Tell Them Something Beautiful: Essays and Ephemera

TEXT

Creative works by Dominique Hecq, Rachel Hennessy, Lynn Davidson, Toni Roberts, Jane Downing, Craig Jordan-Baker

We grieve as humans for those whom we have lost, with words, images and music, often all three together, and we have done so for thousands of years. This is the introduction to an anthology of the literature and art of grief and consolation on which I am working. Completed sections are being posted on academia.edu together with this introduction.

Writing otherwise, 2013

2019

OF THESIS ALL THAT YOU SAY IS BEAUTIFUL: STORIES From the city of High Point to New York City, this collection portrays a certain black experience. Through a sociological lens, the stories in All That You Say is Beautiful study intersections of class, race, family, and sexuality by bending forms, expectations, and seeks to understand what it means to be human when your experience is not that of mainstream American culture.

Tanzim Aziz, 2021

Memory was the repository that furnished me with this life writing and reviews of the past. However, the unprecedented pandemic COVID-19, forced a break in my regular schedule, giving me time to think and reflect on the past. Throughout my life, I wanted to discover myself. This thoughtful life writing is a mélange of significant incidents of my life that are inseparable, intertwined individually, and made this solitary voyage of life meaningful. Many people helped me to sculpt this journey smoothly. My deceased father, Abba occupies the memorabilia the most, maybe that’s human nature- we look for those who left us, we miss them or we cherish the warmth and values embedded by them in us. I admire Abba for believing in empowering his daughters, four of us. I came across plenty of people on this journey– family members, friends, relatives, teachers, and colleagues whose fond memories are preserved in the archive of my memory with love and tenderness. Some of them have left this world for eternity but I still feel their presence. As I had entered a new phase of life, the trousseau I brought to my new family fifteen years ago seemed insignificant. Through this expedition of life, I have been learning to treasure those characteristics that are immeasurable-quality time spent with family in the past, our trips which made us rediscover ourselves, and even knowing the known people from a new dimension!

A conference paper focused on the power of the speculative essay to move and inspire people.

Communication, Culture & Critique, 2008

2011

Abstract: The endurance of the form of storytelling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling stories is not merely an entertainment, an optional extra which we can chose to engage with or not, but a fundamental aspect of being. We tell stories to construct and maintain our world. When our sense of reality is damaged through traumatic experiences we attempt to repair our relationship with the world through the repeated telling of our stories. These stories are not just a means of telling but also an attempt to understand. Stories are performed and performative; they do not leave us unchanged but can in fact motivate us to act. They are not merely about things that have happened, but are about significant events that change us. Through our stories we demonstrate that we have not only had experiences but that those experiences have become part of one’s knowledge. In this essay O’ Neill will explore the potential of objects to tell a story, the object that is both the subje...