Listen to my story on NPR's "The Story" tonight, Jan. 31st, 2011

JUST found out that my interview for "The Story" radio program is going to be broadcast on National Public Radio TONIGHT!!!

(In the DFW metroplex, that means you can hear it on KERA 90.1 FM - 9pm)! ~
WOW, that's fast. We just recorded last Tuesday! ~ Check it out!

And if you won't be near a radio tonight, you can listen to the show online at 9pm,
streaming live via the KERA 90.1 website at:

http://www.kera.org/audio/

Also--You can listen to the archived podcast of my segment w/ host Dick Gordon:

http://thestory.org/



Let me know what you think - Gracias for listening!

After the "Reign" parade on Wednesday, August 12th

Over 200 women, children, and men marched silently from the Tarrant County Convention Center to the old Courthouse, straight down Main Street during the noon hour yesterday, August 12th. Permits and arrangements were successfully secured so that no automobile traffic was allowed on this route of the pedestrian parade. Donning red-and-white umbrellas emblazoned with the catchphrase of the march, the procession cast a striking image for downtown workers who stopped to watch. At the end of the march route, a 30- or so minute rally took place on the east steps of the Courthouse, featuring women leaders Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks and Fort Worth Commission on Women chair Marcy Paul, among others. All spoke vociferously about the various factors that lead to high infant mortality rates in the eastside of Fort Worth.

Kim Parish Perkins, executive director of the D/FW Birthing Project--the beneficiary of a $1,000 check raised at the march/rally--emphasized the prevalence of health disparities in communities of color. Mincing no words, Perkins pubicly called out obstetricians who prioritize their time "out on the golf course and seeing private patients" while treating their lower-income and minority patients as merely "birth canals." Perkins finished off her eyebrow-raising speech with the presentation of a $1,000 scholarship award to a young woman who has been served by the D/FW Birthing Project. Pregnant at the age of 12 and living in foster care, this woman received the services and mentorship of a "SisterFriend" and is now a high school graduate, postured for a college education.

State Senator Wendy Davis appeared towards the end of the rally to remind us of Mark Perry's recent ill-advised veto of state legislation which would have allocated federal dollars to the CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program). With a tone of consternation, Davis announced that "80,000 more children would have been served" by this legislation.



You can, at least for the moment, read the Star-Telegram article ("Tarrant County's infant mortality is high despite efforts") about the Stop the Reign march and rally here.

An excerpt from the article:

"The infant mortality rate for blacks in the [Tarrant] county is 14.4, more than twice that of whites (5.6) and Hispanics (6.0).
Programs such as the Fort Worth/Dallas Birthing Project, established in 1997, have helped by providing services such as SisterFriend, which matches volunteers with pregnant girls."

A few of the rally speakers referred to the need for increased "pre-conception care" for young women, which I found interesting. I'll be looking into what exactly is meant by this in the health services community.


(And, yes, if you're wondering, I participated in the march. Check me out in the front page photo of today's Star-Telegram.)

Radio's Latino USA to look at Latina/Chicana writers - today, Sunday 8/2, at 5:30pm

KERA 90.1 FM has seen fit to schedule the broadcast of "Latino USA", a 30-minute syndicated program produced at UT-Austin, at a much more opportune time. Sundays 5:30pm. This week, la Barbara (Barbara Renaud Gonzalez) sent an email anuncio to let us know that Chicana writers are going to be the focus on this week's episode. Barbara herself will be featured in interviews, as will Sandra Cisneros and Josefina Lopez. I'll be tuning in; "sheck" it out.

From Barbara's email:

"Got the word from Latino USA today! "Books & Women" is a special feature to be aired on LatinoUSA's weekly program this Friday. It includes an interview/reading with Sandra Cisneros, Josefa Lopez, and me. Hope you like it."

Josefina's just released her debut novel, HUNGRY WOMAN IN PARIS. She is probably best-known as the playwright who brought us "Real Women Have Curves." Barbara's GOLONDRINA, WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME? is a novel that she had to leave Dallas (so she has told me) to finish writing. And Sandra, oh gosh, how does one begin? Sandra is the ever-busy, awards-laden and Chicago-raised poeta and novelist who has kicked open the door for burgeoning and future writers such as myself.

Adelante, mujeres de literatura en los Estados Unidos. Let's be inspired by our fellow Chicana sisters and keep focused on our own emerging literary voices.

another great day in world news reporting....april 1, 2009

"One protester dressed as the Easter bunny managed to hop through the police cordon but was stopped before he could reach the Bank of England. Another black-clad demonstrator waved a fake light saber at officers."

--excerpted from an AP article, April 1, 2009

"Footprints" debuted at Barefoot Brigade show last weekend

"I step gently on the earth...You can hardly see the marks I leave behind."

"Mama, mama, look at the sky! The colors so bright at night!"

"...how i have trampled this territory."

We're onstage again this weekend to perform "Footprints", as part of the annual Dallas FringeFest in Deep Ellum. We do the piece at 4pm, and then again at 9:45pm. Come check us out if you are into seeing some experimental performance on Saturday, April 12th. The show's at the Dallas Hub Theater, which is located at 2809 Canton St.


12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, April 6, 2008

By MARGARET PUTNAM / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
msputnam@sbcglobal.net
Margaret Putnam is a Richardson-based writer who covers dance.

"I was worried there for a little while. What if no one in the Barefoot Brigade Dance Festival went weird Friday night?

I need not have worried. Footprints did the trick. Eight mannequin legs littered the floor, one leg rudely impaled with a Styrofoam cup, the rest stuffed with plastic bags.

Upside down, Lori Sundeen Soderbergh wiggled her feet. Eventually, she's was upright. The theme, or at least part of it, was to take responsibility for one's footprint that damages the Earth. But it was difficult to take seriously because of some props, such as a fish mask and a part that mocked strangulation.Next to that bit of nonsense, everything else seemed pretty straightforward from the area troupes at the dance festival."

Book review of HECHO EN TEJAS

Wow, this anthology, HECHO EN TEJAS, was released over a year ago, yet the reviews keep a-coming. This latest assessment appeared in the Sunday magazine of the Santa Fe New Mexican this week.

YOUR OWN WORDS - Dallas Morning News feature

They asked me to tell 'em what I'm reading right now & why. Here's the link to the feature in today's (Sunday, August 12th) Dallas Morning News.

Check out the photo--indoors in my "green" library room.

text from the article:

YOUR OWN WORDS

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, August 12, 2007

Tammy Gomez
Poet, playwright, publisher (Tejana Tongue Press)

What she's reading: Mahcic: Selected Poems, by Tomás Riley

Why: "This book of poems, published by Calaca Press in 2005, was recently mailed to me by Riley himself, who is a friend and colleague based in the Bay Area. Mahcic is the name of Tomás' first-born son, and the poems, reminiscent of the best work of Victor Hernandez Cruz (Snaps) and David Henderson (De Mayor of Harlem), show the scope of interrogations a 21st-century first-time father cannot help but make as he reckons with sociopolitical and family history. A swollen, visceral, tri-cultural, spanglish mash-up, spilled-out dictionary of words that fell just right, make your noggin go tight with a homegrown cool mint light that I like."

edited by Lesley Téllez.