Glimpses of Me and Mine: A Creative Biography

by Nancy Lynne Westfield

Publisher:

Resource Publications

, 2023

The problem is that there are more portrayals of the way other people see African American women than the ways we see ourselves. The narrative voice of African American women is largely disregarded, unfamiliar, and stifled. This collection of fiction and creative non-fiction as prayers, poems, short stories, rants, recollections, fantasies, aspirations, divulgences of secrets, accounts of omitted truths, and interpretations of witnessed miracles is meant to add Nancy Lynne Westfield's voice to the stories about African American women by African American women. She offers her stories, and the stories of her family, real and imagined, so African American women are better understood as being creative, multi-dimensional, whole, rounded, complicated, edgy, non-monolithic, and ordinary. These stories, written from three decades of womanist ethnographic research, are meant to persuade that Black women's experience matters to the flourishing of all humanity, and most especially matters to the persistence of African American women, and men and our children--all the kinds of families. These stories provide glimpses of Westfield's understanding of Blackness, anti-Blackness, womanhood, misogyny, and enfleshment. These stories expand what is known about the ways we build, love, suffer, teach, heal, enjoy our friends, make meaning out of our circumstances, and survive. They offer a glimpse of our collective wisdom.

Praise for Glimpses of Me and Mine

“In the tradition of Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, and Gwendolyn Brooks, Nancy Lynne Westfield explores the real lives of Black women with keen insight and compassion. Through a bold, inventive mix of truth and fiction, verse and prose, Westfield’s artful syntax and storytelling weaves together a nuanced, multifaceted portrait of African-American womanhood.”

—Donald E. Quist, author of To Those Bounded



“With her marvelous lyrical voice and laser sharp truth-telling, Nancy Lynne Westfield helps us see Black women and, if we lean in carefully, to hear Black women in our multitude of voices and attitudes. This is gift and challenge.”

—Emilie M. Townes, author of Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil



“Nancy Lynne Westfield contains multitudes. In Glimpses of Me and Mine, these beings shine through in her prose and poetry like sunrays piercing clouds, and they speak with audacity, love, hope, and rage. This book is a victorious dance, with each piece making readers listen where they haven’t heard before and see where they have refused to look. A triumphant work.”

—Sophfronia Scott, author of Wild, Beautiful, and Free

Product Details

• Title: Glimpses of Me and Mine: A Creative Biography
• Author: Nancy Lynne Westfield
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Print Publication Date: 2023
• Logos Release Date: 2023
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9781666767476, 9781666767469, 1666767468, 9781666767452, 166676745X, 1666767476
• Resource ID: LLS:9781666767476
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2023-04-09T10:01:19Z

About Nancy Lynne Westfield

Professor Westfield’s teaching and research interests include pedagogy, engaged pedagogy, African-American women’s studies, womanist studies, spirituality, creativity, mysticism, and theological education. Dr. Westfield earned the B.A. from Murray State University (Ky.) and the M.A. from Scarritt Graduate School (Tenn.). She completed the Ph.D. at The Union Institute (Ohio). A permanent ordained elder in Eastern Pennsylvania, Westfield has provided leadership in Christian Education as a consultant and preacher across the U.S., as well as Japan, the Caribbean and Israel. Together with Arthur Pressley, Lynne Westfield organizes a public lecture series and seminar course entitled “God-Talk with Black Thinkers,” bringing major African American scholars and intellectuls to Drew Theological School each academic year. Recent speakers have included Charles H. Long and Carolyn Jones Medine.