Visionary Vibes: A Blog by Aberjhani

Author Octavia E. Butler & The Fire This Time

1/22/2025

Introduction

Long lauded for her masterful blend of science fiction and realistic social observations, author Octavia E. Butler’s name over the past decade has grown to command greater and greater attention as a highly-significant American master of literary innovation. That conviction has intensified with the tragic fires which decimated communities in southern California during the first half of January 2025 and left survivors on edge as they waited to see what a years-long drought, and the legendary Santa Ana winds, would deliver in the second half.

The historic tragedy, along with the return of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, led many posting on social media to bestow the word “prophetic” upon Butler’s classic 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower, due to the author’s seemingly prescient allusion to them. Butler herself famously coined the term histofuturism , making her a histofuturist, to describe her method of researching and analyzing past societal trends to gain understanding of problematic present-day conditions and devise strategies for correcting such dangerous imbalances.

The cautionary implications of Butler’s work were evident enough 15 years ago that she was one of 5 Notable Women of the Past and Present featured in my special Black History Month and Women’s History Month article series published on AXS’s former Examiner platform in 2010. It should be noted that Butler’s novel did not become a New York Times bestseller until 2020. For the first time since the Examiner platform folded, the tribute article to Butler is presented (with minor edits) in full along with the review of Parable of the Sower then included. [Although fire caused extensive damage in Los Angeles County’s Eaton community within Altadena , where Butler is buried, her grave-site reportedly sustained minimal damage.]

A Grand Dame of Sci-Fi

Octavia Estelle Butler achieved the unprecedented feat of winning three major science fiction awards––the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, all in 1985––before going on in 1995 to also win the MacArthur Foundation Genius Award. This achievement, in addition to a number of other honors, established Butler as a “grand dame” of science fiction. It also placed her within the genre on a level comparable to that of Toni Morrison or Alice Walker within mainstream literary fiction.

The daughter of Laurice and Octavia M. (Guy) Butler, the author was born June 22, 1947, in Pasadena, California [where approximately 8,000 structures have been destroyed by fire in January 2025]. After attending Pasadena City College, California State University in Los Angeles, and the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop, she went on to launch her literary career in 1976 with the publication of the novel Patternmaster. Over the three decades that followed, until her death February 24, 2006, she would publish almost a dozen more novels including Kindred and Parable of the Talents; and the short fiction collection, Bloodchild and Other Stories.

Innovative Literary Vision

Butler’s work explores and expands the basic language of science fiction. In particular, she utilizes an interest in such subjects as psionic abilities, genetic engineering, different forms of power, and advanced alien intelligence to explore more earthbound themes of racial and sexual awareness. The various categories into which human beings place each other might be seen through Butler’s literary glasses as hierarchies that do more harm than good by encouraging and sustaining degrading forms of dominance rather than mutual respect or tolerance. In an essay for NPR titled U.N. Racism Conference, she observed the following:

“Back during the early 1960s there was a United Nations television commercial, the audio portion of which went something like this: ‘Ignorance, fear, disease, hunger, suspicion, hatred, war.’ That was it, although I would have added, ‘greed’ and ‘vengeance’ to the list. All or any of these can be the catalyst that turns hierarchical thinking into hierarchical behavior. Amid all this, does tolerance have a chance?

“Only if we want it to. Only when we want it to. Tolerance, like any aspect of peace, is forever a work in progress, never completed, and, if we're as intelligent as we like to think we are, never abandoned.”

The author was particularly noted for her creation of unique yet believable female characters and her accomplishments in this area paved the way for such contemporary Black women speculative fiction writers as Tananarive Due and Nalo Hopkinson.

Speaking to Los Angeles Times reporter Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Tananarive Due stated, "In black speculative fiction, we are a tiny family and Octavia Butler was our matriarch.”

Parable of the Sower

precisely as many say it is doing in 2025Within the first dozen pages of Parable of the Sower, readers encounter a typical family armed with guns on their way to church, a headless corpse, a naked homeless woman, a community walled in by terror, and a young woman dreaming of stars.

The dreamer is 16-year-old Lauren Oya Olamina, the would-be-sower and teller of the parable. The place is California. The time 2024-2027 A.D. And nothing in America is how it used to be. The world to come, as Butler presents it in this novel, is one ruled by the more brutal forms of anarchy [with the threat of autocracy steadily increasing, precisely as many say it is doing in 2025].

(Original photograph of Octavia E. Butler by Cheung Ching-Ming. Edit with Butler quote by Bright Skylark LP)

Everyday life becomes an actual war between the “haves” and “have-nots” battling over each other’s few pitiful possessions. Children are stolen into slavery; women are raped at will. Dogs roam the land as wild killers. Policemen are barely distinguishable from criminals, and drug-crazed maniacs run around setting fires for the high of their lives.

Such is the world in which Lauren finds herself as she comes painfully of age. Black, bold, and brilliant, she has the misfortune of having been born with “hyperempathy.” This hyperempathy “is what the doctors call an ‘organic delusional syndrome’… I get a lot of grief that doesn’t belong to me, and that isn’t real. But it hurts.”

The syndrome is one that literally puts flesh on the spiritual equation that hurting another is equal to hurting oneself. The disadvantages of her condition are magnified that much more when she is constantly forced into gunfights to save her own or someone else’s life. For example: “I knew at once that I’d hit him. He didn’t fall, but I felt his pain… Then he toppled, and I collapsed with him.”

Described as a “sharer,” Lauren deals with her condition and her world by immersing herself in the composition of “Earthseed.” At first, “Earthseed” is nothing more than a kind of juvenile poetry that aids her understanding of life in general. She later decides it is nothing less than a revelation of universal truth regarding the permanent nature of God as on-going change:

“Any change may bear seeds of benefit./ See them out./ Any change may bear seeds of harm./ Beware./ God is infinitely malleable./ God is change.”

For Lauren, serious change comes at the age of eighteen when marauders kill her family along with numerous others and burn down their neighborhood. She is forced to team up with two neighbors she has never really liked. They set out somewhat vaguely for possibly Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, or Canada. As they travel, like Dorothy and company on their way to see the Wizard of Oz, they are joined by others searching for the magic of sanity. Ex-slaves, former prostitutes, a once-wealthy doctor, and orphaned children all eventually find their way into the caravan, all courageously led by Lauren.

Despite constant violence, hunger, and the threat of firestorms sweeping across the land, they maintain their vows to protect each other and even find love among their numbers. Nearly at the bottom of hell, Butler’s characters levitate naturally toward a sense of family in order to survive and flourish. Racially, socially, and temperamentally mixed, they manage to achieve a strained but functional unity. Without realizing it, Lauren evolves into a kind of warrior prophet, a futuristic Harriet Tubman leading her rainbow coalition of survivors beyond the reach of Armageddon.

From the quotes at the beginning of each chapter, readers know that Lauren’s ideas and teachings inevitably become “Earthseed: The Books of the Living.” The book is clearly a manual for surviving social, political, and personal chaos. Lauren leaves little doubt as to where she stands:

Embrace diversity.
Unite––
Or be divided,
robbed,
killed
by those who see you as prey.
Embrace diversity.
Or be destroyed.

Octavia Butler set her novel some thirty-five years in the future from the date she wrote it, which as of this writing (in 2010) places it fifteen years in the future. Most of what Parable of the Sower has to say regarding contemporary times is implied rather than overtly stated. However, the man Lauren eventually marries, Bankole, realizes that all the horrors of their time are not new:

“In the early 1990s while I was in college, I heard about cases of growers doing some of this––holding people against their wills and forcing them to work without pay. Latins in California, blacks and Latinos in the South. Now and then, someone would go to jail for it.”

Imagine that: a man in what was then the future commenting on a past so eerily relevant to what is now the present.

by Aberjhani
Author of These Black and Blue Red Zone Days
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
and creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

For More on Octavia E. Butler
and California Wildfires

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Confronting Complexities of Race and Policing in America (part 2 of 2)

2/20/2023

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Note: To read part 1 of this article please click here. Part 2 begins now:

U.S. President Joe Biden said in his official response to Tyre Nichols’ death: “It is yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day… Real and lasting change will only come if we take action to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again…”
Few people will argue with that. But, clearly, the protests which follow such atrocities have not been sufficient enough to change a culture in which police and would-be vigilantes so often, so quickly, dismiss the validity of a Black person’s life. Neither has the U.S. Congress’ tepid response to them.

In an interview with Lawrence O’Donnell for MSNBC, Isabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cast, the Origins of Our Discontents, offered this comment:

“…The Tyre Nichols situation, tragedy, allows us to see that we have all been exposed to, we all have been programmed to see who is held at the very top of a hierarchy going back to the time of colonial America. And then who has been assigned at the very bottom…”

Like Wilkerson, a growing number of people consider “the idea of race” as nothing more than “an arbitrary construction.” Therefore: observable physical characteristics, cultural markers such as regional languages and dialects, and histories of nations and communities where the American experience is concerned: should be considered less relevant, or consequential, than many until now have believed.

A Different Kind of Black on Black Crime

In regard to Nichols’ death and the fact that all involved are categorized as Black: the dynamics of a hierarchical caste system based more on inherited or assigned privileges, power, and mindsets might imply that what is generally viewed as “race or racism” is not an issue. At least, not in the same way it was in such cases as those of: Floyd, Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, or Rodney King.

It would appear this might be described as a different kind of “Black on Black crime.” Generated by the dynamics of a caste system, it stemmed specifically from a forced encounter between those appointed to guard the interests of higher-ups and those considered residents of the lower end of an established hierarchy. It nevertheless has roots in the same toxic soil of ideologies based on “misconceptions” or “false conceptions” of race which has marred America’s democratic republic from its start and prompted some to convince themselves kidnapping Africans and forcing them to become slaves was good and just.

Psychological Disenfranchisement

There is no shortage of theories when it comes to why people of African descent have been subjected to the forms of brutal dehumanization which they have over the past four centuries. Similarly, reasons instances of suicide increased among African-American men during 2022 are numerous. They range from drug influences and economic desperation to gang-related violence and overwhelming depression stemming from race-related issues.

During all those centuries of the aforementioned dehumanizing treatment, endless floods of images and texts have been unleashed to convince Blacks and Whites of African Americans’ supposedly “inferior” nature. How can such a relentless bombardment of psychological disenfranchisement not have led many to question their own value?

One of the most insidious manifestations of racism is, after all, the self-hatred it sometimes breeds in people described as oppressed or disadvantaged. It expresses as mindless violence towards “their own,” and sometimes themselves. Viewing the actions of the five Black former policemen who took Tyre Nichols’ life through such a lens does not excuse the tragedy or make it any more acceptable. What it does do is give us that much more to consider as Americans from all backgrounds––no matter where they sit or stand or crawl along within a given system—as we continue the struggle to make our democratic republic a more humane unified nation.

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

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On Josephine Baker and the Politics of Educating Americans

1/23/2023

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"Josephine Baker and Chiquita Abstract Magenta" digital painting by Aberjhani. Now available for purchase at Pixels.com, Fine Art America, and here at Bright Skylark Literary Productions.

The article on Josephine Baker (1906-1975) for Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance was written by Sandra L. West (1947-2019). Until working on the book project with her, my perception of the great diva had been shaped primarily by quick glimpses of classic black and white images of her dancing either nude or semi-nude.
She was to me a pretty, comical, innately sensuous, island girl with some vague connection to the United States and France. Research revealed and corrected the many layers of a misunderstood truth.

I began this post to draw attention to the above Josephine Baker tribute art series. Just as I was completing it, disturbing news arrived: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s Department of Education had rejected an Advanced Placement course addressing different aspects of African-American Studies. The rationale for doing so was that it paved the way for ideological indoctrination into the “Woke movement” as fueled by Critical Race Theory. That is something DeSantis has strongly opposed and stated the proposed AP African-American Studies course lacks educational value.

Dr. Lisa Hill, one of the authors of the program, said at its launch in September last year: “The course encourages students to examine each theme from a variety of perspectives, without ideology, in line with the field’s tradition of debates.” In short, the objective is to expand access to the kind of knowledge which impacts our understanding, or misunderstanding, of the demographically evolving world in which we live. It was the same goal that I and different contributors to Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance had when completing it.

Perceptions and Realities

The intensity of DeSantis’ objection to progressive initiatives when it comes to racial factors have long puzzled many People of Color. Perception of the governor’s political strategy is not very different from how Justice Clarence Thomas’s unyielding conservatism is viewed among many Blacks. While it appears to make no sense within the context of their daily social reality, it stands up well enough as abstract legal conception.

A frequent assumption regarding DeSantis is that he is Latino and his interests should, therefore, automatically align with those he decries as woke ideologists. However, despite the smiling photograph of him on Hispanic culture pages, the governor’s publicized heritage is Italian––not Latinx––going back several generations. He clearly has found it more politically advantageous to let Americans assume whatever pleases them while presenting himself, more than anything else, simply as a committed conservative republican.

It would be fair enough at this point to ask what any of this has to do with my current celebration of Josephine Baker. The answer is pretty much: everything. Were it not for the social, political, and financial inequities and omissions which daily impair the lives of people belonging to different demographic groups in America, there would be no need for certain types of corrective considerations. As it is, levels of awareness concerning different cultural experiences directly influences the quality of all Americans’ lives.

Detail from "Josephine Baker Stardust Silhouette" art by Aberjhani. Now available for purchase here on Bright Skylark Literary Productions, on Pixels.com, and at Fine Art America.

What I knew and did not know about Josephine Baker’s story prior to studying it in depth for Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance had caused me to consider her in much less regard than I should have. But it wasn’t the victorious Baker and other Harlem Renaissance greats who had lost out to all those years of unknowing. It was me and other misinformed individuals like me.

From New Art Series Product Page:

"Cheers went up around the world in 2021 when French officials announced American-born actress, singer, and World War II spy Josephine Baker would become the first Black woman to be inducted into the Parisian Panthéon. The announcement made me smile because Josephine Baker is one the historic figures celebrated in Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (this year 2023 is the 20th anniversary of the encyclopedia’s publication).

"The new 2023 edition prints of Baker featured in this series are mixed media and digitally textured interpretations of classic historical photographs and posters categorized as public domain. Some of the new prints are abstract expressionism, or surrealistic impressionism, and others enhanced antique sepia. Baker is widely celebrated during Women’s History Month, Black History Month, and in general as an iconic international entertainer. I sometimes think of her as America’s loss (due to the extreme Jim Crow racism practiced in the United States during her lifetime) and France’s gain."

Aberjhani
Creator of the Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle
Co-creator of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

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The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 2 of 2): Looking Ahead

1/1/2023

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(Multimedia art graphic by Aberjhani featuring book covers of Infobase Publishing’s Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance incorporating artwork by Harlem Renaissance artists: Jacob A. Lawrence and Archibald J. Motley, Jr.)

EDITORIAL NOTE: You can read part 1 of this article by clicking here. Part 2 begins now:

The years 2020-2022 delivered some brutal surprises most of us could easily have done without and it is likely the year 2023 will throw some hard punches our way as well. That makes it all the more pleasurable to begin the second part of this article by noting the entire suite of current and forthcoming Bright Skylark websites will continue to offer Free Full Reading and Viewing Access. It is an honor to be able to say content highlighted here has benefitted the goals and aspirations of people around the world. These goals and aspirations to date have been in the form of:

Humanitarian campaigns in support of climate change refugees
Humanitarian campaigns in support of nonviolent conflict resolution
Activism efforts to end war in diverse countries around the world
Ecological campaigns supportive of environmental sustainability
Classroom materials for teachers (texts on Proquest.com citing works)
Research papers for high school and college students (cited on Course Hero)
Graduation theses for college students and PhD candidates (cited on Academia.edu)
Platform support for new and emerging literary talents
Platform support for new and emerging visual artists
Promotion of cultural arts and practices devoted to harmonious coexistence
Advocacy efforts in support of human rights in diverse countries
Humanitarian campaigns devoted to the prevention of suicide

A listing of all Bright Skylark initiatives, and how values and strategies have translated into different cultures and languages, would require a separate article. For now, the above listing provides a solid idea of the work done here. Beyond the noted inspired labors, a lot of groundwork has already been laid to reach important project goals and create memorable moments worth appreciating and, when appropriate, celebrating:

Harlem Renaissance Forever

A big special moment two decades in the making is the 20th anniversary of the publication of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Infobase Publishing). With the emphasis many place these days on cultural heritage and legacies, the deaths of Sandra L. West (1947-2019 and Clement Alexander Price (1945-2014), my co-author and foreword author on the encyclopedia respectively, make its 20th anniversary all the more significant. With them, the encyclopedia itself, and the numerous scholars, researchers, and creatives who have benefitted from it in mind, observations of the milestone will take place throughout 2023. They will include but not be limited to the following:

THE 2023 RELAUNCH of Harlem Renaissance Centennial website with the brand new header seen at the top of this post.

THE FIRST-TIME EVER publication of “The Harlem Renaissance in Savannah: Presentation Commemorating the 90th Anniversary of The Savannah Carnegie Library, August 28, 2004” (on HR Centennial website).

FIRST-TIME PRESENTATION of stories from the Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance Archives told through collected correspondence and project journals.
PRESENTATION OF CLASSIC AXS articles and poetry from National Cultural Arts Examiner Column and Creative Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance Archive Collection.

Resting on Laurels Not Part of 2023 Strategy

The idea of “resting on one’s laurels,” as in proclaiming past accomplishments while doing nothing to grow the existing body of one’s creative works, has never been an option for me. The need to do better, and contribute more (when possible) has always served as motivation to address humanity’s ever-changing condition in imaginative ways. That at times has meant using minimal resources to accomplish maximum results.

At the end of January 2022, I began video-recording weekly interviews with legendary Savannah State University radio programmer and former Coastal Jazz Association president Theron “Ike” Carter. At this point in January 2023, we now have more than 100 gigabytes of footage and photographs, along with a small library of books and CDs for a special work in progress: The Ike Carter Passion Supreme African-American Musical Heritage Project.

Legendary Savannah State University radio programmer Theron "Ike" Carter Jr. contemplating dynamics of the history of African-American music.

Fans of Carter’s who grew up listening to his music programs, as well as those now enjoying rebroadcasts and new streaming editions, know he brings an incredible wealth of knowledge and insights to his craft. In our conversations, we’ve attempted to go even further by delving into the significance of influential figures in music and how music culture in Savannah impacted his life and personality.

The interview sessions have been part of a lengthy preparation for a multi-media project focused on the radio programmer’s experiences and interpretations of different facets of African-American music, culture, and history. Additional research and the completion of a first book manuscript are likely to take the whole of 2023 and revisions may very possibly, or even likely, carry over into 2024. So 2022 gave us a good independent start and hopefully funding will become available to see the work through to completion. Donations to support the project are now being accepted.

Standing Strong against the Pandemic

Progress on the Covid-19 Red Zone Letters and Art Book moved forward in a big way in 2022 with the completion of more than 100 art images and corresponding text to fill 12 sections focused on life in this time of marvels and mayhem. While a number of art pieces created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are already available for purchase online, the visual style and written substance of this unusual volume are largely unique to it. In addition to representing direct lived responses to the new realities imposed by the pandemic, they provide what may be taken as case studies of the layered racial, economic, political, and social inequalities which added to the challenge of the pandemic itself.

"Social Distance Meets Love's Persistence" COVID-19 art by Aberjhani available for purchase at Fine Art America, Pixels.com, and the Bright Skylark LP art shop.

Yet because people adopted so many innovative ways of adapting to the plague-induced difficulties, the empowering beauty of those times also had to be acknowledged. They remain useful in situations like America’s current so-called “tripledemic.” Because of its multimedia format, it is possible a second paperback and/or eBook edition emphasizing text from the volume may be published.

Becoming Better Practitioners

As yet unforeseen events of the year 2023, independent of hopes and plans at Bright Skylark Literary Productions, will undoubtedly demand attention and cause distractions––much like those of the past year. That will mean becoming even better practitioners of such lessons already learned from exercising resilience and approaching the most damaging challenging problems with the most empowering creative solutions.

Aberjhani Author-Poet-Artist
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

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Acknowledging Achievements and Fine-tuning Aspirations

8/1/2022

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Pandemics, wars, racism, and climate change have ways of derailing some of our very best stated intentions. Start-ups fail to get started. Planned families get put on hold. Dream vacations remain dreams to be pursued another day.

While my Bright Skylark Literary Productions has taken more than a few unsettling hits of its own this year, I’m grateful for what has been achieved up to this point. Moreover, there’s a lot to be excited about when it comes to promising projects still in development.

A Couple of Highlights So Far

Participation in two major offline events played significant roles helping to reconnect with live audiences and patrons after the restrictive distances imposed by COVID-19 for the past two years. The first event was the Authors Day observance held March 27 in Lafayette Square in Savannah, Georgia (USA). The display table showcasing Bright Skylark products was more unique than most participants’ because it not only contained books, but first-print artwork and photography, greeting cards, and collectible giveaways. Copies of every available catalog title sold along with framed visual works. Overall, the day easily qualified as a win-win for all involved.

The second major offline event also took place in Savannah when I accepted an invitation to participate in a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Moth storytelling organization. Founded by popular bestselling author George Dawes Green, the celebration coincided with the release of Green’s new novel: The Kingdoms of Savannah (presently an Amazon “Editor’s Pick” and sitting in the top 5 best sellers of 3 fiction categories).

A memorable Moth 25th anniversary storytelling night at the Gingerbread House in Savannah, Georgia (USA), July 18, 2022.

What made the occasion especially momentous for me was that it marked my first time, in roughly 14 years, stepping onto a stage as a “raconteur.” Moth storytelling events have become major, and even legendary, cultural happenings wherever they take place, so it was thrilling to share the stage with fellow storytellers: Edgar Oliver, Jon Goode, Opollo Johnson, and Green himself. Further rounding out the evening were several musical performances, including by: internationally renowned jazz vocalist Cynthia Utterbach, Velvet Caravan co-founder Ricardo Ochoa, and virtuoso guitarist Travis Pullman.

A Look at Things to Come

My forthcoming art book on the pandemic, which includes letters and poems from myself as well as authors around the world, was first announced more than a year ago. The ongoing COVID-19 crisis, with U.S. President Joe Biden becoming the latest high-profile case, continues to underscore the value of this undertaking. The selection of texts for the project was completed in early 2022, and 90-100 works of original art have been created to correspond with the texts. Among the contributors are: celebrated educator Dr. Patricia M. Stewart, legendary San Francisco poet and educator Duncan McNaughton, England’s multi-talented Sara L. Russell, and additional mindful creatives whose voices enrich the volume in unique and important ways.

Click here to view art from pandemic book project

At this point, Bright Skylark is working with a highly-regarded publisher to make the title available to readers, art lovers, and booksellers in the United States and around the world. More details along with excerpts and sample art will be shared in either a separate blog for the book, or on a full website devoted to it. Anyone wishing to donate to support the effort is invited to do so by clicking here.

It is not often that someone is featured in a major literary publication both as a visual artist and as a literary one. That is, however, the case with the 2022 Flannery O’Connor Review (Vol. 20, published by Georgia College) due out in August. The review has on its cover my Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle painting titled Sermon in the Valley of Broken Angels.

The watermark seen here on the cover of the 2022 edition of the FLANNERY O’CONNOR REVIEW does not appear on the actual journal. The Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle creation is by Aberjhani and titled: Sermon in the Valley of Broken Angels. As seen on the cover, this edition of the review, which is published by Georgia College in Milledgeville, GA, where Flannery O’Connor spent most of her adult life, is a commemoration of 20th and 50th anniversaries.

Additional original works are included inside the review along with a poem on Flannery O’Connor titled “History and Prophets’ Prerogatives.” The published artworks will remain available to view only within the pages of the journal until selected pieces are presented for sale as prints, or placed on exhibition.

The publication of my art and poetry in The Flannery O’Connor Review is particularly important because it helps further clarify my position on the overall complexity of O’Connor’s life and work. It also, I hope, helps demonstrate in general the vital role which creativity plays when it comes to defining and addressing the most pressing issues of our times.

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

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Author Octavia E. Butler & The Fire This Time

Introduction

A Grand Dame of Sci-Fi

Innovative Literary Vision

Parable of the Sower

For More on Octavia E. Butler
and California Wildfires

Please use this form to contact Author-Artist Aberjhani, or the one below it to comment on this article.

Confronting Complexities of Race and Policing in America (part 2 of 2)

A Different Kind of Black on Black Crime

Psychological Disenfranchisement

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

On Josephine Baker and the Politics of Educating Americans

Perceptions and Realities

From New Art Series Product Page:

Aberjhani
Creator of the Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle
Co-creator of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 2 of 2): Looking Ahead

Harlem Renaissance Forever

Resting on Laurels Not Part of 2023 Strategy

Standing Strong against the Pandemic

Becoming Better Practitioners

Aberjhani Author-Poet-Artist
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Acknowledging Achievements and Fine-tuning Aspirations

A Couple of Highlights So Far

A Look at Things to Come

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Contact Artist-Author Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

Author Octavia E. Butler & The Fire This Time

Introduction

A Grand Dame of Sci-Fi

Innovative Literary Vision

Parable of the Sower

For More on Octavia E. Butler and California Wildfires

Please use this form to contact Author-Artist Aberjhani, or the one below it to comment on this article.

Confronting Complexities of Race and Policing in America (part 2 of 2)

A Different Kind of Black on Black Crime ​

Psychological Disenfranchisement

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

On Josephine Baker and the Politics of Educating Americans

Perceptions and Realities

From New Art Series Product Page:

AberjhaniCreator of the Original Silk-Featherbrush ArtstyleCo-creator of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

The Years 2022 and 2023 (part 2 of 2): Looking Ahead

Harlem Renaissance Forever

Resting on Laurels Not Part of 2023 Strategy

Standing Strong against the Pandemic

Becoming Better Practitioners

Aberjhani Author-Poet-ArtistAuthor of Dreams of the Immortal City SavannahCreator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Contact Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Acknowledging Achievements and Fine-tuning Aspirations

A Couple of Highlights So Far

A Look at Things to Come

AberjhaniCo-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem RenaissanceAuthor of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

Contact Artist-Author Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions

Aberjhani

Archives

Categories

For More on Octavia E. Butler
and California Wildfires

A Different Kind of Black on Black Crime

Aberjhani
Creator of the Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle
Co-creator of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

Aberjhani Author-Poet-Artist
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
Creator of Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

Aberjhani
Co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Author of Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind