Been reading a lot of short stuff lately and been tied up with my local theatre volunteer stuff—after August I won't have do to it anymore!—so let's play catch-up reviews.
This year's Writer's Digest Writing Competition Collection was better than expected. Not once did I scream, "OMG, I write better that that!" But I came close. A personal, inspiration essay bothered me because it was so much what TABS (temporally able-bodied people) want to believe about being handicapped. (Come on, Martha. Write what makes people feel good. You still haven't learned that?) Anyway, the screenplay sample was downright good. And I came in 20th in the stage play competition. Doesn't sound all that great, but 100 honorable-mentions are listed, and I have no idea how many entries there were. Besides, I was always a B student. Like Avis, we B's try harder.
I enjoyed August Wilson's Fences. I've seen it once at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and this was at least my second reading. Wilson is the black playwright who has a series of plays, each set in a decade from 1920, I think, through the 90s. Fences is his 1950's entry,. A local theatre group is doing it next year. I'm timid; I'd be leery of the frequent use of the n-word. Sure Wilson is black, but the director is white and, sadly, the vast majority of our local actors and audience members are also. I'll be curious to see what happens.
A thank-you to the person who recommended When the Church Bell Rang Racist by Donald E. Collins. The book describes the Methodist Church's attempt to integrate in the 1950s and 1960s. It centers on events in Alabama and Florida, but my guess is similar problems occurred in other parts of the country—although they were probably not as blatant. The scariest sentence in the book IMHO was "the church officials assigned men to stand guard at the church each Sunday to make certain that no black could enter." (page 104) Won’t it be justice if those officials and guards arrive at the gates of heaven only to find their entrance blocked by people of color? I sure hope that god, whoever he/she may be, has a sense of irony.
Last edited by humphreysmar; 05/19/08 07:29 PM.
