Get ready for two very exciting Women Writers of the Diaspora readings/discussions at
Calabar Imports Harlem. Women Writers of
the Diaspora presents KEISHA-GAYE ANDERSON on Thursday, December 3, and ROSALIND KILKENNY MCLYMONT on December 17. And—wait for
it!—in addition to treating you to
readings by two extraordinarily accomplished women writers, a $50 Calabar Imports Harlem
gift certificate will be raffled after both December readings. So, mark your calendars for Keisha-Gaye
Anderson, 6pm, December 3 and Rosalind McLymont, 6pm, December 17. See below for more information.
KEISHA-GAYE ANDERSON is a Jamaican-born a poet, creative
writer, and screenwriter. She is the author of a collection of poetry titled
Gathering the Waters (Jamii Publishing, December 2014). In 2013, she was selected to participate in
the Callaloo Creative Writing workshop for fiction at Brown University where
she was chosen to be one of the program’s featured readers. In 2010, she was
named a fellow by the North Country Institute for Writers of Color, and was
short listed for the Small Axe literary competition.
Anderson’s writing has appeared in a number of collections,
anthologies, and literary magazines, including Renaissance Noire, The Killens
Review of Arts and Letters, Small Axe Salon, Streetnotes: Cross Cultural
Poetics, African Voices Magazine, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Captured by the
City: Perspectives on Urban Culture, Poems on the Road to Peace: A Collective
Tribute to Dr. King, Sometimes Rhythm, Sometimes Blues: Young African Americans
on Love, Relationships, Sex, and the Search for Mr. Right, the Mom Egg,
Caribbean in Transit Arts Journal, Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon blog,
and Bet on Black: African American Women Celebrate Fatherhood in the Age of
Barak Obama. She is also a founding poet with Poets for Ayiti. Proceeds from
their 2010 chapbook, For the Crowns of Your Heads, helped to rebuild
Bibliotheque du Soleil, a library razed during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Her journalistic work includes news and documentary
productions for CBS, PBS, and Japanese television (NHK, Nippon, and others), as
well as feature articles for magazines like Psychology Today, Black Enterprise,
Honey, and Teen People. As a screenwriter, she has written for Hallmark cable
channel news programming and worked as a documentary film screenwriting
consultant. Anderson is longstanding member of the Harlem Arts Alliance
Screenwriting Workshop, led by award-winning screenwriters Jamal Joseph, Eddie
Pomerantz, and Zach Sklar.
Anderson, who lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and two
children, holds a B.A. from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School and College
of Arts and Science and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The City College,
CUNY. For the past ten years, she has worked as a higher education
communications and marketing manager.
ROSALIND KILKENNY MCLYMONT is the executive editor of The
Network Journal, a leading Black-owned and operated U.S. business magazine
targeting an audience of Black professionals and business owners; CEO and
publisher of AfricaStrictlyBusiness.com, an online Africa business news,
analysis and resource platform for a targeted global audience of business
owners, executives and students, investors, policymakers and academicians; and
the author of the award-winning novel, Middle Ground, the first “rebranding
Africa” novel on the market (See videos at www.youtube.com/watch?v=aag7JIvQtCY
and www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeUXCmdu97Y); the new novel, The Guyana Contract;
and the non-fiction title, Africa: Strictly Business, The Steady March to
Prosperity.
McLymont has more than 25 years’ experience as a journalist,
writer, speaker and adviser to small and medium-sized companies on global
business and entrepreneurship. She began her career in business journalism in
the mid 1980s as an international trade reporter at The Journal of Commerce, a
Knight-Ridder daily newspaper focused on global shipping, logistics and trade.
(Founded by Samuel Morse in 1827, the paper was once considered America’s most
prestigious paper.) McLymont became the paper’s first Black managing editor
under ownership by The Economist Group, publishers of The Economist. In this
role, she was the highest-ranking Black professional ever in the entire
Economist Group. She left The Journal of Commerce in 1998, after 13 years in
its employ, to work independently providing training for women entrepreneurs in
Africa as a consultant to the United Nations Development Program (Africa
Bureau)’s Gender Program, and for women entrepreneurs in Russia as a Citizen
Ambassador to that country under the Alliance of Russian and American Women.
She also provided expertise on accessing U.S. markets for the American and
African Business Women's Alliance conference in Botswana in 2002.
As executive editor of The Network Journal, McLymont
oversees the editorial content of both the print magazine and TNJ.com. She
speaks on behalf of the publication at its annual “25 Influential Black Women
in Business Awards” Luncheon, its “40 Under Forty Black Achievers Awards”
Dinner, and represents the publication at high-level events with U.S. and
non-U.S. business and civic leaders, government officials, and African heads of
state. She has made several trips to Africa on behalf of The Network Journal
and AfricaStrictlyBusines.com, most recently as a delegate to the 4th World
Summit of Mayors and Leaders from Africa and of African Descent.
McLymont has been featured in the annual Media Guide to
America’s top financial writers. She appeared frequently on CNNfn financial
news to comment on the monthly release of U.S. trade figures, and as a regular
guest lecturer at New York University’s graduate program in Latin America and Caribbean
studies. Her articles and columns on international trade appeared in such
publications as The Journal of Commerce, The Congressional Record, America
Economía, World Trade, Business Standards, Minority Business Entrepreneur,
Transport Topics, Quality Digest, and Shipping Digest. Her Journal of Commerce
articles, under the byline Rosalind Rachid, have been referenced in U.S.
Congressional debates on trade policy, and worldwide in newspapers, books and
scholarly research.
McLymont has also appeared on ABC TV’s Like It Is, GRITtv,
at The Brecht Forum, and as a Literary Leader on Esther Armah’s radio show “Off
The Page,” WBAI 99.5 FM, New York. She has also appeared on ABC TV’s Here And
Now, hosted by Sandra Bookman; CUNYtv’s Independent Sources. She has also been
a frequent guest speaker on international trade topics at colleges,
universities and trade organizations.
McLymont has served as an advisor to the Institute on
African Affairs; founding vice president and subsequently president of the
Caribbean Media Association; an executive board member of the Desmond Tutu
Peace Foundation; and as a volunteer mentor at New York Women’s Foundation’s
Girls Leadership Day. She is a founding member of the Advisory Board of York
College (City University of New York) Journalism Program, currently serves as a
member of the Council of Advisers to the Songhoy Paramount Chief; and served
two terms as a member of the Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Committee of the
Export-Import Bank of the United States,
McLymont taught English and French in Uganda and the
Democratic Republic of Congo from 1973 to 1980. An alumna of the prestigious
European Community Visitors Program, she has been named a “Woman History Maker”
by the Caribbean-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a “Phenomenal Woman
in Media” by Our Time Press and Herbert Von King Park Cultural Arts Center, and
one of “50 Power Women in Business” by MEA Magazine.
She has received commendations and awards from the New York
Association of Black Journalists, the International Black Women’s Congress, the
CEJJES Institute (Rockland County), the National Minority Business Council, the
New York Regional Chapter of the National Association of Health Services
Executives, the Office of the Comptroller of New York City, the Guyana Cultural
Association, the National Association of Kawaida Organizations – New York
Chapter (Malcolm X Unity Award), the Global Alliance of Mayors and Leaders from
Africa and of African Descent and the New York City Council. In June 2015 she
was awarded Guyana’s Golden Arrowhead Award of Achievement and Distinction and
in October she was honored as Executive Editor of the Year by African American
Women in Cinema (AAWIC).
McLymont was born in Guyana and speaks French and Spanish.
She has a master’s degree in journalism from New York University, a bachelor’s
degree in French from The City College of New York, and a Certificate in
Spanish Language and Literature from the Autonomous University of Madrid,
Spain. She has a Black Belt in T’ai Chi, a Zumba™ Gold Instructor Certificate,
and a Senior Instructor Certificate from the International Fitness Association.
She has completed courses in Qi Gong at The New York Open Center. She created
and teaches Trim Brulée, a fitness program incorporating all of the above
disciplines.
McLymont is married to Fritz-Earle McLymont, cofounder of
the National Minority Business Council, Inc. (NMBC); founder/executive director
of NMBC Global and NMBC Global Entrepreneurship Center; managing partner of
McLymont, Kunda & Co.; and CEO of Brittonearth Energy Ltd. The couple
resides in New York.
WOMEN WRITERS OF THE DIASPORA is a reading/discussion series
created and moderated by DR. CELESTI COLDS FECHTER, Exec. Director of Education
Success Services and Prof., Org. Behavior, King Graduate School, New
Rochelle. WOMEN WRITERS OF THE DIASPORA
features poetry, prose, memoir, essay, reportage, urban writing by African and
African Diasporan women. The venue, CALABAR IMPORTS HARLEM, is provided by ATIM
OTUN, and the series is co-sponsored by MOSAIC LITERARY MAGAZINE.
We have an exciting lineup for 2016. Mark your calendar for readings/discussions
with Nigeria Lockley, Jan 7; Kaitlyn Greenidge, Jan 21; Kim Coleman Foote, Feb
4; Jacqueline Bishop, Feb 18; Amber Antiya, Mar 3; Yvette Louis, Mar 17; Pamela
Booker, Apr 7, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Apr 21; Stephanie Renee Payne, May 5;
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, May 19, Cynthia Mannick, Jun 9. Stay updated by following Women Writers of
the Diaspora’s blog at http://womenwritersofdiaspora.blogspot.com/.
Contact us at womenwritersofdiaspora@gmail.com.
