Reflections of the Takoma Park Street Festival
This is supposed to be a blog about writing — the process, the products, and the promotion of writing, including songwriting. Writing and promoting my writing take me to some pretty interesting places. However, since my last blog post in August, I have been writing instead of writing about writing! I’m actually making some progress on my third novel and have neglected to blog about venues and connections, including another trip to Cleveland for a high school reunion where I was able to also accomplish some more research and interviews in connection with my novel-in-process. The Takoma Park Street Festival was all that I expected. My new author-friend David Levy, author of Revolt of the Animals https://www.facebook.com/pages/Revolt-of-the-Animals/144361508947470?sk=info, was there.
David L. Levy, author of Revolt of the Animals
And the crowd did not diminish even with the rain and visitors to my tent were evenly interested in Well Considered and Cologne No. 10 for Men. Some venues seem to be more suited to one book than the other. For example, next week on Veterans Day, at the Memorial Day Writers Project (http://www.memorialdaywritersproject.com/) tent on the mall in D.C. I expect the focus to be on Cologne No. 10 for Men and my Skytroopers CD more than Well Considered. We’ve been spending a lot of time at Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville where a highlight was the dedication ceremony for the Howard Zinn room.
Marion Wright Edelman (Children’s Defense Fund), Medea
Benjamin (Code Pink) and Bernice Johnson Reagon
(singer and composer), Cornel West, Dave Zirin, Beverly Daniel
Tatum (president of Spelman), Judy Richardson, Andy Shallal
(owner of five Busboys and Poets restaurants).
Emma’s Revolution also sang.
Moyers, and Alice Walker were unable to attend.
Reagon. I especially enjoyed meeting Beverly Daniel Tatum, President of Spelman,
because I had just read her book, Assimilation Blues.
During this time away from blogging I’ve felt connected to items in the news but didn’t stop my writing to make comments. Mr. Obama’s announcement of the end of the Iraq War made me think of my novel Cologne No. 10 for Men, and the fiftieth anniversary of Catch-22 certainly made me want to make connections between it and Cologne – comparisons have been made between the two and it would be good if people who enjoyed reading the World War II novel would also have the opportunity to read the more modern war satire. Neither is really specific to its setting; each is a representation of war in general.
The current population articles in The Washington Post included a story about Prince George’s County, MD, featuring the demographics and white flight from the county which are part of the story in Well Considered.
After Veterans Day I have one more event scheduled – The Prince George’s County Historical Society Book and Author Event on November 12, 2011 from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Greenbelt, MD library – before settling in for the winter to finish my new novel.
