Conversations Across Borders

Three Cab authors will be reading at Village Books this Saturday, April 27, at 4 pm. The reading is free, and open to the public. And, please stay afterward for a special presentation about Cura orphanage!

Publishing under the pen name Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor, Rebecca A. Saxton received her MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University in 2012. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in Katipunan Literary Magazine and the online magazine Haruah. Her short story “Yellow is for Luck” appears in the anthology Growing Up Filipino II: More Stories for Young Adults, edited by Cecilia Brainard. Her poetry chapbook Pause Mid-Flight was released in 2010. Currently she is a member of the English Faculty at Northwest Indian College. 

Paul Piper was born in Chicago, lived for extensive periods in Montana, where he received his MFA in Creative Writing, and Hawai’i. He is a librarian at Western Washington University in Bellingham, who spends more time writing than he should. His work has appeared in various literary journals, and he has four published books of poetry, the most recent being Dogs and Other Poems, published by Bird Dog Press. He also has the privilege of being included in the books The New Montana Story, Tribute to Orpheus, America Zen, and Seattle Noir. He has also co-edited the books Father Nature and X-Stories: The Personal Side of Fragile X Syndrome.

Jennifer Bullis, originally from Reno, Nevada, has lived for 17 years in Bellingham, Washington, which receives nearly three feet of rain per year. Her poems appear in Iron Horse Literary Review, Natural Bridge, Comstock Review, Floating Bridge Review, and Umbrella. She has won The Pitch contest at Poetry Northwest and received Honorable Mention in the Tupelo Press Poetry Project, April 2011. Her chapbook, Impossible Lessons, is forthcoming from MoonPath Press in spring 2013.

Ashland Creek Press, co-founded by Cab author Midge Raymond, has a unique offer for Earth Day. Their promotion is posted below:

Enjoy the April edition of Cab, featuring the collaborative work of poets Marvin Bell and Christopher Merrill, the work of poet Paul Piper, and and a brand-new essay by nonfiction writer Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor!

Consider subscribing to Cab and have each full edition emailed directly to your inbox each month. If you are a writer, consider sending us your work.

The March edition of Cab Literary Magazine is now available.

You’ll find new work by essayist Sayantani Dasgupta, as well as by poets Tish Pearlman and Rosemary Volz. Each piece is available for $2, or you can enjoy the full edition for $10.

All proceeds from this month’s issue will go to the American Indian Fellowship at the University of Idaho. Every cent that you spend on reading Cab poetry, fiction, or nonfiction is an investment you’re making, training the next generation of writers.

Consider subscribing to Cab and have each full edition emailed directly to your inbox each month.

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If you are a writer send us your work.

Today we had cultural competency training at work. This is the overarching goal of our agency: to be an anti-racist, multicultural organization. It is a lofty, important goal. I find the conversations disturbing and I would rather not participate, which is not an option.

I thought a lot today about why I’m so uncomfortable talking about race. Yes, it’s a social construct and has only the meaning society ascribes to it. Yes, some people are racist jerks and will always be racist jerks, and some people just don’t know they are culturally incompetent; they don’t mean any harm. I get that these conversations are critical particularly when we’re working with students, which is why the agency exists, and the most marginalized students in our area, which is our school’s population. I mean, how can we appropriately address the needs of our students if we aren’t culturally competent, if we don’t even understand that there are cultural factors that play a role in what our kiddos need and want, how they access curriculum and a billion other educational and social components?

But still, I don’t like talking about race. I never have. I am a mixed race woman; I identify as black. And yes, we all get to self-identify and that is also not a conversation I want to have. I don’t want to hear my cousin-in-law tell me, in my own house, at my own table, that during slavery times I would have “been able to pass.” I don’t want to hear that I’m not really black or how come I speak the way I do. I don’t want to be called “vanilla” or “peach” or “high yellow” or “red bone.” I don’t want to be asked “what are you?” It’s not enough to say I’m a woman, I’m a human being, I’m a mother, I’m a writer. If I say I’m mixed people want to know what I’m mixed with. Why? If I say I’m black, they’ll say, yeah, but you’re mixed with something. Who cares? Why does it matter? I hate talking about this. I hate feeling like I don’t belong in this community or that one, because I didn’t get the manual, I don’t like sweet potato pie but I also can’t stand casseroles of any kind. How come it isn’t okay to just be who I am, a complex, complicated human being who is just trying to get her feet on solid ground?

The February edition of Cab, featuring the work of Timothy Liu, Lois Rosen, Simon Perchik, and J. Philip Walker, is now available.

Each piece is available for $2; proceeds go to support a new secondary recently built in Cura, Kenya.

Derek Sheffield, a Cab author with a new book out Through the Second Skin, is the poet of the day at Verse Daily.