We've Moved!

Please check out the life and times, updates and adventures of Red Crickette at my new website. See you there!

North Avenue Lounge - Georgia Equality & The Georgia Voice

This week's episode of North Avenue Lounge focused on queer issues in Georgia. It was, hands down, one of the best episodes I've done in a while.

The guests from Georgia Equality and The Georgia Voice were eloquent.  There's so much timely stuff to talk about right now between the imminent Supreme Court decision re: marriage equality, the religious discrimination bill here in Georgia, and the violent attacks against trans people in Atlanta within the last year.

If you don't have time to listen to the whole episode, my One More Thing at the end is a meditation about the progress we've made in the last 20 years around LGBTQ issues and a moment in my life I'll always regret.

North Avenue Lounge - Homelessness & Good Food

On today's episode of the North Avenue Lounge, I interviewed Souper Jenny, somewhat of a local celebrity for bringing good food to the masses in the form of soup, juice, cookbooks, and many other means, as well as some folks from the Atlanta Center for Self Sufficiency for their support of our homeless and transitional populations. It's a delicious, nutritious episode.

Don't have time to listen to the whole show? In "One More Thing," I wrap things up with a story you may have heard before when I told it at Carapace a few years ago, this time with a little more polish (and background music).

Women's History Month

C4 Atlanta, a fantastic arts business incubator, recently profiled me for their blog and Women's History Month. It was an honor, and such a great opportunity to think on the questions they asked.

Read more here.

AIB Storytelling Special

Hey, world.

In January, the Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters did a special on storytelling, of which I was proud to be a part. Click here to watch it.  (I'm the last teller, so you have to skip to the end if you're looking for red hair and heavy make-up that's trying to conceal the fact that I had a terrible sinus infection at the time.) Not my finest hour.

Smooches,
Shannon

Poem, 9/29/14

conflagration of crows
atop a tall tree

calling out a message,
indiscernable

move forward
don't fall in the
river

go home
bake bread
rain's a-comin'
sorrow awaits

bake bread anyway

crows know
but they're mocking advice,
ersatz consolation
for a real prophecy

bake bread anyway

Poem, 10/3/14

She was made for a life in bed.
Often she thought, she'd missed her calling
as a prostitute
or consumptive.

Dying slowly over years,
a public thing.

Where friends and voyeurs
would come and visit,
sit vigil beside her bed.

Or, in the case of the professional choice
 - lady of the evening -
her visitors would climb in
and play.

One way or another
she would not be alone.

As it was, she just stayed in bed
and dreamt of other lives,
of the world outside,

and made no plans at all.

Up On the Watershed

Recently I had the good fortune to go see the Indigo Girls for about the fourth or fifth time in my life.  Their music is so timeless, so moving, so...everything.  The poetry of their music just inspires me to want to writewritewrite and singsingsing.

One of my favorite songs of theirs, Watershed, talks about "standing at the fork in the road" and the narrator quips: "every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good laugh."  Indeed.

Well, as it turns out, this time, I have as good a chance as any to mark time in such a fashion.

The weekend before I started working
at ROOTS, having just gotten a new haircut.

I came to work for Alternate ROOTS in May 2009 at the age of not-quite-thirty-four.  I had learned about the organization in grad school as my master teacher, Bob Leonard, was a founding member.  I did papers on it; interned there in the summertime.  I realized I was positioning myself to work for ROOTS when I set my sights on Atlanta even before I graduated, and I was so grateful when an opportunity opened up.

It's been some of the greatest and hardest work of my life.  So much opportunity to work and study alongside leaders in the field of arts, activism, and social justice.  I've dug deep into my understanding of white privilege and racism, only to see how much more work there is to do, both within myself and for the rest of the world. This last year has borne that out on a global scale for sure.

I've traveled ~ to Baltimore, Berea, and Brazil; shared food with some of the most amazing and creative people, food prepared by world-renowned chefs and over open campfires that was just as amazing; I've heard stories that would make you laugh and make your skin crawl.

And that's why it is with a mix of both the pleasure of excitement, and a pang of sadness that I share with you that I'm moving on.  Sort of.

These days.

February 13, 2015 will be my last day at Alternate ROOTS.  I'm going to take a couple weeks of down time ~ I'm calling it savasana. And then, on March 2, I will start my new position as Managing Director at CORE, the organization that is home to CORE Performance Company, located both here in Decatur and in Houston, TX.

The reason I say sort of moving on, and this is the best part, is that CORE is actually a part of ROOTS' network.  They use ROOTS' cultural practices in their daily work.  I will be able to take so much of what I've done and learned with me to my new position.  It's a great growth opportunity for me, and it's a great time for ROOTS as well.

Like always, I genuinely appreciate your time, your friendship, your support, and all the rest.  Please let me hear from you about how you're doing out there in your respective corners of the globe.

Cheers,
Shannon