Monday, November 23, 2015

December 2015 WOMEN WRITERS OF THE DIASPORA

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.  

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