Nina Simone
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How It Would Feel to Be Free: Olivia Laing’s Everybody
Pleasures and possibilities, though, come hard-won in this book.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #125: Tyree Daye
“I think if you are really doing the work, you can’t write about America and not explore race and slavery, and that goes for any writer.”
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To Look for America: A Road Trip, a Soundtrack
One thing I was taught about travel—because my father is a black man born in Alabama in 1950—was that there are safe places for black people to go and places that aren’t as safe.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Erika T. Wurth
Erika T. Wurth talks about her latest book, Buckskin Cocaine, persevering through rejection, and white writers writing Native characters.
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Notable San Francisco: 6/21–6/27
Wednesday 6/21: Cuban writer Achy Obejas (The Tower of the Antilles—our June book club pick!), currently Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College, reads from her forthcoming story collection. Free, 7 p.m., City Lights. Charif Shanahan, Nancy Patrice Davenport, André Le Mont Wilson, Andrew J.…
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My Life with Annie Lennox: Nostalgia
I don’t use the term “lifelong hero” frivolously. There are a lot of people I respect and wish to emulate; Annie Lennox, however, is the only “lifelong hero” I’ll ever have. I need her.
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Song of the Day: “Gin House Blues”
Nina Simone’s troubles were highlighted in the recent gripping documentary by Liz Garbus, What Happened, Miss Simone? Though Simone had her fair share of challenges, it was her incredibly resonant voice and musical genius that contributed to the gradual accumulation of…




