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Center for New Words

The Center for New Words is committed to a simple mission: use the power and creativity of words to strengthen the voice of progressive and marginalized women in society. To accomplish this mission, our programs support diverse women's engagement with the entire word cycle, from literacy to blogging to literary writing to opinion-making in the media and other domains of influence. Built on the wisdom, commitments, and competencies of 28 years of running New Words Bookstore, CNW is creating spaces and places where women's words matter. break

http://www.centerfornewwords.org

Fighting Words: Framing the Constitution

Thu, Oct 05, 2006

Robin Morgan discusses her book, *Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right*, which overturns notions of the Founders as a bunch of dusty, pompous old men in powdered wigs, and resurrects them as the revolutionaries they were: a hodgepodge of freethinkers, deists, agnostics, Christians, atheists, Freemasons, and all of them radicals. Morgan argues that the religious right is gaining enormous power in the United States, thanks to a well-organized, media-savvy movement with powerful friends in high places. Many Americans, both observant and secular, are alarmed by this trend, especially by the religious right's attempts to erase the boundary between church and state and re-make the US into a Christian nation. But most Americans, Morgan contends, lack the tools for arguing with the religious right, especially when fundamentalist conservatives claim their tradition started with the Framers of The Constitution. *Fighting Words* is a a toolkit for arguing, especially for those of us who may not have read the founding documents of this nation since grade school. Morgan has assembled a lively, accessible, eye-opening primer and reference tool, a "verbal karate" guide, revealing what the Framers and many other leading Americans believed in their own words.

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Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism

Tue, Oct 23, 2007

Melanie Kaye-Kantrowitz raises questions about our assumptions about race, identity and justice. She pays close attention the meaning of history as it pertains to Jews and Jewishness, including the immensely complicated issue of Jewish relatedness. The tidy conventions of tribalism and nationalism, with their carefully patrolled borders, are revealed to be defensive and aggressive fantasies, beneath which a marvelously detailed, rich, dynamic complexity is roiling.

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Radical Mommyhood

Thu, Nov 13, 2008

Join Amy Richards and Maegan "Mamita Mala" Ortiz for a frank conversation on radical mommyhood. The two examine how making the decision to have a child impacts who we are and who we want to be (as women, feminists, anti-racists, and artists); the intersections of feminism and motherhood; and how race and class in particular, play an important role in how motherhood is encountered, seen, and experienced. **Amy Richards** is the author of Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself, and the co-author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and The Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism (both with Jennifer Baumgardner). She is co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation and the feminist speakers bureau Soapbox. She lives in New York City with her family. **Maegan "Mamita Mala" Ortiz** is a radical Nuyorican mami, blogger, poeta, and freelance writer. La Mala is currently co-editor of one of the top US Latino blogs, VivirLatino. She is also a contributor on Anti-Racist Parent. Her words , blogging, and opinions have been featured at The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, NPR, and Latina Magazine.

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Nami Mun: Miles from Nowhere

Wed, Jan 21, 2009

Nami Mun reads from her debut novel, *Miles from Nowhere*. Teenage Joon is a Korean immigrant living in the Bronx of the 1980s. Her parents have crumbled under the weight of her father's infidelity; he has left the family, and mental illness has rendered her mother nearly catatonic. So Joon, at the age of 13, decides she would be better off on her own, a choice that commences a harrowing and often tragic journey that exposes the painful difficulties of a life lived on the margins. Joon's adolescent years take her from a homeless shelter to an escort club, through struggles with addiction, to jobs selling newspapers and cosmetics, committing petty crimes, and, finally, toward something resembling hope.

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Women of the World: Art and Adventure

Thu, Nov 11, 2004

Susan Orlean, author of *The Orchid Thief* and *My Kind of Place,* takes readers on an irresistible tour of the world via its subcultures: from Japan's Mt. Fuji, to the heart of the African music scene in Paris, to Midland, Texas, hometown of George W. Bush, a place where "oil time" is the only time that matters. Barbara Sjoholm (formerly Barbara Wilson, author of *Gaudi Afternoon* and, the new book *Pirate Queen*) takes readers along for the four months that she traveled around the North Atlantic, chasing little known biographies of women fishing captains, cross-dressing sailors, and bold Viking explorers.

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Daily Realities: Feminist Curiosity and Globalization

Thu, Jan 27, 2005

Cynthia Enloe, author of the collection of essays, *Bananas, Beaches, and Bases* makes sense of globalization and international politics by taking a look into the daily realities in a range of women's lives. She proposes a distinctively feminist curiosity that begins with taking women seriously, especially during this era of unprecedented American influence. This means listening carefully, digging deep, challenging assumptions, and welcoming surprises.

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Grassroots: A Field Guide for Activism

Wed, Feb 23, 2005

Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards discuss their new book, Grassroots, which answers the perennial question, "What can I do to help?". Baumgardner and Richards argue that this question rings ever louder in the post-9/11 political landscape. Whether you are a student or a stay-at-home-mom, an artist or a corporate professional, *Grassroots* illustrates how anyone, no matter how much or how little they believe they have to offer, can become involved. It also shows how even small efforts have the potential to produce a sea change in our lives.

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Taking Our Place in the Public Conversation

Fri, Mar 18, 2005

Medea Benjamin, a powerful and charismatic force in human rights activism, talks about her struggles for social justice in Asia, Africa and the Americas for over 20 years. She is the founding director of the human rights organization Global Exchange. **Medea Benjamin** is a leading activist in the peace movement in the United States and helped bring together the groups forming the coalition United for Peace and Justice. She is also the co-founder of Code Pink: Women for Peace, a women's group that has been organizing against the war in Iraq and pushing for a reorientation of budget priorities in the US to focus on heath care, education and housing, not war. In February 2003, Benjamin visited Iraq and met with weapon's inspectors, women's groups and ordinary Iraqi civilians. Benjamin's previous work focused on improving the labor and environmental practices of US multinational corporations, and the policies of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. She also ran for the US Senate on the Green Party ticket, mobilizing thousands of Californians around platform issues such as living wage, schools-not-prisons, and universal healthcare. She is the author of numerous books. Prior to founding Global Exchange in 1988, Medea worked for 10 years as an economist and nutritionist in Latin America and Africa for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, the Swedish International Development Agency, and the Institute for Food and Development Policy. This event is co-sponsored with the MIT Program in Women's Studies.

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Drawing Diversity with Jennifer Camper

Sun, Jun 05, 2005

Jennifer Camper, queer comic artist and editor of the new comic anthology Juicy Mother, brings contributing artists together to discuss comics as an expressive medium that is not representative enough in terms of diversity of perspectives. The stories in Juicy Mother are an exuberant and carefree celebration of artistry and diversity. Included are stories about an African-American gay man coming of age; an Arab Muslim lesbian searching for her identity; two big hairy men having a sappy wedding; and a cynical Latina teen battling the cosmos. In a genre especially known for being dominated by straight, white men, Juicy Mother is an alternative to alternative comics. The collection places emphasis on the voices least represented in the comic world. Contributors to Juicy Mother include: Alison Bechdel, Jennifer Camper, Howard Cruse, Diane DiMassa, Michael Fahy, Leanne Franson, Joan Hilty, G.B. Jones, Rupert Kinnard, Robert Kirby, Karen Platt, Ariel Schrag, Serpilla, Robert Triptow, Ivan Velez, Jr., and Stephen Winter. Co-sponsored by Simmons College Institute for Leadership & Change.

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Pop Culture

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Bebe Moore Campbell: 72 Hour Hold

Tue, Sep 06, 2005

Bebe Moore Campbell reads from her latest book, *72 Hour Hold*. In this novel of family and redemption, Keri struggles to save her 18 year old daughter from the devastating consequences of mental illness and the bureaucracy that refuses to help her. When, out of desperation, she decides to put her daughter's fate into the hands of an unorthodox alternative to the state system, Keri begins a journey that has her calling on the spirit of Harriet Tubman for courage. In the upheaval that follows, she is forced to confront a past that refuses to stay buried, even as she battles to secure a future for her child. Co-presented with Elizabeth Stone House and the Cambridge Family YMCA. Bebe Moore Campbell is the author of three *New York Times* best-sellers: *Brothers and Sisters*, *Singing in the Comeback Choir*, and *What You Owe Me*, which was also a *Los Angeles Times* Best Book of 2001. Her other works include the novel *Your Blues Ain't Like Mine*, which was a *New York Times* Notable Book of the Year and the winner of the NAACP Image Award for literature.

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Mental Health Month

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Center for New Words