Jefferson Market Library Reading

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Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

6-8pm

425 Avenue of the Americas (at 10th Street)

New York, NY 10011

(212) 243-4334

http://www.nypl.org/locations/tid/39/about

Excerpt from Song of the Shaman:

“Outside Aeon’s office on Park Avenue South the brisk October air renewed Sheri’s spirit.  Halloween was on Monday, and all around her New Yorkers were gearing up for the city’s grandest love affair with fantasy. The thought of taking Zig trick-or-treating thrilled her. She hadn’t done that in years; fall was always packed with last quarter ad deadlines. Climbing steep brownstone stoops, ringing doorbells with glow-in-the-dark paper witches taped to glass-paned mahogany doors, nibbling fistfuls of corn candy from goodie bags. What did he say he wanted to go as this year? This time she could enjoy finding his costume instead of the usual last minute dash to grab whatever the stores had left. Maybe she’d even dress up—but who would she go as? Along Sixth Avenue costume stores appeared out of thin air. In one window an array of life-sized rubber masks lined the shelves, wearing expressions that seemed to heckle her: a cross-eyed Pope; a brown-toothed Rudy Giuliani; Siamese twins of Cheney and Bush; the head of John the Baptist on a floppy golden platter. A block over she saw a sneering Joan Crawford mask, cigarette dangling from oversized red lips. No costume of a woman interrupted; woman out of a job with no prospects. But she could go as a stay at home mom, a costume she hoped to wear long after Halloween until she got Zig under control.

Citibank was on the corner near the subway. She went to the ATM and took out five hundred dollars. She didn’t remember the ride home or the walk to her building. When Sheri got to her floor, she noticed a few white feathers stuck in the carpet just outside her door. She unlocked and pushed open the door to see a cluster of downy feathers floating lightly along the parquet floor. Leatrice rushed over to greet her, waving a noisy hand vac.

“Zig your mother is home!” she exclaimed, breathless. “Sheri he is not behavin’ imself at all dis evenin’!”

 

Cornelia Street Cafe Reading

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Friday,  June 24, 2011 – 6:00PM
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S TALES
Annette Leach, host
Lisa Shea;  Susi Wyss;  Noah Gershman
Up-and-coming and established writers share their new work.Annette Leach reads from her first novel, SONG OF THE SHAMAN. Her short story, TIMA AND THE QUETZALCOATL, was published in Voices of Brooklyn: Anthology of Writings from the Women of Color Writer’s Workshopin 2000. A New School graduate, Annette founded the Black Literary Club, the first book club devoted to African-American, African and Caribbean literature.http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/Performances.asp?sdate=6/24/2011&from_cal=0

Song of the Shaman, a novel

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“Annette Leach has crafted a beautiful and compelling novel about a mother’s yearning—for her origins, for unconditional love, for the sacred, and for the secret behind her son’s mysterious connections to the past. Song of the Shaman tells a haunting story of what happens when the wounds etched on a woman soul long ago are finally brought into the light of awareness.”

—Nancy Peske, Co-Author, Cinematherapy for the Soul: The Girl’s Guide to Finding Inspiration One Movie at a Time