That’s What Matters — Tatyana – 8/24/2016

My friend Tatyana is an admirable woman and a talented writer with things to say. Today she wrote with passion and vehemence about a topic that concerns us all, but on which she speaks with great authority.

One Year of Letters

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August 24, 2016

Do you believe black lives matter?

Do you believe white lives matter?

Do you believe all lives matter?

Well, I’m here to tell you that your answers, be they affirmative or not, don’t matter. Why? Because those questions don’t matter. And since this is the case, no answer you give matters either. But why am I saying this?

I am a young black woman. Growing up in America, I have lived through thousands of mass shootings and hate crimes. Many I’ve never even heard about. Recently, however, I’ve become hyper-aware of them. It seems like every single day when I open my laptop and check my email, there’s another one in the news. Black man, armed or unarmed, shot and killed. A young black boy, shot and killed. While some focus on guns, others focus on race.

I focus on reactions.

There is emotion on both…

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Book Review: The Ill-Kept Oath

A talking ring, rampaging trolls, and a secret society of mages and warriors all conspire to lure heroines Prudence and Josephine away from the typical and into the extraordinary. While Aune revels in the fanciful, she keeps her prose firmly grounded in the historical. Beautifully written in Austen-like language, the novel is filled with authentic details, from the delicate choreography of early waltzes to the gory horror of an amputation without anesthesia or antibiotics.