Super Photos by Naomi Woddis
25 01 2010Tim Wells & Ash Sarkar, Poets
Heather Taylor, Poet, Screenwriter
Dean Atta, Poet
Tim Wells & Ash Sarkar. I love the photos of these two. So much attitude.
If I don’t smile for the camera, I look fierce. Sometimes I catch myself in a mirror or shop window and I scare even myself. I look angry, even when I’m not. It was a bleak January day and I wanted Naomi to take unsmiling pictures of me. This is probably my default facial expression when I’m writing.
I said to Naomi, get one of me wellies in.
Naomi Woddis is both a London-based photographer and a poet. She has started taking a series of photographs of writers but she is available for all kinds of commissions. (Naomi.Woddis@btinternet.com)
If you want some striking, unusual, interesting photographs of yourself and others, taken by a professional but very different to the usual bland, glossy studio shots, then Naomi’s your photographer, and her prices are competitive. Also, Naomi is very relaxed and friendly so it will be fun to do.
You also can find Naomi on Facebook and you can also check out more of her lovely photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/naomiwoddis/collections/72157622849627811
Naomi’s poetry can be seen at http://poetrymosaic.wordpress.com/
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Blonde Roots USA Paperback
22 12 2009Blonde Roots is published in paperback by Penguin USA this January. It came out in hardback in January 09. I love this cover. I love the UK cover too but this is equally as stunning. My biggest dream is for one of my books to hit the big time and introduce a massive readership to my other books as well. This is not vanity or greed, it’s about survival and readership. When you spend years working on a novel you want it to get out there and you want to get it noticed and read. Your publisher wants to get it read too. They have to pay the bills. A publishing house cannot survive on philanthropy. Not many literary books gain a huge readership but wouldn’t it be wonderful to be one of those writers who do. There are many issues involved but compromise is an important one for me. I can’t. I really can’t. I am totally uncompromising in my creativity. If I had to tone down what I do or write for a market or to fit a mold, I’d rather do something else as a career. Yet there’s nothing else I want to do. This is it.
Blonde Roots is important to me because it really challenges a lot of the fundamental assumptions we make about race and through satire I ridicule the racism that pervades our societies, both in the past and in the present. It also takes risks – I like to write on the edge, to do things differently, to imaginatively re-shape our world, to probe and challenge. As a writer, I have the power — and I have to say, that’s quite intoxicating.
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Michael McMillan’s ‘Front Room’
16 12 2009Comments : Comments Off
Tags: 60s, 70s, angie le mar, archives, black dog publishing, Black History, black history archives, caribbean, caribbean history, carol tulloch, cyril husbands, dave lewis, denise nobles, Dorothea Smartt, felix dexter, immigration, michael mcmillan, migration, mike phillips, museums, photogeraphic history, photography, professor stuart hall, steve pope, visual art, west indian homes
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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
15 12 2009At the beautiful Novello Theatre in London’s West End. It’s running until April and if you’re lucky there might be some tickets left.
It’s stars James Earl Jones as Big Daddy (Yes, he), Phylicia Rashad (of the Cosby Show) as Big Mama, Sanaa Lathan as Maggie, our very own Brit Adrian Lester as Brick and our very own Nina Sosanya as Mae. I saw it on Saturday and thought it was a fantastic production of a fantastic, thought-provoking, suspenseful and psychologically-penetrating play (Tennessee Williams), directed by Debbie Allen (of Fame). It originally played on Broadway to sell-out audiences with Jones and Rashad in the cast.)
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Tags: adrian lester, african american actors, as, black actors, Broadway, cat on a hot tin roof, debbie allen, fame, james earl jones, London, london's west end theatre, phylicia rashad, sanaa lathan, tennessee williams, the cosby show, theatre
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Blonde Roots/ Audio Book
3 12 2009Blonde Roots is now available as an unabridged audio book.
Published by Whole Story Audio Books on 1/12/09.
http://tinyurl.com/blonderootsaudio
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My Grandmother: Zenobia Evaristo
20 11 2009
Zenobia Evaristo, second wife of Gregorio (below). Born Zenobia Sowemima in Ibadan, Nigeria. Died 1967, Lagos, Nigeria.
Brought back to life as ‘herself’ in the new LARA. (Love the hair-do!)
Bloodaxe Books, October 29, 2009
http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/titlepage.asp?isbn=1852248319
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Tags: ancestry, British History, family history, fiction, historical novels, lagos, mixed-race british writers, Nigeria, nigerian history, nigerian women's history, verse novels
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