| This month’s eNewsletter is sponsored by Jamillah & David Lamb Jamillah & David Lamb Jamillah and David Lamb are the dynamic couple behind the succ
| | This month’s eNewsletter is sponsored by Jamillah & David Lamb |
Jamillah and David Lamb are the dynamic couple behind the successful off-Broadway play, Platanos Y Collard Greens which is enjoying its 10th year-running. For years, they have worked side by side, 24/7, to create and build their business. And, not only have they not killed each other, their love has grown stronger. Now Jamillah and David share their recipe for romantic success. Read an excerpt from Perfect Combination. “Trust us! You Will Definitely Want to Follow These Steps!” —ESSENCE.com “Men and women should listen to what they have to say.” —Lenny Green, Kissing After Dark with Lenny Green, WBLS “It really hit home and made me think differently about relationships. Everyone should get this book!” —Royce Reed, VH1’s Basketball Wives |
Black, lesbian, feminist, mother, warrior, poet, Audre Lorde (1934-1992) wrote eighteen books of essays and poetry, for which she won numerous awards, including the American Book Award for A Burst of Light. She received a Masters of Library Science from Columbia University. After working several years as a librarian, she became a professor of English, first at John Jay College and later at Hunter College. Lorde was a recipient of many distinguished honors and awards, including honorary doctorates from Hunter, Oberlin, and Haverford Colleges, and was named New York State Poet Laureate (1991-1993). |
Soyinka is the first black person to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1986). The motivation for the Prize was, “…who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence.” Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. During the civil war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for cease-fire. For this he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969. Soyinka has published about 20 works: drama, novels and poetry. He writes in English and his literary language is marked by great scope and richness of words. |
The Roving Tree is Augustave’s debut novel. On how the novel was born she says, “While I was living in Paris many years ago, I finally found enough courage to attempt to write a novel- a dream that had been mine for a very long time. I gathered journals, notes and poems I had written over the years in an effort to synthesize my thoughts but could not help focusing on the two months I spent in Haiti with a graduate summer research grant from Howard University that took me all over the country to study folk culture and the vaudou religion for my thesis. Looking at a sea of rooftops from the window of my small 5th arrondissement studio apartment on a cold, grey and misty day, I made up my mind to further investigate Haitian traditional beliefs in a novel form. I also recalled hearing that the daughter of a woman who worked for my grandmother had been adopted by a French missionary couple and could not help wondering what her life might have become in a foreign land, away from everything that she had known. With those thoughts in mind The Roving Tree came to life in my head and, as I began to write, characters appeared to tell their stories.? |
Eugene B. Redmond is a poet and academic. His poetry is closely connected to the Black Arts Movement and the city of East St. Louis, Ill. He is Poet Laureate of East St. Louis, Illinois, Emeritus Professor of English, Founding Editor of Drum Voices Review, and former Chairman of the Creative Writing Committee at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University in 1964 and his master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1966, both in English Literature. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville in 2008. He is the creator of the poetry form, Kwansaba. |
Alexander writes in several subgenres of romance, from historical to paranormal, and from sweet to erotic. In everything she writes, however, her goal remains the same; “…to present African Americans in a truer, more positive light than other forms of media tend to do.? In the Historical romance genre Alexander’s, The Roses of Ridgeway Series, tells the story of a fictional, mixed race settlement founded by abolitionists in 1853, after the madness of the California gold rush died down. The town is home to a little less than 500 citizens. In Ridgeway, everybody knows everybody else—which can be a good thing—or a bad thing. This series of books are “sweet? in nature—there is no offensive content that would limit these books solely to mature adult readers. |
Lindo-Rice enjoys crafting women’s fiction with themes centered around the four “F” words: Faith, Friendship, Family and Forgiveness. Her first published work, Sing A New Song, was a Black Expressions featured selection. Originally from Jamaica West Indies, Michelle Lindo-Rice calls herself a lifelong learner. She has earned degrees from New York University, SUNY at Stony Brook, and Teachers College, Columbia University. When she moved to Florida, she enrolled in Argosy University where she completed her Education Specialist degree in Education Leadership. A pastor’s kid, Michelle upholds the faith, preaching, teaching and ministering through praise and worship. |
Covin delves into the spiritual and cultural atmosphere of Latin America, namely Salvador and Brazil, making the connection between the youthful wolf packs and the street gangs of Chicago. The reader will enjoy the antics of Tido, Claudio, and Flauvio as they rescue the man from the Mother of the Sea. And the wealth of information which the author shapes the story with spark and color of cultural gems as Yemenja, capoeira, quilombo, and the orixas shines through, tempting the reader to investigate them more completely. Covin, an expert in these matters, connects the dots between the spiritual and cultural realms between Latin America and Africa, so it is not impractical when James winds up in Nigeria, on his quest to redemption. |
Apparently, people allow lame excuses such as “I don’t have the time,” “I don’t have a place,” “It’s against my religion,” and “I’m not good at it” to prevent them from even getting started. For that reason, he’s written Success through Stillness, a how-to primer designed to make that initiation process painless. Surprisingly, the author actually devotes more ink to advice about eliminating those negative thoughts than to instruction about the art of meditation. He also talks about its tangible benefits, which include improving your health, your eating habits, your ability to focus, even your career. Perhaps more important are the metaphysical improvements that accompany that new “sense of peace, compassion, and balance.” |
This slight paperback, inspired by the film, The Bedroom, packs several truths of marriage and commitment into its revealing pages. The well-meaning principals in this novel, William and Zorah Hughes, enter into their relationship with all of the blissful joy of a Hallmark card, with a poetic, hokey narrative to match. “She is there,” Sonya Dunn writes. “More beautiful than visions of her in her dreams, there she stands.” Holy matrimony! A man and a woman, taking the legal steps to connect their lives, is sealed in partnership, when the lovesick hubby asks his beloved if she will always promise to be his. That’s not a good sign. He wants permanence, guarantees, iron-clad promises of loyalty. She promises him everything he craves, but one must always read the fine print of life. |
You may read the review, but I think the conversation, about the book, is more interesting. “Way back in the day, I would always hear that Jewish men liked black women—to have on the side. When I attended the University of Illinois back in the early 1950s, there was a very substantial community of New York Jews among the student body, the reason being, as one of my female Jewish dorm-mates told me, was that it was much cheaper for their parents to send them to a top notch Big 10 school than a private Eastern college. Anyway, the singular goal of these Jewish princesses was to marry doctors or lawyers and live comfortable lives. I encountered Jewish males in my classes. They always had twinkles in their eyes, which I now think was a sign that they and their kosher brand of soul liked the possibilities black women represented. Back then black women never thought of white men in terms of marriage.? |
These books delve into how corporations are exerting increasing levels of control over our experience on the Web and how this influence impact us. Jaron Lanier’s, Who Owns the Future, discusses how corporation with the largest servers exert monopolistic ownership over the web making it difficult for individuals to profit from their labor. Sherry Turkel’s book, Alone Together, discusses how our constant connectivity through social media leads to a new form of social isolation. Finally, Eli Pariser’s, in his book The Filer Bubble explains why, despite super powerful search technology, we are actually accessing less information. |
Over the last year, I’ve invested a lot of effort informing the public about the adverse impact of the corporate takeover of the web and how this is hurting independent websites, particularly Black owned ones. I have, however, not been very critical of the Black owned websites themselves. Part of the reason I have not been critical is that I’m very sensitive to the environment and in many ways understand when websites choose not to cooperate or work in unnecessarily competitive ways. |
Chadwick Boseman (42) stars as James Brown in this biopic from Universal Studios (in theaters: Aug 1, 2014) and director Tate Taylor (The Help). The film also stars, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Nelsan Ellis, Lennie James, Tika Sumpter, Jill Scott and Dan Aykroyd. Brian Grazer, Mick Jagger, Victoria Pearman, and Erica Huggins produce a film penned by Jez and John Henry Butterworth (Fair Game). Of course, it is virtually impossible to judge the quality of a film based upon the trailer, but if you consider the subject, the cast and the music, it is hard to image it being a bad film. |
Angela Davis talks about Audre Lorde during the “Audre Lorde: A Burst of Light Symposium? on March 22, 2014 at Medgar Evers College. The event was held in celebration of Women’s History Month by the Center for Black Literature in partnership with The Du Bois-Bunche Center for Public Policy. Davis reminds us of Lorde?s wisdom which taught us, “Sameness is not a prerequisite for unity.? Lorde also cautioned us that, “Diversity sometimes means integrating different looking people into a process that remains the same.? Difference that does not make a difference! This is why diversity has been taken up as a corporate strategy. |
British novelist, Zadie Smith, had a wonderful conversation with Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about her novel Americanah, which recently won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. This event was recorded at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Langston Hughes Auditorium on March 19, 2013. |
Copper was the co-founder of the magazine Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Freedom Movement and served as the magazine?s managing editor for the 25 years. The magazine was published from 1961 until 1985. Freedomways featured the writings of Kwame Nkrumah, W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul Robeson, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Alice Walker, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin and many more prominent writers. Also check out a fascinating 1992 interview in which Dr. John Henrik Clarke says the people at Freedonways was responsible for his health problems leading to his eventual loss of sight! |
What did it feel like to be ignored by the white ballerinas in your dance company when you arrived in New York at the age of 16? Misty: I felt isolated because I didn’t know what the reason was at that age. My being black had never been talked about in the studio where I trained in California. I was just another dancer. When I moved to Manhattan, I first thought I was being singled out because I had trained for such a short period of time. But I was the only black girl. |
Patrik Henry Bass knows books, and ARISE provides a wonderful platform for him to share news on great new reads. ARISE Entertainment 360, is hosted by Lola Ogunnaike and Shannon LaNier, features the top news stories in entertainment, arts & culture pertinent to North America and the Caribbean. Based in New York City, guests from both the creative & business sides of the arts are interviewed live in their studio. |
Stunningly-attractive leading lady Nia Long returned to the big screen last fall in the highly-anticipated sequel The Best Man Holiday where she reunited with original cast mates Taye Diggs, Terrence Howard, Morris Chestnut and Harold Perrineau. Early last year, she joined the all-star cast of Showtime’s House of Lies alongside Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell. Here, Nia talks about co-starring as May in The Single Moms Club opposite her son Massai, as well as Amy Smart, Zulay Henao, Tyler Perry, Terry Crews, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Cocoa Brown. |
For decades, Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-Step programs have mandated that their members hide their identities, as if to suggest that there’s a reason to be ashamed about their disease. But according to first-time director Greg Williams, himself in long-term recovery from alcohol and drug abuse, former addicts would help remove the stigma by going public about their woes rather than remain in the shadows. The film makes a persuasive case that addiction is a disease deserving of as much empathy as AIDS or cancer. The problem is that the 12-Step approach of secretly declaring oneself powerless against booze, crack and the like, makes imbibing look more like a character flaw than an illness. |
Noah gets his marching orders from God, and the plot thickens when the steady drizzle develops into a never-ending downpour. Suddenly, his nosy neighbors no longer see constructing an ark as such a nutty idea anymore, and it’s going to take a miracle like an army of animatronic angels to keep the desperate hordes from climbing aboard. Meanwhile, a visibly-anguished Noah agonizes over what’s about to transpire, and consults his sage, berry-imbibing grandfather, Methuselah (Hopkins). But anticipatory survivor’s guilt ain’t about to alter God’s plan one iota. |
Carmichael and other civil rights activists advocated nonviolent measures, leading sit-ins, demonstrations, and voter registration efforts in the South that culminated with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Still, Carmichael chafed at the slow progress of the civil rights movement and responded with Black Power, a movement that urged blacks to turn the rhetoric of freedom into a reality through whatever means necessary. Marked by the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., a wave of urban race riots, and the rise of the anti-war movement, the late 1960s heralded a dramatic shift in the tone of civil rights. Carmichael became the revolutionary icon for this new racial and political landscape, helping to organize the original Black Panther Party in Alabama and joining the iconic Black Panther Party for Self Defense that would galvanize frustrated African Americans and ignite a backlash among white Americans and the mainstream media. |
Unchained Memories, was originally broadcast as an HBO documentary special in 2003. It is a riveting compilation of more than forty narratives drawn from interviews with former slaves conducted in the 1930s by the government?s Works Progress Administration. From slave auctions to emancipation, the narratives trace the extraordinary experiences of lives spent in slavery. The complete video is now available on YouTube. The book (shown) is an adaptation of the HBO series. |
Blood, Sweat & Payback (Cash Money Content, April 22, 2014) is the next installment in the Payback series from Power List and New York Times bestselling author Wahida Clark. Someone wants every member of the consortium dead, and they’ll stop at nothing to make that happen. Melodrama rules as Nick suspects Shan is still in love with Briggen even though she is with him. Janay has turned over a new lease on life but her ties to Crystal are always a challenge. Everyone is gunning for Dark and with The List in the hands of Cisco’s wife, Joy, Dark’s chances of taking over Detroit are threatened more than ever before. Everyone is fueled by fire and seeking the ultimate revenge. |
The 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse will jump-start your weight loss, increase your energy level, clear your mind, and improve your overall health. Made up of super-nutrients from leafy greens and fruits, green smoothies are filling and healthy and you will enjoy drinking them. In ten days, you can expect to lose weight, reduce cravings, clear your mind, and improve digestion. It is an experience that could change your life if you stick with it! This book provides a shopping list, recipes, and detailed instructions for the 10-day cleanse, along with suggestions for getting the best results. It also offers advice on how to continue to lose weight and maintain good health afterwards. |
Two novellas in one hot volume. Erotic City: Las Vegas from Pynk continues the story of Milan Kennedy, owner of the Erotic City chain of swingers clubs. While she deals with her ex-professional-boxer husband’s cheating ways, her new Las Vegas venue is the setting for a hit reality television series about the swinger lifestyle. The Ex Chronicles: Everything Changes by Carol Taylor continues the stories of four close friends as they navigate the rough waters of falling back into drama with ex-lovers, finding and keeping new lovers, and dealing with other scheming characters. |
Having hooked up with her boyfriend Ty the same night they met in a club, two years ago, Virtue now wants to put a hold on their sexual relationship, but she’s not sure how Ty will take it. Their relationship started with sex from day one so she is unsure of how to break the news to him. Erika, Virtue’s best friend from childhood, thinks Virtue’s stupid for wanting to force her man to quit having sex. She warns Virtue that she may push Ty into the arms and legs of another woman. While on her self-discovery, Virtue meets Terrance, a new confidant who is everything she wishes Ty would be: a Godly man for one. But she will find out that sometimes her will is not the best. |
Reduced Price, online registration extended until midnight Mar 26, 2014! Dr. Brenda Greene, Executive Director at the Center for Black Literature, and author and filmmaker Raquel Cepeda join host Sandra Bookman on ABC’s TV Program, Here and Now, to discuss the upcoming Twelfth National Black Writers Conference. I hope to see you this weekend. If you can’t attend this year?s conference the panel discussion will be recorded by C-SPAN2?s Book TV. AALBC.com will also be covering the event for Manhattan Neighborhood Network, Public Access Television Station, which broadcasts to Manhattan’s 1.5 million residents. |
The First Annual Sacramento Black Book Festival takes place June 6 - 8, 2014 at the Historic Center of Oak Park. The featured authors include Dr. Maulana Karenga, the creator of Kwanzaa; Victoria Rowell, actress on The Young and the Restless; Professor Eugene B. Redmond, author/editor of 25 volumes of poetry, Denise Nicholas, primarily know for starring in the TV sitcom, Room 222; Paul Carter Harrison, Obie award-winning playwright; Carlos Moore, biographer of Fela Kuti; and William Strickland founder of the Institute of the Black world a Black think tank. There will be over 80 other authors participating as well. Visit sacramentoblackbookfair.com for more information. |
A ghostwriter works with the writer to expand on the writer’s story, or nonfiction idea, to help the writer write the book in the writer’s authentic style and voice. A ghostwriter differs from a co-writer because the ghostwriter’s name does not appear on the cover. Ghostwriting can be a time-consuming and expensive endeavor. It is at least double an editing fee because we are writing the book for you and also editing it. But if you are committed to it and to working closely with an editor we can help you get your book written. Contact Edit 1st for all your manuscript editing needs. |
Promote Your Book for Only $49 for 31 Days! Your book cover will appear on AALBC.com’s homepage and the main page of our Books Section, for 31 consecutive days. Visitors, who click your book cover, may be sent to your website, directly to an online bookseller or anywhere you choose. The regular price for this service is $79. Act now; this deal is only available for a limited time. Buy more than one for multiple books or multiple periods. Download our marketing kit to learn more about AALBC.com: AALBC.com also offers sophisticated, highly visible, ad units which are usually only found on large corporate websites and unavailable on any website with our demographics. Learn more about our advertising options. |
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