Liberia Association of Writers (LAW) Celebrates Redemption Road

Today's LAW meeting was probably the event I will cherish most from my Liberia book tour. LAW -- the Liberia Association of Writers -- meets at the We-Care Library at one o'clock on the second Saturday of each month for discussions, readings and critiques. I have been a member for ages -- joining back in 2000, I believe, when the group was being revived after what we thought was the end of the civil war. There were only 3 or 4 of us at that meeting, which was held in a classroom at the Wells Hairston High School on Mechlin Street. Subsequent meetings were sporadic, and more fighting came along and interrupted our lives. But through it all, we kept on writing. What else could we do? How else could we express our fears, our griefs and our hopes? Writers. We keep on writing because through our words we all live.







LAW is now very strong, and we take our meetings very seriously. Today, when we celebrated the publication of Redemption Road, LAW President Michael Weah and everyone who spoke called it "our book" and they were just as proud of it as I am. After the meeting, I did the customary signing of a copy to leave on the Liberian Authors' shelf at the library.




(l-r: James Dwalu, Michael Weah, me, Watchen Johnson, and her daughter)



Yes, it's just a shelf now, but we will keep on writing and one day, because of all our fears, our griefs and our hopes, because of all our triumphs and our joys, and because we must, Liberian writers shall fill a whole library with our words and with the stories that will keep us alive.