Reading @ La Carreta, Hialeah

"In two years I will have known you for thirty years," I said to Cary, and as the words slipped off my tongue I realized how much of a rich and wonderful journey it has been since I came to Miami in April 1979.

And here I was at La Carreta in Hialeah, a piedra's throw away from the Hialeah Campus, which was merely an outreach center when I began working in the Writing Lab at Miami Dade College.

For the first group of students, I read a short story, "The Third Time" from my manuscript, "Who's Your Daddy?" and Other Stories, and for the second group, I read poems such as "miami mambo" "A Poem for the Innocents," and "oshun." For the third group, I went back to "The Third Time." Throughout the reading, we had some lively discussions about realism in fiction, the Yoruba religion; Lukumi (Santeria); the Jamaican diaspora, Xango / St. Barbara; Eshu/Anancy/Papa Legba/ Hermes/Loki; Tricksters as psychopomps; Jung's "archetypes of the unconscious"; Benjamin, My Son; Uncle Obadiah and the Alien, and the practice of writing fiction.

Give thanks to Professor Judy Welch, the students and faculty of the Hialeah Campus, and to my good friend of so many years, Caridad Castro.

Blessings, sister.

For more photos of the reading, click here: Reading @ La Carreta.

***
Writing Reading Poetry Caribbean writers Miami South Florida Writers