I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: alvin mcewen

  • Harriet Hancock, Ed Madden, Alvin McEwen and Tom Summers – join us at Deckle Edge this weekend!


    I am really thrilled to be with four other contributors to Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home this coming Saturday at the Deckle Edge Literary Festival in the Richland library in downtown Columbia.

    Harriet Hancock, Ed Madden, Alvin McEwen, Tom Summers and I will be swapping stories from our book on a panel at 11:00 o’clock in Room 213.

    For details, check out http://www.deckleedgesc.org/

    No smiles left behind when Harriet Hancock and I spend an afternoon in her home sipping wine, reminiscing and storytelling. Looks like the woman hovering behind Harriet sipped more than she reminisced.

    (Thanks to Becci Robbins for putting up with our nonsense that afternoon and for taking this photo)

    My acknowledgments for Committed to Home begin with this paragraph:

    My coconspirator and inspiration for this book is Harriet Hancock. I first approached Harriet about writing her personal story at a South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Business Guild Christmas party at Tom Brown’s house in December, 2013. She had an enthusiastic response, and in our subsequent conversations early in 2014, the project morphed to include the personal observations of other leaders in LGBTQ organizations in South Carolina over the past thirty years. Her interest in the project has been ongoing and always encouraging. She was helpful in the selection of the contributors.

    Ed Madden, Alvin McEwen and Tom Summers were three of the six contributors who actually wrote their own essays which are distinctive in time, place and storylines but oh, so very personal and compelling. I am looking forward to sharing their stories, along with Harriet’s, during our conversation on the panel Saturday morning.

    Please join us if you can!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • moving on down the road…to Charleston!


    l. to r. Harriet Hancock, Sheila Morris, Pat Patterson, Nekki Shutt

    photo courtesy Darlene Williams

    Not pictured here are panelists Alvin McEwen, Dr. Ed Madden and moderator/organizer Dr. David Snyder who did a super job of asking questions that addressed the major themes of Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home which stimulated a lively discussion among the six panelists.

    The personal stories in the book were collected individually and independent of each other so that the opportunity to share perspectives as a group of six contributors was awesome. I wish everyone in cyberspace could have been there with me and Pretty who cheered us on from the front row of the audience…and fellow contributor Dick Hubbard who sat a few rows behind Pretty. Pretty’s sister Darlene and her friend Dawne, out-of-towners, gave additional support from the front row seats.

    I was thrilled to meet Dr. Robert Brinkmeyer, Jr., the director of the Institute for Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina, in person. Bob’s endorsement is one of three on the back cover of our book and his department was one of the co-sponsors of our event.

    My thanks to Dave for setting up the USC event and to the University of South Carolina Bookstore at the Russell House for selling books not only at this event but also at the Guild meeting earlier this month.  And of course, a HUGE thank you to the contributors who continue to tell their stories to extend their reach from words on pages to live audiences who ask questions that make us believe we have made a difference in our state.

    Next week we will have a panel discussion in Charleston that will feature Harlan Greene who wrote the foreword for Southern Perspectives alongside contributors Linda Ketner, Jim Redman-Gress, and Warren Redman-Gress. I look forward to being an out-of-towner myself in the lowcountry.

    More on that event later in the week, but please save the date for Wednesday, the 7th. at 6:00 p.m. if you will be in the Charleston area – I would love to see you there.

    Stay tuned.