“Notes from a Trip to Russia” by Audre Lorde is the first essay in Sister Outsider. In it, she recounts a trip to Russia in 1976 as the invited American observer to the African-Asian Writers Conference sponsored by the Union of Soviet Writers.1
Notes From a Trip To by me, Gabrielle Ione Hickmon is a container, inspired by Lorde, for documenting and recounting my creative practice which is my movement practice which is my writing practice which is my clay practice which is my herbalism practice which is my life practice.
In her interview in Black Women Writers at Work, with Claudia Tate, Audre Lorde said: "I write for myself and my children and for as many people as possible who can read me, who need to hear what I have to say—who need to use what I know.”2
In The Cancer Journals, she also said, "All of the things I do are very much a part of my work. They flow in and out of each other, help to nourish each other. That's what the whole question of survival and teaching3 means. That we keep our experience afloat long enough, that we share what we know, so that other people can build upon our experience.”4
I intend to share my practice with you here and in other places so that you may use what I know—knowledge of herbs, snippets from my memoir in progress, ocular proof5 from my journeys, my collaborations with clay, and whatever else I know that Spirit tells me you can use—so other people can build upon my experience too.
I am a continuation.6
We are a continuation.
Thank you for being here.
more soon,
Gabrielle
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA01234259
Tate, C., Lorde, A. (Ed.). (2023). Black Women Writers at Work. Haymarket Books.
Lorde, A. (2020b). The Cancer Journals. Penguin UK.
Tate, C., Lorde, A. (Ed.). (2023). Black Women Writers at Work. Haymarket Books.
Gunning, S. (2021). Moving home: Gender, Place, and Travel Writing in the Early Black Atlantic. Duke University Press.
Hanh, T. N., & Hiên, N. (2013). The Art of Communicating. Random House.
