"All Art is entertainment. That's so clear it's fatuous to repeat it. Art and Entertainment are the same thing, in that the more deeply and genuinely entertaining a work is, the better art it is. To imply that Art is something heavy and solemn and dull, and...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 124: The Way of the Writer by Charles Johnson
by MHill | Apr 22, 2023 | Charles Johnson, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Nonfiction, Writing
As a writer, I have always been curious how other writers practice their craft, what they read, and how they conduct business. I believe you can learn a lot from other writers that are further down the writer's journey than you are. Charles Johnson's The Way of the...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 21: River People by Yamile Saied Mendez
by MHill | Apr 3, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
"Malena had skills that no one could explain, not even her. When they were alive, her parents thought that her ability to speak to ghosts meant she was a bridge between this world and that of spirits, between their ancestral home in Ireland and the new one in...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 20: Occupying Arthur Whitfield by Charles Johnson
by MHill | Mar 22, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
Charles Johnson came onto my reading radar for many years after I read his National Book Award-winning novel, Middle Passage. The novel told the story of Rutherford Calhoun, a freed slave who sneaks onto a slave ship heading back to the motherland to escape an...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 19: The Past Is A Dream (The Launch of a Blacktopia) by Maurice Broaddus
by MHill | Mar 18, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
"No one ever considers the impact of a single life well-lived. The relationships made and lives touched. How a person might walk through history inadvertently." Those words of wisdom spoken by Nora Bradford, pilot of Ghana's first interstellar spaceship and longtime...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 123: A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark
by MHill | Mar 17, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
The greatest pleasure I can have as a reader is getting lost in an author’s story. What I mean is, an author has pulled me into their imagined world and has a reality that connects with my imagination. P. Djeli Clark achieves this in his first full-length novel, A...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 122: So Much Blue by Percival Everett
by MHill | Feb 21, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Percival Everett, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
Does secrets force us to make choices that we would not have made otherwise? This is the question I keep asking myself as I read Percival Everett's very good novel, So Much Blue. It tells the story of Kevin Pace, an artist, who has kept his past at bay to be...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 121: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
by MHill | Feb 14, 2023 | 2023 Book Reviews, Marion's Favorite Books, Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Nonfiction, Wisdom From Kammbia Column
"Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 17: The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djeli Clark
by MHill | Jan 22, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
"For the blacksmith understood what masters had chosen to forget: when you make a man or woman a slave, you enslave yourself in turn. And the souls of those who made thralls of others would never know rest----in this life or the next." This quote is prophetic in its...
Wisdom From Kammbia Story Review 16: George by Terry Bisson
by MHill | Jan 16, 2023 | Marion's Favorites, Marion's Reading Life Blog, Short Story Review, Wisdom From Kammbia Column, Wisdom of Kammbia Story Review
I have a question. As a parent, would you allow your child born with wings to have them removed? That question gets answered in Terry Bisson's short story George from his award-winning collection, Bears Discover Fire. The parents in this story have just given birth to...