Mel Hopkins

Sheets tremor as the phone left on the bed beckons attention.

I thought so too @Troy . When you click on the tag, however, it pulls up all the tagged discussions. Please share with me how to use the tag feature. I'd like to use the tags to include topical threads.

Most of those "advances" wouldn't even allow authors to work full-time on rewrites. The only difference between traditionally published and the independent authors is the brand name. smh

Get your copy of the Brand News Quarterly Newsletter featuring Build-A-Brand Basics for Bios on Social Networks and Beyond. In Brand News, you’ll get a sample of the topics we cover in the Build-A-Brand Workshop. And you’ll be able to write a bio that captures and grows an audience in real life, and on any social network. Go to the website now! Click the download button.

@Troy Congratulations! Overnight sensation more than 20 years in the making. I'm kidding. I congratulate you on staying the course. You don't just talk about you are about it and you were ready when the tide - scratch that, Tsunami hit! Bravo! Thank you!

@Troy us old-school Journalists believe in attribution. My copyeditor at EBONY was real old-school (she was writer/editor for Playboy back in the day) - and she checked every line of my 3800+words in those last two articles. If we couldn’t verify we took it out. All this to say, your information would have made it into the article - but unless the article was about aalbc - we wouldn’t have contacted you. We would have attributed to the article and publication we got the information. But thinking back on how she hazed me with those two articles. Never mind, Rema probably would have made me contact you! 😳😄

The Guardian newspaper (US) covers the plight of Marcus Books during the Coronavirus Pandemic in the article "Economic duress is nothing new': Can America's oldest black bookstore survive the pandemic?" by Andre' Wheeler dated Fri 15 May 2020 Wheeler references AALBC's black bookstores research in the article. "According to the African-American Literature Book Club, there were over 200 black-owned bookstores in the 90s. In 2019, the number was slightly over 120. " (Author's note: I also donate money to The Guardian )

Well, no more 'white'-washing the truth of the United States of America - coming to a bookstore in the UK and US, a book about the wrongfully imprisoned. HarperCollins Children's Books will publish Punching the Air, a YA novel about a black Muslim teen who is wrongfully sentenced to prison. (see link at the bottom) If this scenario seems familiar the book is co-authored by one of Exonerated Five, Dr Yusef Salaam, fomerly the Central Park five. The Young Adult book arrives on the shelves in September 2020 https://www.thebookseller.com/news/harpercollins-childrens-books-publish-ya-book-one-exonerated-five-1203387#

EBONY Website is back up. According to a few articles including The Root and Chicago Crusader - the Clear View Group owners they didn't mean to leave it offline for more than two days. Not sure what that means and neither article elaborated.

Marcus Books, the oldest black-owned bookstore in the San Francisco Bay Area, CA needs your help to preserve black history. Go Here for more information.

Marcus Books is in danger of closing its doors forever. That is, if it doesn't get funding. The San Francisco Bay Area bookstore billed as the oldest black-owned independent bookstore in the United States had to close its doors due to the Coronavirus pandemic. To cover ongoing operating expenses and costs, Folasade Adesanya set up a fundraiser in April - with a $200,000 goal. So far, the team has raised half and are reaching out for help to meet the goal. Drs. Raye and Julian Richardson founded Marcus Books in 1960 and named it after the freedom fighter and publisher Marcus Garvey. The Marcus Books family say in their appeal for funding, "At Marcus Books, "Black" is not a subject, a single month, or a niche; it is the universe. "Black" is not just history; it is the present and the future." To donate and preserve black history - visit gofundme.com "Marcus Books Anniversary Fundraiser" https://www.gofundme.com/f/marcus-books-anniversary-fundraiser

@Delano exactly! sadly, the non-thinkers along with "the indifferent" are the largest non-voting block in the U.S.

Welp. it's hard to save folks from "stupid." But I think I see from your perspective. Weren't you on the BTHS swim team too? If yes, that explains your position. For the rest of us, we are occasional swimmers and we know better than to try to save a drowning person. They'll take us under too.

@Troy "Like it or not, Google and Facebook are becoming the leading patrons of the news industry." Digiday, Max Willens, May 11, 2020

According to a press release dated May 10, 2020 Sovereign Noir Publications is celebrating the release of their debut Novella "Nothing but a Number" by Kayona Ebony Brown. It's the first in a series called "Of Music and Men." Sovereign Noir CEO Kameisha Jerae Hodge said of the new release, "Of Music and Men is a really dope series, both the novellas and the podcast, and it is very exciting to be a part of something that combines entrepreneurship, Black women’s perspectives, and the mindset of being a millennial in such a weird space and time. Kayona really captures the essence of presenting reality in a comedic and thoughtful way." The second in the series is also available for pre-sale on a pay-what-you-can basis at both sovereignnoir.com and ofmusicandmen.com . I made the mistake of listening to the first episode of the podcast and - Kayona's voice is soothing and hypnotizing. So be careful, if you listen, you might get hooked. https://www.sovereignnoir.com/about http://ofmusicandmen.com/