Photo credit: Bing images
As an avid reader and writer, I love reading and researching about other writers I know little or nothing at all about. Many of these people have lived incredible lives and others have had nothing but made something great out of the nothing. Well, I know who the great Alice Walker is, but have never just sat down and read up about her. I do know she is the author of the book, “The Color Purple,” which was made into one of my favorite movies. Having been born in Georgia back in the 40s, I am sure she saw a lot and experienced a lot, good and not so good. Ms. Walker put her energy into going to college and making something amazing out of herself. She along with so many of the other writers out there have inspired many, and as I continue reading about these writers, it encourages me to write on!
BIOGRAPHY –
Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia, the eighth and last child of Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker, who were sharecroppers. When Alice Walker was eight years old, she lost sight of one eye when one of her older brothers shot her with a BB gun by accident. In high school, Alice Walker was valedictorian of her class, and that achievement, coupled with a “rehabilitation scholarship” made it possible for her to go to Spelman, a college for black women in Atlanta, Georgia. After spending two years at Spelman, she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and during her junior year traveled to Africa as an exchange student. She received her bachelor of arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965.
After finishing college, Walker lived for a short time in New York, then from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, she lived in Tougaloo, Mississippi, during which time she had a daughter, Rebecca, in 1969. Alice Walker was active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and in the 1990’s she is still an involved activist. She has spoken for the women’s movement, the anti-apartheid movement, for the anti-nuclear movement, and against female genital mutilation. Alice Walker started her own publishing company, Wild Trees Press, in 1984. She currently resides in Northern California with her dog, Marley.
She received the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for “The Color Purple.” Among her numerous awards and honors are the Lillian Smith Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts & Letters, a nomination for the National Book Award, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, a Merrill Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Front Page Award for Best Magazine Criticism from the Newswoman’s Club of New York. She also has received the Townsend Prize and a Lyndhurst Prize.
Before you knew you owned it –
Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.
Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
A LITTLE PIECE OF MY HEART 