today marks the u.s. and canadian release of open city, teju cole's first full-length novel. i raved about everyday is for the thief here, so i'll definitely be first in line for my (signed) copy.

i heard rumors that cole was in lagos, but he must be back in new york because he has a book signing tomorrow. check the list below for details. i'll be back in new york in a couple of weeks (there, i said it), so i'll mos def attend the signing at mcnally jackson.

the delicious list of nyc bookstores reminds me of the dearth of bookshops/cafes in nigeria. i'd rant about it, but first we'd have to talk about the reading culture here in general, and i don't have time for that particular conversation.

see you soon, new yorkers, i've missed you! and for heaven's sake, buy his book. (check out the new yorker review.) --AL.

Tomorrow February 9: Afternoon stock signings in New York City: Strand Bookstore, Shakespeare and Co. Booksellers, Mysterious Bookshop, and St Mark’s Bookshop. Signed first editions will be available at all these stores after tomorrow evening.

Thursday February 10: A 7:00pm discussion of Open City with Cole and editor David Ebershoff, at the Center for Fiction (at the Mercantile Library), 17 East 47th St, New York, NY.

Monday February 21: 7:00pm reading at McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince St, New York, NY.

Thursday February 24: 7:30pm reading at Greenlight Bookstore, 686 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY.

Tuesday March 1: 8 pm reading with fellow debutant Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts (author of Harlem Is Nowhere) at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY

so much reading and re-reading this week. bone black (bell hooks' memoir), coffee will make you black (novel by april sinclair), the joy luck club (amy tan's acclaimed novel), a collection of poems on the MOVE bombing by one of my hedgebrook sisters, daughter's mother (a play by amy evans, also a Hedgebrook alum). so i have been shedding tears on the 5-train home to the Bronx after work.

bell hooks writes prose poetry full of mystery and myth and a clarity i've never found in her nonfiction. i think, if i never read another "love" book of hers i will have learned all i need to know in this. she embeds a child's hope, terror, and frustration in each chapter, reminds me of that helpless feeling i am still shedding. amy tan reminds me of my mother's investment club, the susu women, who would break bread at each other's homes after a long meeting.

she reminds me that my mother is forever gone and i am left with a stack of black and white photos, the trails of the few stories she told, most locked tightly away in her soul's memory. and the MOVE poems. lives and loves burned up in fire. these poems haunt me, stories beg to be told.

lately i have been seeking coming-of-age stories to give some perspective on my novel. there was a collection of stories i read at hedgebrook, coming of age around the world (ed. by Faith Adiele, also an alum), which lead me to some really great writers. each one i read offered something i had forgotten or never considered.

and i now ask myself why i am writing this novel the way i am writing it, why i am not turning the bucket upside down before pouring in the water. there is something in soaking the floor, in seeping into all the hidden crevices that you can't even see. without conclusion or direction like the stories my father tells, one long thread running from my childhood up til now.

hoping to spend some good time this weekend just staring into space and letting the words appear. applying for a bronx council of the arts writing grant due next week. but really the application is just an excuse to sit with my writing. we have been too distant lately.

I have been back for over a month now. Not necessarily hiding from the public, but certainly from this blog. I developed a distrust for the public-personal while away at my residency in the woods, in my cottage, with a wood burning stove and an owl hooting outside my window. I think the personal should be private, and I think that blogging sometimes cheapens my experiences.

It is not truly possible for me to distill the essence of what happened to me in that month alone in the woods. Suffice it to say, it was the most overwhelming gift of divine love I've ever received. A love I never even thought was in the realm of the possible for me. And in that love, I was able to give birth to a novel I've been dreaming of and scribbling in notebooks for over three years. I also dreamt a piece of choreography that I had to get up and dance at five o'clock in the morning. And watched my student films with some of my writing sisters and had a chance to reflect on my process and progress as a filmmaker. And watched other marvelous novels, poems, and memoirs being born that made me feel like a witness to the unfolding of literary history.

I came away believing in myself as an artist -- as a writer, filmmaker, dancer, singer. Given the space, time, and opportunity to do anything, I found myself doing all those things quite organically -- and also taking long bike rides, picking up shells on the beach, picking flowers and raspberries and fresh salad from the garden.

I had not previously realized that this need to create was somehow programmed into my DNA, that my utter misery doing anything else was simply God telling me so. I also had not realized how much I really hate living in New York. I am in the process of making some changes, I think, that you cannot unmake. And I think it is a very good sign.

There is a quote by Anais Nin that states: And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

I imagine that my bud is only now blossoming, coinciding with my 28th birthday that I celebrated while away. Though I had always thought myself a late bloomer, I found myself to be the youngest woman at Hedgebrook (the next youngest was 41, the oldest 70). And they welcomed me with such respect and regard that I found myself maturing to my call to join the circle of women writers.

We had the most thrilling conversations about life, work, love, politics, and writing, that I wept bitterly while leaving. Wept over the ashes of my wood stove, over the drying petals of my birthday flowers, the cedar trees that swallowed the earth, the banana slugs that slithered on the foot path. I thought I was in danger of leaving my best and truest self there, and so I did not want to come back. Yet I find that marvelously creative woman is still with me, waiting inside every time I sit down to write.

And so I wrote on, fifty thousand more words in November, in NYC, back in the Bronx, completing NaNoWriMo for the first time. And I am still writing, silencing the din of the city, trying to write my way back to that peaceful place that I found in the woods with the women and the dahlias and the sunrise over Deer Lagoon.

Reading another great book this week, "No Plot? No Problem!" by Chris Baty (pictured right), founder of NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month Competition. Every November, more than 100K writers around the globe try to write a 50,000 word novel in just one month. There are daily pep talks, "write-ins" with fellow NaNoWriMos, an online regional database to locate other participants, and a certificate upon completion.

Sound a little crazy? Maybe it is. But there are far crazier things in life than writing a novel in a month -- say, writing a novel in 10 years.

I tried it last year; but life, fate, and my crazy roommates conspired against me. I don't think it's a farfetched idea at all, it's certainly quite doable. But there are quite a few things that need to be in place to create a favorable environment for Nano-ing and writing in general. What's great about his book is that it is written for people who have a lot on their plates -- like school, work, and family -- and live in an internet culture that creates these overwhelming and nonproductive sucks on your time (something that Anne Lamott and Stephen King don't take into account at all, likely because they're old school).

Chris offers tips on how to prioritize your writing and deprioritize time sucks like web surfing, washing dishes, and hanging out till all hours of the night. There's this great little tool, called a Time Finder, for figuring out what things you can do without. For a whole week, you keep a daily log of your activities, noting how long it takes you to do them. Then you go through with a colored pen at the end of that week and categorize each activity as REQUIRED, HIGHLY DESIRED, or FORGOABLE. Once you do that, you cut out all the forgoable activities (and highly desired if push comes to shove) for those four weeks and voila -- you found the time you need to write!

I always feel like I don't have enough time in the day, so this Time Finder seems really amazing. I certainly do waste a certain amount of time every day which, taken together, I could be using to enormous good. At the same time, one thing that Chris finds is that your down time becomes enormously productive as a result of getting your writing done. Spending time with friends, the sunrise, even a slow walk in the park seem more enjoyable.

And I can vouch that this week, writing at least a couple of hours every morning has been very good to me. I find that I'm far less irritable with other people because I'm getting my own work done and I can really be present with them because I'm not thinking about what I didn't get done.

I hope the process of finishing this book will help me finally put to rest this issue I have with prioritizing other people's commitments over and above my own, giving generous amounts of valuable time away -- in a sense, giving myself away. To that end, I have officially instituted a moratorium against working on other people's projects at present, so I can commit fully to my book.

Will let you know how well I stick to it. ;)

I took a two week writer's workshop at City College taught by Marie-Elena John (pictured above center, in red), author of the critically acclaimed novel Unburnable. The workshop was advertised as a how-to course on writing your first novel, the reason I signed up.

Marie-Elena is a sweet, passionate, sincere woman plagued by Antigua time -- the equivalent of African time multiplied by three, sprinkled with a bit of salt, and served with local rum. I came the first couple of days, ditched the next day, came another couple days, ditched the next day, and showed up religiously the last four days to finish out the two-week workshop.

During the workshop, I sat in class critiquing the hell out of other people's work as if I knew something about writing. (Maybe the evidence supports that I do, but I have an incredible amount of self doubt around its validity.) This voice kept coming out of me when I spoke that made everybody stop to listen. It was a voice I hadn't heard from myself before. It was bold and certain, did not harbor the same apprehensions as I do personally. It sounded a bit like my blog, far bolder than I am in person.

So. Although I was kicking and screaming the whole time, the single greatest gift the workshop gave me was an opportunity to confront my self-doubt, even if only to sit with it like a friend for a couple of weeks. I haven't a clue what I'm doing, really, when I say that I am writing. It is amorphous, a bit cliche, and terrifying when I have to sit inside my insecurity for three or four hours a day and actually write.

At any rate, and likely because of my fear (which only exists to be vanquished), I have officially turned in my leave of absence papers to NYU and put film on hold. I need to finish this book so I can find my voice, grab hold of it, and run full tilt into the future. I leave school only to give myself a year to revel in my insecurity and, hopefully, learn to trust it.

I can't help but think that it is my own voice I am trying to become. Not thinner or prettier, taller or more fashionable, but rather bold, certain, and unapologetic.