rocking international headlines, the PEN American Center’s mission in conjunction with PEN international ––to defend the right to freedom of expression and promote the values of literature and literacy––has never been more valuable than right now. As much as I’m enjoying its swagging new style , the upgrade came with a price to which I, and other authors who maintained blogs on the site, now have to adapt. My primary reason for joining PEN American Center last year was to participate in and contribute to the legacy of literary camaraderie first established by C A. Dawson Scott and John Galsworthy––and then later sustained by such lumino...

“…The whole purpose of the construction of The Bridge of Silver Wings was to provide a path leading to The River of Winged Dreams, or to serve as a resting place until the river’s deeper and truer nature revealed itself.”              --Aberjhani, from The River of Winged Dreams There were no conscious plans to turn The River of Winged Dreams into one of the most quoted books both on and off the Internet. Had there been such a plan, chances are the users of Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads , Pinterest , Wordpress and other blog sites likely would have been more inclined to avoid the title rather than embrace it. However, that it has become one of the more quietly-celebrated modern works of literature around might be considered less surprising when looking at the private and global circumstances under which it was written. Those circumstances are revealed in the book’s foreword and introduction as well as in the text of the poems and in the es...