#cmboston

July 26, 2020

June’s global theme was INSECURE and we were super excited to hold a joint virtual event of Boston and LA chapters!

Our guest was the author Kathryn H. Ross, who did a live and heartfelt reading of a chapter from her book, Black Was Not A Label. This essay, titled Erasure, is a powerful piece portraying her 25 year old self in a loving and raw confrontation with her 17 year old self. After the reading we'd opened it up for a moderated Q+A with Kathryn about her work and here are her answers.

Kathryn H. Ross adores cats, warm baths, and of course, reading. Her debut book, Black Was Not A Label (2019), is a hybrid memoir of essays and poetry that was recently published with indie press PRONTO. She holds a BA and MA in English and Writing and is a columnist for Pasadena Now, where she writes about race and culture. Her creative works range from sentimental speculative shorts and poetry to lamentation essays about living as a young black woman in America.

Read her at speakthewritelanguage.com.

Q: On the theme of insecurity, the book seems like a very vulnerable topic. Did you have any hesitation/insecurity? What got you through that? (Phil Chun, LA)

I did have some hesitation and insecurity when writing Black Was Not A Label because it is such a personal work. Most of the pieces were written and published individually before they were placed into this collection, and before the manuscript was finished I went through a long editing process. During edits, it was really impressed upon me just how personal each piece was, especially when read back-to-back . What got me through the insecurity of vulnerability was being told by friends, my editor, and my publisher that what I had to say was important that my experiences could help others process their own trauma. 

Q: Kathryn- Can you share what your creative process is like for your writing? (Anon)

Being patient with myself is the bulk of my creative process. I have to let things develop and marinate for a while before I’m ready to write them down, and allowing myself to go through the slow process is the best way I can nurture my writing. I wish I was someone who got up at 7 AM every day and wrote 1,000 words, but that’s just not me. I can’t force creativity, and accepting that has helped my proces and my writing immensely. 

Q: Wisdom even in your younger self has grown and evolved. I would imagine that you continue to grow? Thank you for sharing such a deep and intimate experience. (Kaleb, BOS)

Of course! So long as we’re living and learning, we’re growing. :) 

Q: Did you say anime? What anime do you recommend? (Anon)

I did say anime! My favorite anime is Yu Yu Hakusho, so that’s always my first and most enthusiastic recommendation. It’s so great and can be a nice intro for those who’ve never watched anime before !

Q: Such tender and beautiful writing! As a creative person living through these wild and insecure times, what helps you feel secure and connected? (Ki, Altadena)

Thank you! A few things make me feel secure and connected: my faith and relationship with Christ, my friends & family, and the decision to let myself rest. Sometimes that looks like watching a favorite show. Other times it’s talking to a close friend I feel at home with. Still other times it’s being in prayer and allowing myself to speak with God on a personal/intimate level. 

Q: It is said what you resist is what you need to grow. Is there an instance where you resisted thinking or writing about something and how was that experience? (Kreety, BOS)

By Karen Elliott Greisdorf

Growing up in Roxbury “character was everywhere,” explained artist Moe Pope at last month’s CreativeMornings Boston where we gathered around September’s global topic, MUSE. “If you are in the projects it’s a little bit of a box, everyone is packed in together. The music is kind of colliding. You have Latin music on your lefthand side. You’ve got the cat with the turntables playing music upstairs from you. You’ve got reggae downstairs and somewhere in between you are in there catching a little bit of the elements of everything.”

These early musical influences bleeding through the walls laid the foundation for the creative portfolio he has built today as an indie hip-hop artist, songwriter and contemporary artist.  But the neighborhood as a whole shaped him too, not just its soundtrack. “If you are from Roxbury you are like family.  You’ve been through the storm a little bit and if you are from Roxbury you know what that means.”  

Moe shared with CMBoston host Sophia Moon that his personal playlist grew when his aunts from Rockland on the South Shore would pick him up and be listening to a range of music - one played jazz like Coltrane and Miles Davis, another aunt would be playing The Smiths, The Cure, and a third would have on Marvin Gaye or Al Green.  And his uncles expanded his backseat musical education too by adding punk music into young Moe’s ear when they were the ones behind the wheel.

At 13, when “there’s lots to put your hands into as a kid,” Moe’s mom decided he should move to Rockland. “On the South Shore I only had to think about the small things that kids should worry about, not who’s been shot,” Moe remembered. “I had a pretty good life where I was like good grades, but she thought I’d get up to trouble.”

As he learned to navigate a new school and faced a culture shock, Moe discovered that the possibility of “better is a strange thing.” The early days of standing out in ways that had only blended him in before eventually gave way to teen years in which he “got Nirvana, keggers in the woods and riding my bike freely without my mom worrying what was happening to me.”

In the end, Moe says he had the best of both worlds and spending his youth in Rockland meant learning from his grandfather’s legacy of social justice work and his aunt’s legal career. “I had all these really cool elements of what it was to be brown in America during that time and we were poor and so you have to be creative.”

His creativity was also fueled by late night foreign films on PBS and he started drawing the images he saw on screen. He turned to Disney for inspiration, but when he didn’t find characters that looked like him, his Grandfather said, “Be better than Disney.”

Today Moe is heeding his grandfather’s advice across mediums. He and his recording partners The Arcitype, Christopher Talken and Jonathan Ulman, known as STLGLD, were named “Live Artist of the Year” at the 2018 Boston Music Awards. Earlier this year, they released The New Normal. As he closed out the event with the title track and another titled Action, he asked the CMBoston audience to raise peace signs high reminding us that we each have a choice to strive for peace.

Asked what he’d like his legacy to be, he replied, “Being a good dude, trying to grow, being a good dad, listening to what people taught me. At this point in my life, creating to make the world better is where I’m at.”

by Kimberly Maroon

Wonder is the key to living our lives to the fullest, embracing experiences with our whole heart. It unlocks our creativity, a deeper understanding of ourselves, and ultimately paves a way for overcoming our fears. The experiences that take us to those awe-struck moments in life all start with wonder— to me wonder is all about being curious, seeking out challenges, breaking routine, and getting uncomfortable.

Over the past 3 or 4 years, I developed a habit of submitting to things where I didn't have all the pieces exactly in the right place, details were unplanned, or some risk was involved. It sits somewhere between "this could be completely awesome" and "this is could go horribly wrong." I'm here to tell you that the space in between is where the magic happens. From my first solo trips along the California Coast and the Pacific Northwest to camping alone in Utah’s National Parks, my sense for adventure grows everyday. More significantly are those moments of the journey when the unexpected strikes where I discover something new or have to navigate a difficult situation.

The biggest shift in my life was when I brought home a motorcycle last year and then earlier this month joined a ride to an all girls moto campout in the Catskills, Babes Ride Out. Motorcycle rides are an exercise in uncertainty. And vintage motorcycles like mine, a 1973 Honda CB350 Four “Josephine”, are one more degree above uncertainty. I wondered if my bike could make that long ride.

In 2 months leading up to the trip, I put as many miles on as I could, getting faster and more comfortable, "listening" to the bike, doing whatever maintenance was needed, and reading up on others doing long distance bike trips. It felt more mental preparation than physical or mechanical. The negative voices in my head ran through all kinds of scenarios of “what ifs” and “shoulds and should nots”, almost talking myself out of going. I was taking a chance on myself as a new rider, with little knowledge of mechanics, and a 46 year old bike riding about 300 miles on roads I'd never seen to Narrowsburg, NY. I packed lots of tools and some replacement parts, crossed my fingers, and took off.

185 miles on the first day and I was amazed, it was a completely different bike. 'You gotta hear this thing!!!' I kept telling friends back in Boston. 90 more miles across the Hudson River and into camp I was astounded. It was incredible to me that we both made it that far. Then all day blasting through The Catskills with a group of ladies on the most scenic roads and my heart was full.

(Kate, Shayna, & Lynn in my rear view up on Hawk’s Nest Highway)

On Sunday it was time to make the ride back to Boston and at mile 16 I burnt out my clutch on a hill and broke down. Julie and I stranded on the side of the road in Monticello NY, a whole day away from home. 

Whether it was sheer exhaustion from the weekend or my practice from other crazy situations, I didn’t go into a panic-stricken meltdown. With our quick decision making, some luck (ok, a lot of luck), and the wonderful help of a group of neighborhood guys, we were on our way an hour or so later— me piloting a rented pickup truck with my bike tied in the back following Julie on her Harley—making it to Boston before dark as planned.

I learned more about myself and riding a motorcycle and came out a little more proud. I wouldn't have it any other way. As I continue a personal documentary project about women and bikes, I am flooded with ideas just from this experience. If it's possible I think I was inspired by myself this time.

We don't always have to know every where, what, and when. There is no value in worrying about a million things that “could” happen, those “what ifs”, they limit us from truly enjoying and experiencing life. There's 10x more that comes from leaping than sticking with what you know. We all have the capacity for wonder we just have to keep after it. Have faith, choose wonder and you will find nothing but joy.

Name tags. Yarn. Markers. Glitter. Stickers. Scrabble pieces.

Individually, these things are just things. They’re pretty typical. But when you put all these things on a table and tell more than 150 creatives to “make a name tag,” you get something atypical.

Something atypical took place on June 22nd at Arnold Worldwide. And the CreativeMornings/Boston community created it. No, it wasn’t just the name tags. It was the energy and spirit of a group of creative people thinking about, discussing, and using Craft.

Guest speaker Wade Devers (ECD/Managing Partner with Arnold Worldwide) was thoughtful, hilarious, and genuine as he spoke about doing something familiar with the unfamiliar and how difficult great craft can be.

Wade showed a clip from a Jack Daniels commercial he created that talked about how a town isn’t the buildings, but a town is the people. Watching this clip made me realize that CreativeMornings/Boston isn’t the name tags, or the yarn, or the glitter, or the beautiful spaces we gather in on a monthly basis.

May’s speaker Gautaum Narula is the award-winning author of Remain Free, a memoir that documents his friendship with death row inmate Troy Davis. He has compiled a list of resources for education and action around the criminal justice system. 

Education

Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson gives a great broad overview of the problems in our criminal justice system. ­­Stevenson is a lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit that provides legal representation prisoners who may have been wrongfully convicted, given unfair trials, or cannot afford legal representation. The book goes through a series of cases Stevenson worked on in the past three decades that highlight the kind of injustices (particularly against the poor and racial minorities) that continue to occur today. 

The first season of the Serial podcast follows the story of Adnan Syed, a high school student questionably convicted of murdering another student and sentenced to life in prison. Not only does it provide a personal look into a potentially wrongful conviction, it also highlights some important problems: the increased power of prosecutors via plea bargaining, the effects of poor legal representation, etc.

It would be remiss of me not to shamelessly promote my own book, Remain Free, which follows the Troy Davis case and discusses the death penalty, how race and socioeconomic status affect outcomes in the justice system, and the personal toll our justice system takes on the people and families involved. All the profits from sales will be donated to the Innocence Project (see below), and the book can be read for free online at www.remainfree.com

The Innocence Project is a non-profit that works to free wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing, and has information on their website about what causes wrongful convictions. They also discuss the policy and legislative work they do (in addition to providing legal representation) to prevent innocent people from being convicted in the first place. 

For those specifically interested in the death penalty, Amnesty International’s Abolish the Death Penalty campaign is a good starting point. This campaign transformed Troy Davis from an unknown death row inmate in Georgia to the most well-known death row inmate in history. 

Action

Donate to the organizations mentioned above. 

Volunteer: Amnesty International is particularly good place to volunteer, because at its core AI is a volunteer organization so they’re built around volunteer action. You can start by getting in touch with your local field office (in this case, the one in Boston) and Amnesty Local Group (Amnesty 133 in Cambridge/Somerville). There are lots of friendly people in AI who will be happy to help you get started if you’re new to this. And if you’re into rallies and protests, AI can get you into that too. 

Lobby government officials: Massachusetts is definitely ahead of the curve (compared to the rest of the states) on these kinds of issues, but there’s always room for improvement. Stay educated and aware of any bills relating to law enforcement and criminal justice, and make your voice heard if there’s something you don’t like. If you have friends or relatives in other states that aren’t doing quite as well as Massachusetts in regards to criminal justice reform, encourage them to call their elected officials to pressure them to change the laws. Amnesty International, The Innocence Project, etc. will often have petitions you can sign as well.

Share the knowledge you’ve gained with as many people as you can. The most enduring change occurs from the bottom up, and that means writing about these issues and talking to people about them. That’s why I wrote Remain Free and speak to awesome groups of people like the folks at CreativeMornings Boston!

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