I will be traveling to Cape Coast, Ghana on August 8th to teach creative writing at the University of Cape Coast for five months. In an attempt to answer the question Frank O'Hara posed in his poem "The Day Lady Died," I will be making posts "to see what the poets/ in Ghana are doing these days". Over the coming weeks and months, I will report on the literary and cultural scene in Ghana with a mix of commentary, sound recordings, photographs, and short films. I will be returning to the U.S. on January 1, 2009.

Plug: For those of you who don't know about it, Pine Manor College Solstice MFA in Creative Writing (www.pmc.edu/solstice) just graduated its first class. Pine Manor's mission is to celebrate and promote diversity in American writing. It's faculty includes Randall Keenan, Terrance Hayes, Jacqueline Woodson, Ray Gonzalez, among others.

Selected Works

3. Poetry

Dave the Potter
A picturebook poem describing the life of the slave potter Dave. Illustrated by Bryan Collier.

Contemporary Poetry of New England
“Contemporary Poetry of New England offers a vivid portrait of a region, its colors and smells, its physical and emotional textures, and the people…. It presents a range of poets, few of whom would call themselves a “region poet,” although each has taken to heart in a private way Frost’s haunting dictum: ‘Locality gives art.’”

--from the Introduction

1. Nonfiction

DJ Kool Herc
The first picturebook biography of the founder of rap and hip hop, DJ Kool Herc!

America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60s
"Phenomenal."–Howard Zinn "Excellent."–New York Times Book Review

Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance
“Harlem Stomp! is a wonderous new book: it celebrates a time, a place, an energy, and a people who refused to be held back and so they created a culture the entire world is still reeling from.”

--George C. Wolfe, writer, director, and producer of the Public Theater, NYC

2. Fiction

A Brush with Napoleon
A seventeen-year-old is plucked out of the Grande Armee to sit in place of Napoleon for a portrait of the Emperor by the artist David.

Casa Azul
"I felt like a kid reading every word on the page! I liked the strains of "magic realism" coming through in Frida's house! Children will relate to this very much! The story is charming and reads like a thriller." –Margarita Aguilar, Assisant Curator, El Museo del Barrio

4. Middle Grade Series

Xtreme Mysteries
These kids love extreme sports--snowboarding, skateboarding, rock climbing, wake boarding--and are ready to fight when the right to do their sport is threatened.