My son Steve. . . .

Check out "When Life Names You Lemon . . .," a terrific article in Sunday's The New York Times about "County of Kings," a one-man show by Lemon Andersen that opens at the Public Theater in New York, tomorrow, September 29th. Lemon and my son Steve Colman were two of the stars who shared a Tony Award for "Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway." Now, Steve is one of the producers of Lemon's memoir, "County of Kings." (The title refers to Brooklyn where he grew up.) Here's a picture of the cast of "Def Poetry Jam on Broadway that Sara Krulwich of the Times took in 2002. Steve is first on the left, Lemon is third. Here's a link to Sunday's article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/theater/27sont.html?scp=1&sq=Lemon&st=cse

Previews are this week; the opening is 10/12. We've got our tickets!

Chusok, or Korean Thanksgiving Festival

I love being a writer for many reasons, including having learning adventures! For example, in writing Thanksgiving: The True Story I attended Chusok, the Korean Harvest, also called Korean Thanksgiving Festival, in a park near my house in northern New Jersey. Here videos from this year's event: The first are students at Rutgers University who belong to the Rutgers Korean Culture Group. The second group performed on the main stage:

The "R' Word

We are not bumper-sticker people; that is we weren't until Friday, the day Linda led a "Train-the-Trainer Workshop" on the research-based curriculum that she and her colleague Ishita Khemka developed and evaluated--ESCAPE-DD: An Effective Strategy-Based Curriculum for Abuse Prevention and Empowerment for Men and Women with Developmental Disabilities. The workshop was sponsored by the New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities (NJCDD) in cooperation with the New Jersey Coalition for Battered Women and New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault. That's where Linda got a NJCDD bumper stickers protesting the use of the "R" word. Since Linda had objected to the use of that word for years, I wasn't surprised to see it on her car bumper. "Retard" is also a trigger word for bullying. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

On the go

Since my last post, Sophie & I spent a day at the New York Aquarium, Linda & I went peach & apple picking & my semester started at Queens College.
The school bus ride & new school seem to suit Sophie; I'm picking her up tomorrow for the weekend & am looking forward to hearing her stories.
Saturday night I'm speaking to a group of women, who are on a book getaway retreat at the Jersey Shore led by my dear friend Mollie Hoben, co-founder of the Minnesota Women's Press, which among other wonderful activities publishes my favorite literary little journal, BookWomen. You can subscribe to BookWomen, order The Great Book: because women say so (includes a list of 400 titles, selected by book groups from 1986 through 2007, plus lists of books they've used around themes at their "Reading Retreats" and for "Book Groups on the Road") at www.womenspress.com

Happy Day

65th

On a "bright sunny day"--November 12, 1880, Elizabeth Cady Stanton started to keep a diary. She began with: "Today, I am sixty-five years old." In my forthcoming book, Stirring Up The World: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, a Biography of a Powerful Friendship, I described how she spent the day in her house, in Tenafly, New Jersey, which is about three miles from where I live (Susan is Susan B. Anthony, Harriot through Kit are her seven children, Henry is her husband): Susan was away for several days, and her family was scattered--Harriot in France; Theodore in Germany; Maggie, Gat and Neil in Iowa; Bob away at college in New York; Kit and Henry were in New York City. Alone, she spent the day "writing letters and walking up and down the piazza."
"Dear Children," she wrote, "This is my birthday. . . . Looking back through life, I feel that our troubles are fully compensate by our joys."
Today, also a "bright sunny day," I am sixty-five years old!!!

Sophie Road Trip

First stop on our recent road trip with Sophie was a return trip to Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut. When she was a toddler, one of the books I kept in the car for her to look at was about Arctic animals; the beluga whale was particularly eye-catching. Sophie was 3 1/2 the first time we went to see the belugas at the Mystic Aquarium. Now, two years later, here are Sophie & a beluga eye-to-eye. The next day we stopped at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, where Sophie rode the carousel, which was built in the late 1880s, had lunch in Port Judith, and then went on to Newport.

Since it was August 26th, Women's Equality Day, the day in 1920 women finally won the right to vote, we toured Marble House, Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont's mansion where she held lavish fundraisers for suffrage. In the gift shop, Sophie picked out a "Vote for Women" button to pin to her backpack.