Brown Bookshelf Calls for African-American Children’s Literature nominations for “28 Days Later” project during Black History Month 2008

Byriehlifegrace

The Brown Bookshelf is a group of five authors and illustrators, who have joined together to showcase the best and brightest voices in African-American children’s literature. Their special emphasis is on new authors and books that are relatively unknown and not receiving the recognition they deserve. In conjunction with the African-American Read-In Chain, the Black…

Riehl on “African Culture of Story”—Guest blog post in two parts on Damaria Senne’s “Story Pot”

Byriehlifegrace

Damaria Senne and I have been having a good time swapping guest posts. She appeared earlier of Riehlife in a post about finding relatives in unexpected places. If you missed it the first time, you can find it here. Damaria Senne, of Johannesburg, South Africa Damaria has posted an extensive 2-part interview with me on…

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Missouri History Museum evening “Journey of African-American Cultural Institutions: Where do we go from here?” generates thirst for continued Kgotla gatherings to pull together and package African-American Cultural Institutions to attract Heritage Tourism Dollars to St. Louis

Byriehlifegrace

During my years of community development in Gabane, Botswana (just outside of Gaborone, home of the fictional Precious Ramotswe) working to set up and stabilize Tswaragano Craft Center there, I sat in many a Kgotla meeting or community and tribal council (see Wikipedia note at end of post). Last week in the cave of the…

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Martin Puryear Retrospective opens at MOMA

Byriehlifegrace

Photo: Richard Barnes/Museum of Modern Art One of my favorite artists, Marin Puryear is an African-American artist who has prevailed and brought it on home. Read Roberta Smith’s comprehensive review “Humanity’s Ascent in Three Dimensions” at the NY Times online and see a slide show of Puryear’s visually pure, carefully wrought, and deeply felt work….

Africa is a continent, not a country: water from heaven, a vision

Byriehlifegrace

Tonight I just came back from a presentation at my local library; I caught the tail end, and that may have been one of the juicer parts, who can say? The audience was primarily African-American and they were firing questions at the speaker in a hunger to know more about the continent the African part…

Connections: Finding Relatives In Unexpected Places, by Damaria Senne of Johannesburg, South Africa

Byriehlifegrace

Damaria Senne is a journalist, author and blogger based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Click here to visit and even subscribe to her blog where she shares her adventures as a parent and writer. Click here to read her ICT business related articles and go to her other blog, where she talks about the impact of…

Riehl’s story “Driving Lessons” is Editor’s Choice this week at Traveler’s Tales

Byriehlifegrace

This spring my story “Driving Lessons” won Bronze Award for Family Travel in the First Annual Solas Awards sponsored by Travelers Tales. If you missed “Driving Lessons” the first time, read it on the Travelers Tale site by clicking here for “Janet Riehl’s Flying Carpet Tales”. Their tagline for the story is “The lessons of…

Best Travel Writing–Solas Award for Riehl’s “Driving Lessons”

Byriehlifegrace

Travelers’ Tales gave a Best Travel Writing Solas Award to my story “Driving Lessons” in the category of “Family Travel: The best story about traveling with family of all generations—or journeying to discover roots.” My story won a Bronze Certificate. It’s such a treat to go to an awards list an find one’s name there!…

“The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa”

Byriehlifegrace

“The Soul of A New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa by Marcus Samuelsson in gracefully introduced by Desmond Tutu and enhanced by photographs by Gediyond Kifle. Just think! 200 recipies from all over the continent, with insightful commentary completing our pleasure. Here’s what Samuelsson says about “Palaver Sauce”: [In West…

“Bahto”: Setswana’s Poetic Window into Batswana Culture

Byriehlifegrace

Map of BotswanaOne of the rewards of learning other languages is that they are gateways into another culture and other ways of looking at the world. I lived and worked in Botswana for three years during the 1970s and grew somewhat fluent in Setswana, one of the two official languages, with English as the other….