Here's what's up next for Sandra...
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Sandra is currently finishing her first stage play, The Lucky Spot Dance, adapted from a full length collection of poems of the same title. This memory play explores the complex bond between a brother and sister. At the heart of the dance is the question: What do you do when you love someone you can’t save?
Sandra’s second play project is: The Story of Grace. Grace is a bi-racial woman, a singer and former prostitute, searching for her missing daughter. Set out West at the turn of the 20th century, Grace is a story about making things right, about grief, shame and redemption, and the unbreakable bonds of love.
Sandra is also working on Living Water: Voices from The Titanic, a collection of persona poems about the most famous of all maritime disasters. The project has a compelling family connection: Sandra’s great aunt and uncle, Emma Sante’ and her husband Alva, initially purchased tickets to travel on the famous ship, but fearing that the ship “was too new, and hadn’t been tested at sea, “ choose to book instead on another ship, The Mauretania. The Titanic sank while their own ship safely crossed the Atlantic. Emma Santé wrote a three page handwritten letter about the tragedy to John C. Wheeler, her nephew, and Sandra’s maternal grandfather. Sandra now has a copy of this letter and the family history which prompted her to begin writing about the unforgettable legacy of The RMS Titanic.
The Queen Squad is Sandra’s first foray into what she calls “urban essays”. Set in Baltimore in the 1980’s, The Queen Squad is an elegiac memoir based on personal interviews. At turns both hilarious and heartbreaking, the essays look at people and life in the time of AIDS…
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Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to hearing from you!–
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Excerpt from the essay, Mrs. O’ Shay of Mt. Vernon:
The whole time I knew her, Mrs. O’Shay never wore anything other than a pair of light tan slacks, white sneakers, a loden green sweater vest with two pockets over a 1960’s Carnaby Street style flowered blouse. In her pockets, she had a pair of blue crystal rosary beads, her missal, several packets of sugar, safety pins, Lipton tea bags, an ad for kotex napkins, a powder puff, a couple of aspirin, The Daily Word, some slips of paper with the words: Look up to Zion I never saw her in a dress or suit, though I think at one time, she must have had both of these items. Not long after we met, she told me that back in the 1950’s she had worked as a dress designer in one of those now empty and shuttered shops on Franklin Street. Back in its heyday, the shop must have had several mannequins in the front windows, dressed in crisp two piece tailored suits, Jackie O pillbox hats, black patent leather heels with clutch bags to match. In the summer they wore sleeveless tops and matching culottes in a vibrant tangerine, or perfectly peach…
…when I knew her, in the early 1980’s, Mrs. O’Shay she was no longer designing clothes, but rather living what she called “The quiet life” in our building. She was extremely observant, noting the gentlemen, (her word), who came and went at all hours. If ever she used the word, Queen, it was only in reference to the monarch who lived across the sea in Great Britain…
The whole time I knew her, Mrs. O’Shay never wore anything other than a pair of light tan slacks, white sneakers, a loden green sweater vest with two pockets over a 1960’s Carnaby Street style flowered blouse. In her pockets, she had a pair of blue crystal rosary beads, her missal, several packets of sugar, safety pins, Lipton tea bags, an ad for kotex napkins, a powder puff, a couple of aspirin, The Daily Word, some slips of paper with the words: Look up to Zion I never saw her in a dress or suit, though I think at one time, she must have had both of these items. Not long after we met, she told me that back in the 1950’s she had worked as a dress designer in one of those now empty and shuttered shops on Franklin Street. Back in its heyday, the shop must have had several mannequins in the front windows, dressed in crisp two piece tailored suits, Jackie O pillbox hats, black patent leather heels with clutch bags to match. In the summer they wore sleeveless tops and matching culottes in a vibrant tangerine, or perfectly peach…
…when I knew her, in the early 1980’s, Mrs. O’Shay she was no longer designing clothes, but rather living what she called “The quiet life” in our building. She was extremely observant, noting the gentlemen, (her word), who came and went at all hours. If ever she used the word, Queen, it was only in reference to the monarch who lived across the sea in Great Britain…
