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Kalamu ya Salaam's information blog

12Dec2015 – mini-reunion Nommo Literary Society— with Freddi Evans, Jarvis DeBerry, Kalamu Salaam, Nadir Lasana Bomani, Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani, Marian Moore and Kysha Brown-Robinson at Community Book Center.

It was August. We were preparing to celebrate 10 years of being together every week. We would study, announce upcoming issues and events, and then share our creative work. What a glorious September it proved not to be.

We were a workshop of Black writers in New Orleans, a bit giddy about the upcoming decade celebration. And then Katrina hit. And that was the end of it. Occasionally we would briefly reconvene to celebrate, usually at Community Book Center over on Bayou Road, were we often held monthly public readings.

On this Saturday, July 20, 2019, 2pm at Community Book Center, 2523 Bayou Road (two blocks from Esplanade and Broad streets), there will be a celebratory reading by a healthy gathering of some of the original members of the Nommo Literary Society. 

If you can, prepare to be there. Who knows when it will happen again. May be the last time. I don’t know. But I do know this will be quite a public soiree, will be a grand and glorious gathering of old friends reading and sharing selected work. Something old. Something new. Y’all know how we like to do.

–Kalamu ya Salaam

 

 

 

 

Comments

One Comment

  1. July 20, 2019

    Wow, would have loved to have been there. Unfortunately, this morning, my wife, Monica, left for Detroit for the NAACP annual convention. Since I had to take her to the airport, we could not have been there even if we had known about the gathering before today. Yet, Nommo holds special memories for us because it was the first gathering of writers beyond Mississippi that I regularly frequented as Monica and I would drive to New Orleans one Friday a month for the Nommo readings at Community Bookstore. Those gatherings were a major moment/step in my growth as a writer. It was one of the first communities that accepted me as a writer. In fact, along with the Sunday night reading at Ebony Square on Magazine Street as well as the other Friday night reading that happened on Tchoupitoulas, these were the first three gatherings of writers beyond Mississippi that welcomed me as a writer. As such, even though I was never a member, Nommo is a major root or artery in my writing and cultural life. We thank you all for creating a nurturing environment that made folks like me believe we had the ability and right to write.

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