Troy

For immediate release Contact: Tara Brown 803-448-2698; publicitytara@aol.com Literary Festival Launches in Bluffton More Than Thirty Authors to Participate in the Inaugural Bluffton Book Festival Which Will Support Literacy and Bookselling Non-Profit Organizations The Festival Will Be Held on Calhoun Street in Historic Old Town Bluffton on Saturday, November 19th with a ticketed event held Friday, November 18th (Bluffton, SC – October 18, 2016) – When well-respected publishing industry veteran Rockelle Henderson moved from New York City to Bluffton, she instantly became enamored with the heart of the low country. Having spent more than 25 years crafting blockbuster marketing campaigns for national bestsellers that include “The Pursuit of Happyness,” “State of Fear;” the Pulitzer prize winning “The Known World,” and others, she traded in her time in the big city for a more relaxed change of pace. However, two things that she never left, and what never left her, was her love of all things literary; and her continued commitment to support worthwhile causes. Through her founding of the Bluffton Book Festival, she has found a way to perfectly blend together those two passions. The Bluffton Book Festival will spotlight, and bring awareness to local and national literary talent, who range from first time authors to those who are more prolific. A portion of the proceeds raised during the 2-day event will benefit two non-profit organizations: The Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) and The Literacy Center – both of which support literacy, education, reading, authors, bookselling and the publishing community as a whole. Kicking off the festival will be a VIP fundraiser on the evening of Friday, November 18th; and then on Saturday, November 19th, the public is invited to come out from 10:00am to 4:00pm to meet and hear from authors, and purchase signed copies of their books; to bring their children for story time and face painting; and to buy food and wares from local and regional vendors. Those in attendance will also have the chance to win books, vacations, and other prizes through various raffles. Among the literary talent scheduled to appear at the Bluffton Book Festival are International and New York Times bestselling authors Sarah Pekkanen, Denene Millner and Pulitzer Prize journalist Nick Chiles; as well as award-winning authors Stephanie Austin Edwards and William C. Walker. In addition, autographed books by film and television actors Eriq LaSalle (ER, Coming to America, Under the Dome); and Taraji P. Henson (Empire, Person of Interest, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) will also be available. Rockelle Henderson said, “I am excited to bring the Bluffton Book Festival to life. Books, reading, and all things related to such are near and dear to my heart. With the help of The Literacy Center, thousands of adults and children have been equipped with reading and writing skills; and through the Binc Foundation booksellers are provided with financial support for medical bills, domestic violence situations, and more. Their work help to pass on better futures to the next generation, and it is my honor to work with them. With participants attending from next door to 3,000 miles away, I’m looking forward to a great event, and meeting as many people as I can.” “The Literacy Center is excited to participate in the inaugural Bluffton Book Festival,” said Pam Wall, Executive Director of The Literacy Center. “We strongly believe that the ability to read opens many doors. Our Family Literacy 360 program is based on families reading together and the opportunity that provides to make families stronger. Reading is truly a gift!” "Binc is honored to be named as a benefactor of the first Bluffton Book Festival," said Executive Director, Pamela French. “The Festival aligns with our mission to strengthen the bookselling community and reinforces the importance of helping local businesses thrive. As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Binc Foundation and the thousands of booksellers who have been helped we greatly appreciate the support from the Bluffton community. And sincerely thank Rockelle Henderson for including us in this exciting event." For more information about the festival (#blufftonbookfest), including how to become a sponsor or an exhibitor, please visit www.blufftonbookfestival.com; or call 843-707-6409. About the Charities The Binc Foundation The Binc Foundation provides emergency financial assistance to booksellers in times of natural disaster, as in the cases of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the 2013 flooding in Colorado. The majority of assistance requests, however, are of a much more individual nature. Whether the need arises from a serious medical expense, domestic violence incident, threat of eviction, essential utility shut-off, or the unexpected loss of household income; Binc works with each bookseller to help get them through the current emergency and return their household to a state of financial equilibrium. The Literacy Center Our mission is to strengthen literacy in Beaufort County by providing people with the reading, writing, math and speaking skills to be successful in the community, workplace and family. We are proud to be Beaufort County's only nonprofit adult and family literacy organization, serving more than 600 students a year at eight sites.

Well Mel it feels like a lot longer :-) I'm pretty sure I have not seen Del in about ten years. He did some readings in my home for a group of people.... this had to have been in '06 or earlier.

Really? Do you think the average woman would prefer for her husband to have an affair, or make a crude remark about a woman? As far as discretions, both Bill and John seemed to lack that in spades given the very public nature of their affairs. And as far as the "cat fights" with the others, that is my point. If I lifted one of your barbs, out of context, and used it to say you hated all Black women, that would make no sense. But if the media constantly repeat the sound bite, while going viral on internet memes, you would just become a caricature, a distortion of who you really are. Now image how you would sound if you used the, "it was just a cat fight defense" to justify your comments. All your sanctimonious, self righteous critics would pile on an say how they would never say anything as vile as what you said to another Black woman, which the media would also repeat on constant loop. Do you see my point? Again, there is plenty of things which make Trump a poor presidential candidate. His comments about women is low on the list especially when you hold up the behavior of Clinton and Kennedy in comparison.

Man that is terrible story. I wonder why they were never charged. It could have been just a troubled young lady... but then again from the little I've heard. I've never heard Nate deny anything, even in the Interview, I just published with him all this was all he could manage to say in response to the question, What do you have to say about the incident? “I’ll say this. I’m 36 years-old, and my life has been a series of obstacles, a series of educating moments. As I said before, I’m trying to come as close to my faith as possible, and I see this journey as just that, a journey. I set out to make this film because I felt like it was written in my heart. And any obstacle that has come before or will come after I will have to deal with accordingly, with my faith. My hope is that people will see this film for what it is, and I also hope they will be able to see a bit of my heart and of what I’m striving to do with this film.”—Nate Parker

I don't view Bill Clinton, for example, any differently than I do Donald. One could very easily argue Bill Clinton is worse in the "dissing women" department. Since Hillary enabled, or at the very least tolerated, Bill's behavior I can only assume she was cool with it too. Besides Cynique, you have been called some pretty terrible things by Sara and Kola Boof. That does not make them sexist or racist... or does it? Should the things they wrote disqualify them from running for the POTUS, or would you consider other factors as well?

I'm sure you are right Cynique. But what was different about the people, or the circumstances in Montgomery that allowed the bus boycott to be initiated and succeed? People risked jobs and endured a great deal of inconvenience for over a year. There could have tolerated sitting in the back f the bus the way people tolerate making $10 and hour. You were a grown woman when it took place were people that much different then than now?

Man some things are better left to the imagination. One of the complaints I heard about this film was that there is no record of Turner's wife being raped. Author Roxane Gay says she is not seeing the film because of Nate's past as a rapist himself (I don't know the details of the accusations or charges). At the rate, I probably will not get a chance to catch the film in the theater, but I do want to see it.

Do men make lewd comments about women, sure. The phrase "I'd F-uck that." is a cliche, as is the cat calling construction worker. Jesse Jackson got caught saying he'd like to cut Obama's balls off. Do I need to quote any misogynistic rap lyrics for you? Yes, Cynique men make lewd comments about women, each other, everything. People say a lot of crazy sounding things. I'm sure someone with enough motivation could cull enough quotes from me, out of content, make me sound like a raving lunatic. Of all the things I have against Trump, this is way down on the list.

I don't want to suggest that acclaim by a broader audience isn't a worthy goal. But we can't place so much value on their acceptance that we feel diminished when they fail to recognize us. Nor can we afford marginalize the importance of celebrating ourselves.

SO you are saying the Black folks earning $10 an hour justifies enslaving people? That question might sound hyperbolic, but I mean it in all seriousness. To me that is like saying all the the enslaved african working in the big house, would lose their relative conform if we ended slavery. Well we don't need to take down the whole system, we just need to make it work better for more people. If Walmart were prevented from engaging in slavery, they would have to pay people for the work they do.

Cynique I have news for you it is the "best selling author or successful entrepreneur" who is LEAST likely to support and AALBC.com. Of course there are notable exceptions to this but the fact of the matter is that I survive thanks to the largess of individuals like yourself (and you done WAY more than you share to support AALBC.com). Rich authors don't need to buy ads from or otherwise directly support an AALBC.com. There are many reasons for this but I save that for a future post. But suffice it to say I get the support I need from folks like and Chris before I do from say a Toni Morrison or Walter Mosley... (this is not exactly true and here is why) @Cynique, do you think people in your personal sphere would recognize, or like your persona here? Do you think they would find her interesting? No one, as far as I know, from my personal world--even those in publishing, post here. Del and Mel are exceptions, but I have not seen either in a decade or longer. What we do here is an activity only a small percentage of the population can, will, or are interested it doing. This is why lurkers will always outnumber posters, that is just the nature of things.

When you say majority I assume you mean white folks. The fact of the matter is the folks our Black Monolith will need to rally against are a very small minority of folks. That technicality aside, there is no incentive for them to share anything. In fact, over the past 50 years they have increasingly shared less. The wealth disparity in the US. is off the freaking chain, comparable to the gilded age, worse than apartheid South Africa, and worse than most other industrialized nations. The Black Monolith does not have have to include all Black people in fact it does not need to include the majority of Black folks. We just need a critical mass of influencers, those with a platform to be on the same page. If we agree that Walmart, as an example, are engaged in slave labor (exploiting the free labor of incarcerated Black men), then we should be able to execute a boycott of Walmart. But right now many of our so called Black platforms are beholden to Walmart in the form of advertising, so they will not do anything to hurt an advertiser, even if they are enslaving other Black people.

At the moment I've decided to dedicate most of my resources to completing the web site upgrade and of course maintaining revenue generating activities, so I probably will not publish any new "free to the author" reviews until after the upgrade has been completed, early next year. But posting information about your book here was not a wasted effort. First, it does introduce your book to potential new readers. Second, an author who takes the time to post information about their book, in the fashion that you did, signals to me that this is someone serious about their work. This is why these are the only books I will consider reviewing. So even if your book is not reviewed, until next year, there is still a potential benefit to you. I know properly posting information about one's book here is a relatibvely low threshold to meet, but trust me, you'd be surprised a the caliber of requests I receive. You've demonstrated that you are already a cut above. I suspect your work reflects that as well. I am however continuing to publish commissioned book reviews. So if you want a book review published in 6 weeks or less. We have not stopped this service. You may learn more about it here: https://aalbc.com/reviews/reviewer_guidlines.htm#guaranteed

LOL. To be clear this is what I believe; we are all humans and race is a concept made up by racists. Blacks are not a monolith, any more than any other group, of more than a handful, of humans. Unfortunately, we live on a planet that marginalizes Black people. If we are to change this we have to work together, as if we were a monolith. Once we are treated was well as anyone else, we can go about our business doing our own thing.

Y'all know I don't do Facebook, but the way Facebook works you can't help but look at your wall. Facebook does a great job at showing me thing that would engage me, someones I can't resist, but most of the time I win the battle... Today I noticed a ton of arguing amongst the Black literati, you know the academics and writers of literature. Apparently some of them felt slighted over Bob Dylan winning a Nobel Prize—for literature no less. Much of the arguing centered around all the great Black talent that was surely overlooked in order to justify giving Dylan the award. It took a bit of restraint for me to not weigh in. I find it quite pathetic that we give europeans, so much power over defining who our important writers are. Yeah I know Dylan got $900K for the honor, but who gives a f-uck? If they honor our work fine, if not that is fine too. We define who is important to us not them.

Hi thanks again for the support. Sure I'm aware of Carl and actually shot video of her a few years ago:

Chris, expressing a fact or an idea that has negative implications does not make you negative. If that fact or idea is expressed to people who are unaware it, that actually makes you a positive. Yeah I guess the "crabs in the barrel" had to come from somewhere ans wasin't just pulled out of thin air. I just did not really see it in action myself until I started my business. Fortunatey there are enough people like you to allow AALBC.com survive. Like you, I try to help people and related business understand that by helping each other we help ourselves. I'm running another social media experient. I'm going to post photos of the top 100 bestselling authors on the site on social media This should be a point of pride for all of these authors, and should be a great selling point for their books for what are obvious reasons. I'm going to tag their photos on Facebook so that they will see the image. I will observe how many of the authors; Acknowledge the photo through a like or comment, Share the photo, and Use the accomplishment as a credential. For example by saying, "I'm a top 100 AALBC.com Bestselling Author." I know, from experience, the majority of authors will not take the first step, and virtually no one will take step number #3. #3 is actually the most important step, not just for AALBC.com but for everyone in the Black Book Ecosystem, because it acknowledges that we value and take pride our own institutions. This has been the Black book world's greatest failing. You see if the authors themselves say, "Hey I'm a top selling author on AALBC.com," this signals to the readers that they view it as an important accomplishment. If enough authors took this simple, and logical, step publishers, readers, and the media will take notice too. As Black owned institution are uplifted in the minds of the authors themselves the importance and our dependency upon european institutions for validation and acceptance becomes irrelevant.

I just started in earnest to begin the migration of all the older author pages to the website's new format, I've already done a bunch like Chris Burn's and Cynique's pages, but I still have over 700 more to do. Initially I'd planned to migrate the authors alphabetically, then I decided it would make much more sense to migrate them in order of prominence (and traffic), starting with the top selling authors. So I created a page which shows the top 100 bestselling authors. It is actually more than 100 because of ties, but all of these authors have made our bestseller's list at least 4 times. Right now there are 103 authors. I'm still working on the page, so I have not shared it with the outside public yet. There are actually a few more that have been excluded, like Willie Lynch (who never existed despite the book sales), and authors of European descent like E.L. James (who has plenty of platforms to celebrate her success). When I started the page I found the collection of photos displayed very compelling...beautiful if you ask me, so I decided to create of mosaic of the photos to be the default image of the 100 Bestselling author's page and to share via social media. It is just so interesting to me look at these photos. I took a good number of the shots myself over the years. I've met or interviewed most of the authors writers. I enjoyed many of their books, and some I will probably never read. Some have been super supportive of the website, others not so much. But at the end of the day I have sold a ton of their books--especially the top two rows of authors! These authors also skew to a period when Urban Fiction was the rage, which followed on the heals of the explosion of interest in Black literature. For example I don't sell as many of Zane's books as I used to, but because of the strength of sales of her books when Black literature was at it's peak, it seems unlikely anyone will ever pass her--she has made our bestsellers list 213 times! I actually uploaded this photo to Facebook, something have not done in close to a year. I did that so that I could tag all the authors, in the hope they will share the photo. I will create two more of these to include all 100+ authors and see which authors share the image.

Thanks fellas! I finished migrating all of the old book reviews, over 800 of 'em on Monday. It was pure drudgery , but I did get a chance to eliminate all the broken links to and improve the presentation of the book review and integrate them better with the rest of the websites content. Today I started migrating old author profiles to the new format. It is hard to estimate how long it will take but if I can get it done before thanksgiving I'll be happy. I started the current website upgrade almost exactly a year ago. Initially thought it would have about 6 months, it will take at least 18.

Chris I completely understand the difference between the two types of schools. I've sent kids to Syracuse University (SU) and The College of WIlliam and Mary (W&M), both schools have D1 football programs, both schools send athletes to the NFL. But the two program have insignificant differences: Tickets to an SU game can cost students over $100. Tickets to a W&M game are free for students. SU spends perhaps an order of magnitude more than W&M to maintain their program. SU, with there 50K seat domed arena, is analogous to a professional team in the region. I've seen high school with larger football stadiums than W&M's; W&M is more like an intramural program in comparison to SU. For these reasons and more I'll argue that W&M serves the Black student athlete better than SU, Yes, I'm talking about schools with the top programs. Because they have the best teams, are televised far more often, and are the programs most desired by high school athletes. I'm also talking about these school because they do the most damage, as the data shows. Yes! It is these schools, focused strongly on generating revenue, like an SU, that are the problems. I'm not talking about schools than don't give athletic scholarships, or run intramural programs, or don't otherwise exploit Black students. I'm not painting all college programs with the same broad brush. Can we draw that distinction here? I was a D1 athlete. I think athletics are great when it is not exploitive, as the top football programs in the country are. I prefer to use outside sources when looking at this subject. The NCAA's information is propaganda, generated to make itself look good--naturally. In fact Chris, you pointed out some differences in the way the NCAA tracks graduation rates. Of course this differences tend to make graduation rate look better and mask the problems I'm pointing out. But after reading what you wrote as far regarding the BCS schools, and they being the minor league for the NFL, I see we are on agreement for these programs. Players in the de facto minor leagues should be financially compensated--especially if they are not going to be educated. The Message Board This might sound like a jacked up thing to say, but if I depended upon the support of my family and friends for the success of this site, I would not have a business. But while I'm sure some of it is because of "hate," I think most of it is due to a simple lack of interest in Black literature or books in general. Now could more of my family and friends could go out their way to promote the site to those that might have an interest in the site's subject--even though they have no interest themselves, of course. Some do, but the vast majority don't. Are those that don;t haters? I dunno...maybe. Maybe they are just lazy. Some suggest that I should tell my family or friends, more frequently, or aggressively, what they need to do to support the site if they care anything about me. But making the that kind of appeal, to my family and friends, more than once, is not in my nature. @CDBurns how supportive of your businesses have you family and friends been? Do you find the kind of hate that you feel plagues me? FORTUNATELY, I do get a great deal of support from folks who I don't know, for from people I'm only acquainted with, or from people I've discovered through the site. You, Cynique, Pioneer and Harry, for example, have been for more supportive of this site than anyone outside my nuclear family. And you have all been for more supportive of this discussion forums than ANY of y family and friends. You still make these forums interesting, and by extension you help make the discussion forums possible--which benefits other writers and readers in ways Ihe may describe in more detail in another post. The ability to aggregate support from those outside the immediate influence of family and friends is what makes the web so powerful, and it sadly is a power we largely choose not to use.

Chris I'm not dwelling on the negative, I'm pointing it out. As you know much of what I do highlights the great many things Black folks have accomplished. I'm with you on your points #1 and #2, point #3 regarding solutions warrants deeper consideration. You can't develop a solution to fix something if aren't even aware anything is broken. I submit one of the main reasons things don't get better for most of us is that we simply don't know that something is wrong.. If we happen to know something is wrong, we have no clue what the causes are. Even after knowing there is a problem and what the causes are, people may still choose not to do anything about it because implementing a solution might be hard, uncomfortable, or require sacrifice... Like the problem of addressing global warming. If the victims of the lottery, tobacco companies, predatory lenders, college athletics, and the Huffington Post, don't recognize they are being victimized, then things can only get worse... much worse. Of course I recognize not everyone will die from cancer or heart disease from smoking but this fact does not make cigarette smoking a good thing. Now the NCAA, who is responsible for ensuring that Black boys continue to be victimized, is a propaganda machine, plain and simple. Chris a couple of studies have shown (I quoted figures in an earlier above) a far less rosy picture than what NCAA does. One of the conclusions of from the study I linked to says “Perhaps nowhere in higher education is the disenfranchisement of Black male students more insidious than in college athletics” So the fact of the matter is Black student athletes at the most desireable programs graduate at a lower rate than Black non-student athletes. Again, we can't even begin to deal with this problems without recognizing that there is indeed a problem. The fact that this is a serious problem shouldn't even be up for debate, but again most people are oblivious to what is going on.

This is definitely a subject visitors to this site find important. There is another title, The Tithing Hoax, which is the #4 all time bestselling book on this website--and this was without promotion. In fact, I discovered the book based upon sales alone.

I hear you Chris and I too celebrate our successes, but if we ignore the reality of how we are being exploited we will continue to be exploited. Black boys, among the top 25 BCS schools, are 3% their school's student bodies, but 60% of the football players. Only 1/2 of these students will gradate in 6 years. The figures at many HBCUs are far worse. I have only anecdotal data to support this but I suspect most of the degrees awarded do not serve these boys very well. We also know many of these students take no show classes; and are given degrees that are essentially worthless. Despite the propaganda the NCAA propagates. Meanwhile, these young men make millions for their "schools" and their coaches earn exorbitant salaries often taking home more than the school's chancellor. This is not a matter of seeing the glass half full or half empty. This is objectively a bad situation for black student athletes collectively, and this is how we have to treat it Anything less is a disservice. But I guess we enjoy rooting for our home team so much we really don't care about our own exploitation. I won't even go into the physical toll and brain damage many of these boys will suffer. A handful widely successful pros or a free "education," does not justify this exploitation. This is one reason students athletes must be paid for their service in additional to being properly educated. Again, this is no different than the argument I make against the huffington posts model of exploiting writers, or how Amazon, Google, and Facebook, lift content from wikipedia and use it for for profit--content that people have written for free. The real cost of this is everything we will loose as a result this exploitative environment dominated by a handful of corporations. The student athlete that would have graduated with a meaningful degree, the terrific website we will never see, or the great discussion forums that will never launch. We think what we have is good, but it could be so much better... especially for us.

Oh OK. I just did a search on this site for info on the Seminole Wars, and the only results point back to the conversations we had here. I did a quick search on Amazon for books on the subject and they all a appear to be written by white men. When I get a chance I'll research a good book on the subject and add it to the website. It is too important an aspect of Black history not to have a book on the subject here on the site.

OK, Facebook got me today. Every time I log in to Facebook to reply to responses to my posts, I see photos posted from several years ago; from a time when I actively shared personal shots on the platform, appear at the top of my wall. The two images below were there this morning: Both shots were taken in a brownstone (a large townhouse, attached on both sides) I owned in Harlem for about 10 years. During that time I hosted a number of events. I held film screenings in my backyard, a reading series called the Brownstone Series, and for over a year I hosted a photography exhibit. The image on the left is me giving a tour of the photo exhibit of Black writers. The image on the right was taken about 7 years ago, but it could have been taken 15 years ago or today. My morning routine is largely unchanged; a cup of coffee, the newspaper, and me parked behind the screen of a computer. I've sacrificed the brownstone, a well-paying corporate gig, to be able to run AALBC.com full time, so I don't host events now. Money from a good paying job, hosting events, and a big home are nice too but these would be sufficient to motivate me to dedicate the time and energy needed to run an AALBC.com. For the past year, I've probably put in 60 hours a week or more to upgrading the website. I would never have done this for a corporation. While I've had some interesting corporate gigs over the years, I've never cared enough about any of them to put in the amount of energy I put into AALBC.com. I know part of my motivation is freedom. Since I've been running AALBC.com I have pretty much-done anything I wanted to do. In recent years this has meant some financial pressures. But what is the alternative? To get another 9 to 5? One could make a good argument that would be a great idea and that I'm spoiled. No one has ever said that to me; it is an internal battle. The culture judges folks not by what they do, but how much money they have. Over the course of running AALBC.com, I've met many brilliant people who were close to being impoverished. I know brilliance is not a function of the amount of money one has amassed, but being part of the corporate world for over two decades, this is a mentality that I've fought hard get rid of over the years. I also know how much one makes is definitely not a function of the relative value they provide. Indeed many, particularly in financial services, cause great damage while reaping tremendous personal wealth. Still, people are judged on wealth regardless of how it was acquired. More importantly, money is also a source of power, without it, you can't accomplish much. Money has to be a function of what I do, but again it is not the driver. I also know I'm motivated by doing something that is positive for Black folks. I know some Black folks like to say, "Black people are not a monolith." To me, that person is trying to communicate that they are not part of larger Black community, that they are somehow different, better perhaps. Meanwhile Black owned business disappear and the opportunities for poor Black to escape their situation go the same route. Black folks have to be a monolith if we are ever going to do something for not just ourselves, but the most impoverished amongst us. Hmmm... all I intended to do was post a couple of photos and keep it moving, but looking at them conjures up these thoughts and more. If you've read this far thanks for indulging me.