October 2016 – August Wilson Blog

August Wilson Podcasts (1&2)

By Mike Downing David Cooper Photography 202-950 Powell St. Vancouver BC V6A1H9 604-255-4576

I’ve been exploring the world of podcasting recently and have been able to make two of my own recordings. My intention, over time, is to create podcasts related to August Wilson.

The first one is very short (30 seconds) and is basically me trying to see how SoundCloud worked. It’s just a test, but I wanted to document it here as a starting point:

Listen to AW podcast 1 (test) by DrD on SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/drd-526241702/aw-podcast-1-test

The second one is almost four minutes and provides some of the highlights of the August Wilson Society Conference held at Howard University in Washington, DC in early October 2016:

Listen to AW podcast 2 by DrD on SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/drd-526241702/aw-podcast-2

I hope to continue to produce audio material as I move my projects forward. Certainly, this is a great platform for interviews, which, I believe, CoCo is also interested in producing. Good synergy there.

That’s it for now. There is a dial-in conference call for the Howard August Wilson Society this Sunday at 6 p.m. I’ll try to post an update after that event.

DEAR AUGUST: A Multimedia Epistolary Tribute to August Wilson

By CoCo Harris tospfollowyourlifenarraitve

Greetings, readers of the August Wilson blog. My name is CoCo Harris and I am happy to be contributing to Professor Downing’s project.

My own project, DEAR AUGUST, is a creative work celebrating the life and work of Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, August Wilson. This is an ongoing artistic and literary project in the form of an open letter compiling narratives, photography, poetry, artwork, and interviews forming a collective re-memory honoring the man and his work.

This project seeks to explore how Mr. Wilson’s life and words have informed/transformed our view of African American and American life, within and beyond his focus on the 20^th century.

I am seeking creative responses —across genres and art forms— in an open letter to our beloved playwright…father, son, cousin, uncle and brother. Let us dig deep for those meaningful remembrances of the griot and his oeuvre.

Participants of this ongoing project range from barons of the theater of all walks of life (including actors, directors, playwrights, dramaturges, designers, critics, and patrons, etc.) to friends, family, scholars and artists. In this project we ask you to:

1) Tell a story about your relationship to August Wilson and/or his body of work

2) Tell who you are because of it

To learn more and participate in “DEAR AUGUST…”, please visit:

http://tellingourstoriespress.com/august-wilson-tribute

August Wilson Blog Welcomes CoCo Harris as a Contributor

coco-harris By Mike Downing

I am pleased to welcome my friend, CoCo Harris, to the August Wilson blog. CoCo is the Founding Editor of Telling Our Stories Press, an imprint showcasing the art of personal narratives.

Some of her edited anthologies include IMPACT: An Anthology of Short Memoirs; REVERIE: Ultra Short Memoirs; ROLL: A Collection of Personal Narratives; and SO LONG: Short Memoirs of Loss and Remembrance.

CoCo’s recent photography and literary work has appeared in Blood Lotus, Kindred, Sun Star Review, Gravel, Weirdary, The Raven’s Perch and the Colors of Humanity Art Gallery “SKIES” juried exhibit.

She was the Diversity Arts Consultant for the Griot Institute for Africana Studies at Bucknell University, and is a recent Vermont Studios Fellowship recipient.

She’s a proud alum of Howard University’s School of Engineering, and earned her MFA in Fiction Writing at Spalding University, and is a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation alumna. CoCo and I were able to meet, in person, at the recent August Wilson Society Conference held at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where we discussed many ideas for collaboration.

Currently based in Greenville, South Carolina, CoCo is constantly exploring the notion of how we tell the stories of our lives across genres and art forms.

I look forward to CoCo’s contributions on the August Wilson Blog.