Vixen Chronicles

 Have you been listening to my new (ish) podcast, Grown Ass women with Nina Foxx ? I've been wanting to do one for some time and the pandemic has given me time, since I don't have to commute two hours a day and don't go anywhere else. I have have been using all of that time spent in the car to do creative things, I was reflecting on this last episode. Blaxit Part 2: Nathan Nash, Just an American-For the First Time. Nathan has made a Blaxit--he's moved to Singapore. One thing that struck me about him and the \lLast Guest, Ms R. Both made what they thought were spontaneous decisions (but that were really years in the making), with a minimum level of planning. Nathan actually went to a south Asian country without so much as a hotel picked out and no idea how to contact his friends there. He relied on the kindness of strangers to drive him hours, in a place where he really didn't speak the language or even fully understand the culture. These days, this is not something ...

I walked faster, not wanting to be caught outside after the sunset, alone in a strange downtown. My friends had all arrived on earlier flights and were meeting me. The silent tap-tap of the navigation app on my wrist guided my steps as I searched for the restaurant and tried not to look like the tourist that I was. The place was in the middle of an outdoor mall. The stores were about to close and it was semi deserted, although the street outside was still bustling with pedestrians walking to clear the area, the same as I was, while the people of the night were hunkering down to get through the evening. It was a warm one. I was struck by the number of homeless men and women I saw in the short, two block walk. I don’t know if their number was high, or if the suburbs had sequestered me from the rawness that downtown Denver was spewing. The tidiness of the day was going to bed for the night and pulling the covers up around its neck, and I got the sense that downtown was about to sho...

     Last week, I spent the day at a high school, talking about writing and books. when I showed up, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to talk about, or if I was going to read from any of my books. On the way there, I received a Facebook notification that someone had mentioned me and made a comment about A Letter for My Mother- -the book I'd edited--creative non-fiction, and since it was close to Mother's Day, I decided to spotlight this book.      If you follow me, you know the story of how this book started. The MIL whom I'd believed to share a mutual feeling of dislike with was dying, and the thought of her leaving this plane was very painful to me.  I was bewildered by these feelings and being that I was across the country, could not go to her. So I wrote her a letter, and filed it. Later, on reading the letter, I thought it should be published somewhere and the book was born.       The task was not as simple as it s...

      All of my Christmas Shopping is done without out me setting foot in a mall. Everything is wrapped, in coordinating paper and placed under the Christmas Tree. All of the kids know the rules; they must avert their eyes as if nothing is there. This is how Black Santa works.      He is magical.      The boxes are actually empty until the stroke of Midnight of Christmas Eve, when the presents materialize inside their wrappings. If you open them early, you will only find coal or air. The offspring understand this, though I did catch Midime checking out a few boxes this week. The stockings were disturbed,too. It's hard to get away with that stuff, even if you try really hard to return the boxes back to the exact spot they were in before you meddled with them when you have a mother who studies behavior and watches people for a living.      Yesterday, new gifts started appearing under the tree, very easy to spot because the...

Nina Foxx's Just Short of Crazy   was an amazing success, far beyond anything I could have imagined. Thank you all of the people who supported the effort, either through the IndieGoGo Campaign, through direct contributions or by putting their body in a seat. Over 500 people did.  There was actually one person who came every night and brought a different person with him each night, and no, he was not a relative. There were people who bought a copy of every book I had. There were companies who donated food so my talent could eat during long rehearsals, and others who donated money for concessions. Thanks to Starbucks Coffee Company, Ezell's Famous Chicken, Weichert Realtors, The City of Seattle Arts/Langston Hughes Institute (building grant) and our presenting sponsor, The Paul & SallyJanowitz  family. With your help, I was able to bring a message of positive self worth and female empowerment and draw attention to the issue of domestic abuse in our communities in an ent...