blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

As the old year crumbles into the new, there is just one thing I can't shake & that's the idea of support. There are so many people who, throughout the years, have believed in the madness of Lesley-Ann. I for one, think that is a VERY GOOD thing. Why? Cause it keeps me afloat. It's a great solace to know that there are people out there who believe in me. So, the first props goes out to Mother #1--My mother, Beryl Ann-Rose Brown. She always told me I can be a writer and guess what? I am! My sister--Shelley-Ann D'Anna Balbirsingh--Always there when I need her and she's like creative genius #1. If you guys think I'm a lot with my hats, publishing venture, blog and music, well you should see who inspires me! Shelley, You have been through a LOT these last couple of years. I know losing Anthony was like losing your heart. He was the love of your life but he has left you with the greatest gift ever: That of believing in yourself. He believes in you, I believe in y...

I'm trying to clean the apartment now so that the New Year will find me in a clear space both mentally and physically. It's dragging though cause I keep on starting to clean the bathroom, leaving that mid-way to wash the dishes, forgetting about that as I sit transfixed staring at my fish (one of them is about to lay eggs or croak--I'll keep ya'll posted) then I print a book, write an email, strip my bed, go back to the bathroom. What should take an hour tops turns into a whole day event. But I love it cause I'm chilling while I'm cleaning and I'm getting all these great ideas (like I need more!) and then I'm sorting my son's stuff out and find a piece of paper that describes this book he is writing: Kai Bomholtz's Town Hall Square (that's the title) subtitle: With curse words and wise stories. Illustrated by Kai, and he even numbers it. In the book reads, "This was started in 2007 and ended in 2008". And he continues, "How I w...

Blackgirl on Mars is about to land!

Bandit Queen Press was founded in 2007 by Brooklyn-born writer Lesley-Ann Brown. Bandit Queen Press is born out of the need for writers to exercise a symbolic and practical ownership over their work. Bandit Queen Press is born to wipe out feelings of alienation between the creator and the creation. Bandit Queen Press is born in protest to the publishing establishment. Bandit Queen Press is proud to announce its first title The Organist’s Daughter by Lesley-Ann Brown. Created on a Copenhagen Kitchen table, The Organist’s Daughter is a tribute to the unglamorous grittiness of life. Bandit Queen Press is a movement that you can be part of. All you need is access to paper. Please submit all new title ideas to banditqueenpress@yahoo.com for a copy of our manifesto which must be adhered to before use of the Bandit Queen Press seal of approval. Blackgirl on Mars can be heard at Homegrown's Myspace Merry Christmas!

I've been walking around thinking about you a lot lately. I've been really thinking about this example you set, which imparts a pretty good lesson once I get strong enough to take it on. The lesson is this: Just be yourself. I know you, like every one else, have always been open to criticism all your life. You have made decisions that many have disagreed with, whether it's your choice of a partner, how you parented, your career--sometimes the loudest opponents to your decisions have even been me. Always someone else telling you how they think you should do it, always someone else telling you where they think you did wrong. And in the face of this you have always remained steadfast and stubborn. "So?" You'd retort, "Every one can't be the same!" You'd admonish and suck your teeth. You finally learned how to fight back later in your life and sometimes it's even me you're standing up to. Since I've spent so much of my days telling yo...

One of the perks of living life is that sometimes you experience the delight of being proven wrong. I had one such experience on my recent visit to London. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it didn't even come close to the overwhelmingly positive experience I did end up having. Woman breaking down on the underground, crying, screaming into the phone to her ex/lover, "But how could you sleep with her? , how everyone tried to ignore the phone call, but by the end, someone asking her if she's ok, and the fact that she is allowed to break down so completely and totally OUT IN PUBLIC...hmmmm....I thought that was cool. The brown hands reading The Heart is A Lonely Hunter and as I hitchhike a read, I find she is in the midst of reading that brutal rape scene... Discovering bookmark-- the socialist bookshop right on the same street as my hotel!), buying a copy of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and so knowing that McKinley was there, winking down at m...

I not only find myself thinking about Glenn, but you, Arthur Flowers, Herb Boyd-too many to name, who paved the way for us. Where would we be without you all? So I find this socialist bookshop and this literary gem all you conjurors spun out cause you HAD to. Thank you all for taking the road you all did- especially given the struggle it continues to mean. You all are my heroes.

They really are polite!

Used to be this Korean restaurant my girl Karen R.Good and I used to frequent. It was in the East Village and we used to joke that if you felt like having a dose of bad attitude then go there, cause those waitresses were notorious for the shade they threw. But we still went cause in the end we both knew that Korean food is like soul food and that's what I'm thinking about now as I sit in some Korean restaurant in London-my girl Karen R. Good, waitresses with bad attitudes and seoul.I do really love kimchi.

This is my first time in London and I'm loving it. Oxford Street transports me back to Downtown Brooklyn and I eat roti at a Jamaican restaurant with the best pepper sauce I've had in year (and they don't sell it!). It's rainy and the multitude of shoppers jam-packed with umbrellas poking each other's eyes out gives me a buzz: Over there a car drives through a puddle and splash! That pretty girl is now all wet! Like New York, London is full of transported souls, all seeming a vital part of the pulse of the city. As I walk down the streets, I start thinking about Glenn Thompson. Glenn Thompson used to work upstairs from Marie's at 625 Broadway. He owned Harlem River Press, Writers & Readers and Black Butterfly Books. He flirted shamelessly with me and everytime he flew to London, he'd bring me back a box of chocolates. At this part of his life, his brother had reentered, and we: Marie, Glenn, his brother, myself would hang out at Gonzales Gonzales downs...

My great epiphany of last week - Give up the fight. I realized that when I am defending/arguing even explaining or justifying really just comes from a need to convince the other person that my way of thinking is right, which actually shows that underneath I feel unsure of my right to have my own opinion or that I doubt myself in some other way. Soooo-- I deducted that by giving up and letting the other person figure out their own moral codes means not to be weak or afraid, it just means I can have more fun and give up the crusade of trying to change the way others see things – i.e. giving them back their responsibility to figure out how to do the right thing, act or respond in the right way etc (and when I say right – I mean right for them – whatever their overall learning experience embraces). This means I am free to “know” my way is right for me. We do not need to carry the moral welfare of others on our shoulders but can sit back gently secure in the knowledge that our intentions a...

My grandfather was a handsome man--Strong jawbone, high cheekbones the color of terra cotta. We grew up hearing that he was orphaned after his parents traveled to Canada in search of a better life. The plan was, like so many other West Indians, to earn enough money and then "send" for the rest from home. Unfortunately his mother passed away, the family lore always saying that it was the "draft". Now, when Caribbean folk talk about the draft, they not talking about the military, they talking about that North American and European cold, that cold that gets down to the center of your bone, that cold that wraps itself around all your vitals and asphyxiates whatever warmth you have out of you. Apparently, the story goes, his mother sewed for a living and one day she ironed something, a handkerchief actually, and then went out into the cold. I'll never forget the picture that conjured up in my mind as a child: A brown woman with a blur of a face heating an iron up ...