Books (2)
An Anthology From Another BunchOf Writers You Never Heard Of
This first-of-its-kind collection looks at how a long-term writers group forms and builds working intimacy and trust. You as reader get to move inside the mind, instincts and emotions of each of these writers as you journey through their writings and the group-inspired feedback and artistic relationships that shape them.
The resulting works sprout challenging characters and voices from situations as varied and gritty as urban and rural life can be: a hilarious lottery winner; a raucous raccoon hunt through the night woods in rural California; a pilgrimage that begins at a suicide resort in coastal Japan; a very unempathetic fireman making an emergency run for a Lakota street-person who informs him she's Sitting Bull's grand-daughter; a Jewish mystic caught, post Covid, in a dangerous yet darkly humorous cab ride; a revealing, history-making conversation between a descendent of enslaved Africans and a descendent of slave traders. It's also an intimate, privileged view into member Ken Grimes’ last years as he created his final stories. One of Denver’s top black playwrights and directors, Ken, embraced by his writers group, wrote continuously into the years and months of his struggle through a fatal illness.
Out of their varied lives these authors, working for years sharing their creative feedback, have woven a diverse web of human story that holds a hope-filled future.
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"Sit back and savor this book, like wine at a tasting, some of it gritty, some velvety, always with many layers, promising a satisfying finish. These poems and stories are honed in fellowship, showing us that writing is life, best shared with others, even in the making of it. In the reading you will suddenly be among friends, you'll have joined the Writers Group, and be nudged along until your own next story is on the page."
— John Dinges Columbia University School of Journalism Author, Chile in Their Hearts
Black Punkby Kenneth Grimes
Black Punk reflects the creative genius of playwright Kenneth “Baba” Grimes, a national-class pioneer in African American theater. This previously unpublished masterwork smolders with constructive subversion and a deep, lingering emotional impact. Amid settings of urban and social decay, its young multiracial characters grapple with their struggles for love and identity in the punk world they've chosen. Written in 1989, this first-ever published edition is a testament to Ken Grimes' legacy in Denver's, and our nation's, Black theater and cultural movements.
"Black Punk provides a brief but telling look at three cultures, one of which, the Black experience, is often misunderstood by Whites, or just misrepresented - and the punk world, which puzzles many."
— Rory Seeber, Playwright The Singular Dorothy Parker
"Back Punk is the magnum opus of Ken Grimes' playwriting career."
— Lewis A. Garber, Author
“We struggle as a country to acknowledge any emotion of sadness at our missed opportunities to welcome the wonderfully varied gifts of our cultural and racial communities. Ken Grimes' "Black Punk" takes us through a fearless, surreal, punk-era journey that moves us past our divisive angers to experience deeply and without judgment the feelings we need to begin a journey to our national healing. This raw, unflinching short drama, previously unpublished, rises from the ruins of young America's dreams of racial equality and harmony to land center-stage as a masterfully assembled blow to the heart.”
— David Engelken, Author