Their Eyes Were Watching God: Novel vs Film

Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God presented an African American woman in a completely different light for the era she lived in. It was written and published in the early 1920’s, right at the beginning of the jazz/ renaissance era. African American women were working as housekeepers, nannies, and cooks. But it was also part of the new age of entertainers, teachers, and most important, writers. This novel was written near the beginning of her writing career with many to follow including an autobiography and some she collaborated on with other writers.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story about a young black woman, Janie Mae Crawford who grows up under the guidance of her grandmother, Nanny Crawford.

NaNoWriMo

November has been designated as the month to represent several different causes over the years. It has also been selected as the month writers of various levels of experience share their time together in workshops and writing sessions all over San Diego County as well as in various places around the world. The NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) movement has been on my list of writing events to attend this season. I was finally able to commit time to join fellow writers on November 13^th.  I chose to go to the evening session being held at the Chula Vista Library on F St. This special writing event starts on November 1 and continues to the end of the month, November 30. If you visit the official website you will find more extensive information pertaining to how it works and some of the other highlights that occur throughout the year. Even though the process is not limited to November, it reflects on ways to build up to November. With this in mind I jumped right into the 50,000-word challenge.

No One is Coming To Save Us Book Review

“When you love somebody you decide what you can take and what will kill you and work backward from what will kill you.”

No One is Coming to Save Us is Stephanie Powell Watt’s debut novel, which has won the renown of many famous book clubs and has quickly become a best seller since its release in 2017. The story follows JJ Ferguson, who returns home to build a life, but finds it is not the same home he remembered. There are several characters who are in pivotal positions in this story about the twisted relationships between people familiar with one another: social classes and family members. Sylvia, the matriarch of the family, is the key to each character’s progress. Her influence and emotions have a lot of powerful support behind the decisions made by her daughter Ava, Ava’s husband—Henry, Devon—the dead son of Sylvia, and Marcus—someone she talked to on the phone who was incarcerated. JJ Ferguson is another key character whose return should have been a positive inspiration to the people he had returned to, but it worked against the lives of those in this small town. By the end of the story, the relationships were still not in the best of conditions. Ava’s pregnancy should have been a joyous event, but the celebration was marred with ugly circumstances. Don was attempting to reconcile with Sylvia, however, she didn’t seem as open to the idea.

Interview with Heather Eudy

Heather Eudy is an SDSU alumni. We first met while I was a student taking advanced creative writing classes at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, CA between 2012-2017. We also worked together for many semesters on issues of The Vagabond Reader, the biennial journal published by the Other Writer’s Guild at SWC. I thought it would be interesting to hear the story of how her life unfolded as a writer and teacher. She has been a wonderful inspiration for many of her former students and is highly regarded by students and colleagues alike.

She provided a photo and short bio for this interview:

Heather Eudy was born and raised in San Diego County and earned an MFA in poetry from San Diego State University. After completing graduate work, she got a job delivering cars cross country and later made southern Mexico her temporary home. Her first book of poetry, Bills of Lading, is included in Lantern Tree: Four Books of Poems, which was awarded the San Diego Book Award for Best Published Poetry Anthology in 2013. Her poems have also appeared in Serving House Journal, City Works Journal, Sunshine/Noir: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana, Hunger and Thirst, and The Far East: Everything Just As It Is. Her poem, “Persimmons,” was featured on KPBS Midday Edition with Maureen Cavanagh in an audio recording during “Stories from ‘The Far East’ (East County That Is),” aired on November 28, 2012. She currently teaches writing and literature at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, CA.