Write With Your Spine

The Tumblr home of Crystal Wilkinson author of Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street

Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a surgeon’s hands, your words suture only the places where blood might flow. We know you can never do it properly—once and for all. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. … Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names.

—Toni Morrison, from the 1993 Nobel Prize lecture (source)

(Source: proustitute)

W. W. Norton: Friends and Daughters

wwnorton:

The mother, in a flannel dressing-gown,
holds her thin flame-haired daughter on her knees,
the Shorter Version of her energies.
Here three girls lark on the muddy lawn,
her two in shorts despite the chill of June
in Dublin, mine in paisley jeans, a sixties
rip-off, taller, smiling, almost at…

Octavia Butler on flying

Octavia Butlerjonubian:

I’m learning to fly, to levitate myself. No one is teaching me. I’m just learning on my own, little by little, dream lesson by dream lesson. Not a very subtle image, but a persistent one. I’ve had many lessons, and I’m better at flying than I used to be. I trust my ability more now, but I’m still afraid. I can’t quite control my directions yet. - Parable of the Sower.

the mothership is in the smithsonian…sweet! click on the photo for the story.

the mothership is in the smithsonian…sweet! click on the photo for the story.

Gayl Jones A Woman Sings

“There are things that a woman sings, and only a woman knows the full meaning. You may sing for men as well as for women, but only a woman knows your full meaning. I am not a feminista. I only think a woman should be true to who she believes herself to be. Or who she wants herself to be. Or who she imagines herself to be. I don’t know what I mean, or whether I’m true myself to any of that. I don’t think there are many of us who are true to our possibilities.” from The Healing (Gayl Jones)