tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906Mon, 20 May 2013 16:19:14 +0000Sustenance for the socially conscioushttp://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)Blogger319125blogspot/XmWDhttp://feedburner.google.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-4281734489917309643Thu, 18 Apr 2013 02:18:00 +00002013-04-17T20:34:27.227-06:00How fitting that I found myself reading an essay about upstate New York (“Let Me Tell You What It Means” by author Brock Clarke in a gem of an anthology Why We’re Here: New York Essayists on Living Upstate from Colgate University Press) while waiting in car line at my kids’ school today, a Denver day graced by what my husband and I call “Syracuse weather.” As a slate sky hung overhead and icy http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2013/04/beyond-finished-in-upstate-new-york.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-4124194173123883360Thu, 14 Feb 2013 02:42:00 +00002013-02-13T20:26:12.505-07:00 Colorado author and journalist Cathie Beck recently met with a lunch group I organize of local women authors, editors, and other talented literary types. Her discussion involved how she promoted her self-published memoir, Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship, so effectively online—and followed that up with immediate outreach to agents and publishers—that the book quickly got the attention of a top agenthttp://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2013/02/beyond-friends-cheap-cabernet-by-cathie.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-2534802813009470078Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:37:00 +00002013-01-30T09:13:48.403-07:00At a recent birthday lunch with nine chatty sixth-grade girls I pretended not to overhear the following conversation: “My brother does the funniest Asian accent.” “Asian accent? Tell me what an Asian accent is.” “Uhhh.” “Really, what’s an Asian accent? I want to know.” Funny thing was, both these girls were of Asian descent, though most people would say only one “looked” Asian with straight http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2013/01/beyond-faces-usa-today-changing-faces.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-843694176813736712Wed, 17 Oct 2012 20:03:00 +00002012-10-17T14:20:58.211-06:00 Journalist, videographer, novelist, essayist, poet, and illustrator Nick Belardes is a busy guy with a big heart whose work has been published to wide acclaim online (including on Twitter, where he published the first literary Twitter novel) and in print. I met Nick at a Writing Away Retreat in Breckenridge last month. When he read at a retreat reading, I thought immediately of the early short http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2012/10/beyond-fundraising-helping-indie-press.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-1866691460234785140Mon, 17 Sep 2012 02:44:00 +00002012-09-17T09:38:28.557-06:00 Just before the start of summer and toward summer’s end this year I experienced two incredibly memorable events: the fifth annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in Los Angeles in June and the September Writing Away Retreat in Breckenridge CO. Both took me away from home and out of my typical routine and introduced me to remarkably creative people from all walks of life. And while I’d http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2012/09/beyond-friends-are-you-talking-to-me.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-9195704444124313584Sat, 21 Jul 2012 04:03:00 +00002012-09-04T13:02:38.048-06:00 How ironic that I sought solace today by finally finishing THE EDUCATION OF LITTLE TREE by Forrest Carter. This engaging story allowed me to escape to the mountains of Tennessee at various times over the past month. I’d understood from the back cover that it was autobiographical, a fact that led me to tears earlier this week during one especially heartbreaking scene involving the main http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2012/07/beyond-fiction-education-of-little-tree.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-5655446674171075269Sat, 24 Mar 2012 05:51:00 +00002012-03-24T09:40:06.224-06:00<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2012/03/beyond-fiction-bakers-daughter-by-sarah.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-3664995565836597739Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:28:00 +00002012-10-22T10:11:44.769-06:00Deborah Jiang Stein is a rock star. Just read her new memoir, EVEN TOUGH GIRLS WEAR TUTUS, and check out her non-profit, The unPrison Project, and you’ll understand what I mean. Born heroin-addicted to an incarcerated mother in the Alderson Federal Prison for Women in West Virginia, Deborah spent her first year of life behind bars. Literally. She shared her mother’s prison cell, even going to “http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2012/01/beyond-facts-even-tough-girls-wear.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-534499070905226458Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:45:00 +00002011-11-01T09:50:56.858-06:00<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/11/beyond-fiction-little-bride-by-anna.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-8772001172511279790Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:49:00 +00002011-10-29T09:22:40.519-06:00Poet and best-selling memoirist (THE LIARS’ CLUB, CHERRY, LIT) Mary Karr was recently in Denver for a Lighthouse Writers Workshop Writer’s Studio weekend that included an interview and Q&A, an after-dinner pep talk and fundraising push (“Pony up and ride, y’all”) for Lighthouse, then a Sunday morning seminar. Each event was packed with local writers and Mary Karr fans, some of whom were already http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/10/beyond-fly-by-decoding-mary-karr.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-2921808030543155951Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:25:00 +00002011-10-20T13:44:42.389-06:00It’s been a while. A while since I’ve written a blog post, a while since I’ve thought back to the darkest day of December 1988. With the death of Gadhafi, I’m back in Hartford CT, hearing over the phone from a close friend that a boy from Hartford, a Syracuse student we’d known at school who’d gone to London to study for a semester, has been killed in the bombing of Pan Am 103.Today’s news also http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/10/beyond-form-elegies-1995.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-8887275152154956780Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:55:00 +00002011-03-07T11:29:57.635-07:00 One of my recent stories for MixedAndHappy.com focused on the story of Michael Fosberg, whose memoir, Incognito: An American Odyssey of Race and Self-Discovery, was recently published. The basics of Michael’s story—as told in his book and in the one-man play, also called Incognito, he’s been performing for 10 years—are pretty powerful: His mother, a daughter of Armenian immigrants, married a http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/03/beyond-facts-incognito-american-odyssey.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-2247709109490087574Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:19:00 +00002011-03-03T16:23:43.184-07:00Back in the days before Facebook, I found blogging to be the best on-line way to get to know others who love to write and to learn from (and about) them on an on-going basis. Bloggers are writers, regardless of their topics of choice, and when writing is combined with a passion and a little bit of polish, it can’t help but shine. Author Meg Waite Clayton in her role as host of the SheWrites http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/03/beyond-fun-she-writers-blogger-ball.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-6496125330127896998Sat, 19 Feb 2011 18:02:00 +00002011-02-19T11:39:24.257-07:00I’m happy to announce I’m now a weekly columnist at MixedAndHappy.com, a site I profiled last spring. My M&H columns will highlight resources of special interest to M&H readers, many of whom have young mixed-race families.Founded by supermom Suzy Richardson, MixedAndHappy.com is growing into a dynamic community of readers from all over the world and now writers located across the country and in http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/02/beyond-finesse-sister-mixedandhappycom.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-3884219031985975585Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:11:00 +00002011-02-08T19:53:21.418-07:00Activist, author, and public speaker Deborah Jiang Stein has launched The UnPrison Project so she may continue to reach out to female prisoners across the country. Deborah speaks to women about her birth and first year of life in the Aldersen Federal Prison for women in West Virginia as a heroin-addicted infant, multiple overdoses later in life, and eventual drug rehab.When Deborah visits women http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/02/beyond-fundraising-unprison-project.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-452251251111710920Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:18:00 +00002011-02-03T12:32:31.637-07:00In Call Me Okaasan, Corey Heller writes in her personal essay “I Am Mutti” about her choice to speak German with her children in her home though she hails from California and is raising her children in the U.S. with her German-born husband. Having experienced a year of immersion in the German culture and language, she found upon her return home that she was driven to retain those ties, and the http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/02/beyond-finesee-corey-heller-founder-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-674250639716824303Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:59:00 +00002011-02-01T15:12:12.075-07:00One of my favorite non-fiction pieces published in the Call Me Okaasan anthology is “Two Names for Every Beautiful Thing.” Spanish-American author Violeta García-Mendoza writes with such grace that at first I thought “Two Names” was a work of fiction. She notes in an interview on the Motherlogue blog that this piece “started with freewriting on gardens. I wanted to explore the garden origin myth http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/02/beyond-finesse-violeta-garcia-mendoza.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-7896450451592669779Sun, 30 Jan 2011 23:13:00 +00002011-01-30T16:26:42.687-07:00The New York Times article “Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above” is loaded with fantastic, insightful quotes from college students of mixed-race heritage. To get a glimpse of what many Americans of mixed-race heritage face on a daily basis, read this article and then read it again. It’s an eye-opener.And it offers up a few statistics that may surprise some:--http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/01/beyond-facts-black-white-asian-more.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-5265446687657703868Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:43:00 +00002011-01-29T17:52:12.279-07:00Also edited by Suzanne Kamata, Call Me Okaasan reveals challenges faced by moms with multicultural families. As Mamazine.com has noted, like much of Suzanne’s work, this essay collection explores “new ways of seeing family,” new ways that help those of us with traditional families understand what it takes to ensure a non-traditional family thrives. Meanwhile, Call Me Okaasan also reassures moms http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/01/beyond-non-fiction-call-me-okaasan.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-8657167280431903952Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:04:00 +00002011-01-23T17:29:18.917-07:00As noted in my profile of editor and author Suzanne Kamata, the premature birth of her twins and subsequent diagnosis of her daughter’s deafness and cerebral palsy led Suzanne to search for books that might help. “I was looking for deep and sustaining stories to guide me on the long path ahead,” she wrote in the introduction to Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/01/beyond-non-fiction-love-you-to-pieces.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-6033716716519117713Sat, 01 Jan 2011 22:23:00 +00002011-01-01T16:06:09.521-07:00Suzanne Kamata leads a much more diverse life than even your typical ex-pat: A Michigan native educated in South Carolina, she ventured to Japan to teach English to teenagers through a Japanese Ministry of Education exchange and teaching program. Within two years in Japan she met her husband, with whom she lives in rural Tokushima Prefecture on an island that sounds mythical with its coastlines, http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2011/01/beyond-finesse-suzanne-kamata-cross.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-5100032977464240879Mon, 29 Nov 2010 03:54:00 +00002010-11-28T21:15:34.210-07:00On Friday at FridayReads I mentioned I was reading My Sisters Made of Light, a truly luminous novel by Denver author Jacqueline St. Joan. The fact I read this book in two days (not counting yesterday, when we hosted our 12-year-old’s birthday party here at the house…though I did fit some reading in last night!) I just turned the last page. And yes, I’m sad it’s over.Published by Press 53, a http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-fiction-my-sisters-made-of-light.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-8446748682536302815Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:15:00 +00002010-11-23T08:46:49.471-07:00This month my post on Teaching Diversity in a White-Washed World has been featured on Denver blogger and educational specialist Melissa Taylor’s terrific Imagination Soup site. Named the best books and reading blog in the Scholastic Parent & Child 2010 Parent Bloggers Award competition, Imagination Soup serves up resources, insights, and how-tos on reading, writing, science, math and just plain http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-fun-imagination-soup.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-4460457494643354807Mon, 08 Nov 2010 03:10:00 +00002010-11-07T21:00:10.585-07:00My last post mentioned some of the obstacles faced this election year by many national candidates of South Asian descent. Those obstacles include negative remarks made by opponents that directly attack cultural heritage and religious affiliations. SAALT, South Asian Americans Leading Together, recently released a report on just this subject. Called “From Macacas to Turban Toppers: The Rise in http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2010/11/beyond-frustration-report-documents.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15672906.post-1224829906873437138Thu, 28 Oct 2010 21:05:00 +00002010-10-28T15:13:43.638-06:00I switched on NPR yesterday morning with the funny feeling I was going to learn something new. Not a rare occurrence, I readily admit, but during my short drive home this story—“South-Asian Americans Discover Political Clout”—happened to be aired.I’m still shocked when I hear about blatant discrimination in this day and age. Though this story was told in a light tone as it discussed increasing http://sustenancescout.blogspot.com/2010/10/beyond-finesse-south-asian-american.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Sustenance Scout)2