I wasn't very academically inclined, growing up as a child, and the only subject I was good at was English. I had a flair for it, since I came from a literary background.

I feel I have learnt a lot on the sets of 'Beyond The Clouds,' and it will be a life-long learning for me.

My mother has brought me up in a manner that has allowed me to retain my values, ideologies, and philosophies. I was let loose, just enough to develop an individual personality.

It was a great learning experience to work with all the stalwarts associated with 'Beyond the Clouds.' It's indeed a strong team to be working with.

History is a story like any other, but black history is a story so devoid of logic that it frustrates the young reader. The young readers in my house, told of slavery and segregation, asked in disbelief, 'What? Why?' We - the parents of black children, the parents of all children - still need to tell that story.

For families, for parents that don't want to feed their kids GMOs, in the private marketplace there has grown up an abundant market.

My mother's family were full-on Irish Catholics - faith in an elaborate old fashioned, highly conservative and madly baroque style. I sort of fell out of the tribe over women's rights and social justice issues when I was just 13 years old.

My family's support and the negative environment of the day toward blacks in South Carolina became the forces that led me out of the South - first to New York, then to Philadelphia, where I found opportunity in the form of a PAL gym and my trainer, Yank Durham.