National Black Writers Conference - Best Line up EVER!

[Troy]

The 17th National Black Writers Conference will take place in person at Medgar Evers College, CUNY (in Brooklyn, NY), March 20 - 23, 2024.   More than 50 Black writers, publishing executives, and literary activists will gather to discuss the triumphs and challenges facing Black writers today. Students, scholars, writers, readers, and literature enthusiasts of all ages and backgrounds are welcome. Visit www.CenterForBlackLiterature.org

Confirmed Writers At-A-Glance A.J. Verdelle, Ayana Mathis, Bernice McFadden, Bettina Love, Brenda M. Greene, Cheryl Hudson, Christopher Jackson, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Diane Richards, Donna Hill, Edwidge Danticat, Emily Raboteau, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Gloria J. Browne Marshall, Jacqueline Woodson, Jamia Wilson, Jasmine Claude Narcisse, Jason Reynolds, Jelani Cobb, Jennifer Baker, Kalisha Buchanan, Karen Hunter, Kevin Powell, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Kwame Dawes, Lisa Lucas, Marc Lamont Hill, Marita Golden, Maryemma Graham, Michael Eric Dyson, Pamela Newkirk, Patricia Spears Jones, Patricia Ramey, Patrick Dougher, Patrick Nganang, Paul Coates, Peniel E. Joseph, Percival Everett, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Regina Brooks, Renée Watson, Stéphanie Martelly, Thabiti Lewis, Tiya Miles, Tracy Sherrod, Victoria Christopher Murray, Wade Hudson, Wallace L. Ford II, W.B. Garvey, Wesley Lowery, Yahdon Israel, and others.

Download the Press Release HERE

Download the Program Schedule HERE

We Invite Members of the Working Press to Attend. Please Email Us Today for Media Registration Details. Click HERE.

[richardmurray]

Best line up ever, looks good to be honest:) is this the largest lineup in terms of quantity?

 I don't see your name or your box? 

[Troy]

@richardmurray  i’m not on the lineup year. I don’t think it’s the largest lineup. They generally have a lot of people speak and workshops, but there are quite a number of high profile accomplished people this year.
 

I’m still debating if I will attend. But if I was within driving distance I would not miss it. Honestly I can’t imagine anyone with the marginal interest and Black Book would miss it.

[gulshanm]

Wow, the National Black Writers Conference sounds incredible this year with such an impressive lineup! It's a shame you're not on it, but the high-profile speakers and workshops seem like a great opportunity. I'm still on the fence about attending, but if I were closer, I wouldn't hesitate. By the way, have you ever explored any sessions or discussions related to Emily Henry books? They might add another layer of depth to the event!

[Troy]

@gulshanm I was on the fence about sprucing your account. 

 

Why do you think Emily Henry would be surprised for the National black writers conference?

[richardmurray]

Day 1

Eric Dyson was fun, as in media. I argue he is funier. I think he pulls back as he knows the federal audience is mostly not black.

 

He described his youthful self as a "ten year old atheist nerd in the ghetto"

As I love libraries as well, my parents home is a library, I stand with him on the value of libraries.

 

His points about the selflessness of great black leaders in the past or how the government of the usa tried to subvert them with displaying personal information to various others while not assisting said black folks in alerting to white threats to them , should be well known but is simply true.

The shift as Dyson admitted from black advocacy to black government representatives has been messy. It's funny I saw a version of the robin hood story which took a lot from ivanhoe in my opinion. I do think that added with the immigrant populace post immigration act, the usa is having a mountain to climb to get these populaces all as one. To be honest, multitudes , no matter how many , eventually become one under any government if that government live long enough. Simply because the people eventually merge their own cultures together one by one. 

 

His point about older black leaders , like al sharpton who has a hair scenario close to washington the first president [though dyson admitted it is to honor james brown] being spoken to ill by younger black people who lack selflessness , sometimes in a major way [ he referred to some leaders of black lives matter using funds to get homes in parallel to younger black leaders not liking kings desire for silk underwear, though mk jr gave all his money to causes] is also well known or should be, but is a truth.

I have to admit I am lucky, but many of the black children I knew well offline growing up had similar parentage that didn't allow disrespect to black leaders or black elders in that way. Opposing strategy is an acceptable thing. Varying aesthetic is an acceptable thing. But rejecting based on aesthetic plus speaking ill while one does worse was not the way I Was raised. 

 

He reminded me of sharpton's quote,  about how black people who support non violence have to speak till to black violent actors because you can't say white people can't be violent but black people can if the goal is integration under an unbiased law for all, when Dyson said black people not voting cause things didn't go there way is the same as the january 6th from mostly whites.

As I have said many times. The Black populace in the usa, which is always under white pressure, has always had a problem handling its many paths. To restate , where do black nonviolent people condone black violence? The obvious answer is no where but when you have black people who have suffered at the hands of white power, telling said black people not to be violent issimply not going to lead to acceptance most of the time.  

 

He spoke honest to Trump's ills but explained his one meeting with trump and how congenial it was, regardless of trump's intentions or motives. But admitted he would vote for trump over haley cause people like haley actually believe what trump spews for advantage.

I think four years from now will be a time for change as four years from now, the Ocasio Cortez side the Haley's will be in the drivers seat and share an anticentrist stance that has a high chance of leading to violent friction

 

He spoke of how some black people relatively well known didn't think hillary clinton was any different than trump. Though he admitted the failure of hillary clinton wasn't in the popular vote but in the electoral college.

The electoral college system which is in the constitution is not accepted enough by people in the usa, even those who active in government advocacy. When Schrumpf won that was the electoral college working the way it is meant to. The point of the electoral college isn't to subvert the majority vote. It is designed to not allow simple majority calculations to dominate the presidency, who at heart is a position at the head of the usa military above all. If popular vote was to dominate, then all you need is new york/california/texas and maybe one other state and all other states can be and will be ignored. It is a myth that strict popular voting with the unevne distribution of populace in the usa will not lead to simple strategic realities.

 

He mentioned not enough local governmental interest by black people. 

In my own experience I think the past or present has soured many black people on local or state government. I never forget hearing a black woman say, she thinks the states need to go and just have federal law the whole way. Which when I think about it, while an extreme thing, a thing that will definitely lead to friction, has value.  Isn't the experience of black people in the usa one where all positives come from the federal level, none from the state or city level? I think at the least you can say the federal government of the usa from a black perspective has yielded positive fruit while states or cities yield much of nothing. If federal power is absent restrictions from smaller municipalities in the usa, then the long game strategies are gone but it does fit the reality of positive returns from government in the usa

 

I had a few questions to him but I didn't deliver in time, I wanted to wait till he was done to give them. But they had collected and presented already when he was finished and I was ready to give.

1) was MLK jr's anti fiscal capitalism that made him misread Black elected officials? 

2) is the trump base's inability to be swayed by someone like haley a good sign for the usa?

3) Is the black populace in the usa in modernity hyper federalist?

 

IN AMENDMENT

A side note. A black woman with lovely legs, she likes to show off, had on coffee stockings on and,  although she had on creamy crack hair in a sea of mostly black women with natural hair, was enjoying the event side her friend. The black man behind me for some reason couldn't hear Dyson or was bothered by their voices, which didn't bother me for a second. I heard Dyson side his host perfectly. As did most people. The man sitting behind them wasn't upset at their voice. So, my point is, if you are a black man, and if you like the way a certain black woman look or like to bother black women for the sake of it, stop or don't. 

If you want to get laid say you want to get laid, don't make up a false scenario of rudeness, just to get closer or hope to irritate to get black women to act negatively. 

The host side Dyson shouted out a black writer named Daryl Robinson but I failed to find his content on MSNBC. It was a reply to someone but I forgot it and didn't it write it down on my notes.

[Troy]

Sounds like the National Black Writers Conference is off to a great start. Thanks for sharing the coverage @richardmurray was it a full house?

[richardmurray]

my pleasure @Troy they had to let people sit in the side isles eventually. and the center isle is bigger than the two side isles combined. 

[richardmurray]

Day 2 part 1

 

Virtual Scholarly Presentations on Conference Theme

scholars : dionne bennett, levi catoe , russell nurick, 

hosted by thabdi lewis, jason hendrikson, lea byrd

levi catoe

• the literature accessed or utilized to children in school settings in the usa  maintains a phenotypical order with blacks under whites. He uses as an example phyllis wheatley. Oral history he suggest can be used to aid in strengthening the black vision of the history or times of the usa and offering a opposing parallel to the  literature in scholastic settings in school mentioned before.

 

He suggests black people are deemed against civilization but I argue, that it is better to say, the black populace in the usa born from the enslaved have usually to their own detriment pushed the combined populace in the usa to civilization in spite of white terror, maintaining black hate.  I wish he would had stated the destruction of the native american. The usa first pillar is the destruction of the native american to literally obtain their land,and delete their claim or at least the ability of them to claim with violence. But  all to often black people in their desire to be part of the usa or their belief in the usa myhtological destination don't mention  the native american because that sin of the usa is unrepairable. 

 

russell nurick

• focuses on bernice mcfadden  work sugar. Good point on sugar, its browner color and the processed white. and uses the bok to emphasize the strategy of getting others to think a way. And how it is pervasaive between phenotypical groups but also in each phenotypical group. He goes through how mcfadden uses pearl to speak on black women's view to themselves,their suffering in the usa locally plus the condition of the black populace on earth aside the white populace. 

 

I think many black viewers are not interested in viewing such graphic physical abuses, as in the book sugar. Same to octavia butler's 
kindred. Black people and white folk seem to be able to accept the physical violence of the past in the usa easier in book form than video form.The thing that is absent in many fictions by black people to fisctional persons is how they act like a punching bag to white violence, but never come to a violent rebuttal or an exodus plan. In the end these

 

Dionne Bennett

• The black populace literary exploration to black movements document the central role of Black people to making the usa what it is today.  Frederick Douglass, pernile joseph, angela davis she use as examples. The literary intellectual tradition is the foundation of usa's modern form. She wants to recenter black american literature as central to the path to the modern form of the usa. She echoes joseph's a goal of shared multiracial narrative to the genesis or identity of the usa's essence is needed to bring the usa to a place of functional unity among the demographs in the usa. Black literature has defined plus redefined the government of the usa and the liberational democracy is embedded in the literature of black writers and the destination of what the usa can be or needed to be for all benefit. She says anti inclusion anti multiversity anti equity is anti democracy or anti american. She uses Sojourney Truth's speech and the hardship of women in getting their voice heard in the battle for gender rights in the context of phenotypical battles and beyond.  Being a female warrior doesn't make her battle less than or her value less than black men or any one.  Frederick Douglass believed in the usa as the cornerstone of a united humanity through positive interworking or peace. Joseph says the laws to blacks from whites proves black humanity. Didn't know Angela Davis plus Condaleeza Rice both knew one of the four little girls annihilated by bombing in a church. She thinks Angela Davis is not credited enough. I concur. The intersectional of phenotype side gender is underrated as a factor in the legal structure of the usa. She also refers to Davis explanation of how the prison is the method to get rid of what people don't want to see. 

 

The majority of whites or majority of blacks never wanted the usa that the minority of black or white leaders have been able to guide the usa to be.  Garveyism had more adherent, working adherents than frederick douglass or booker t washington or web dubois or others, because most black people in the usa never liked the usa or whites and always wanted to kill the whites or the usa. the KKK is the largest organization post war between the states because most whites always wanted the usa to be a trick to the non white christian populace in humanity where non white christians are used for white christian empowerment in the usa eternally.  She is wrong, the rule of the people in the usa is centered on anti inclusion anti multiversity anti equity. The problem is the usa's form of the rule of the people is designed on one group dominating other groups. But a minority of blacks/whites/native americans  want the democracy of the usa to be centered on inclusion/equity/multiversity and speak on the democracy of the usa as if it already was, when it wasn't. Prisons since the war between the states is the way within the white populace originally and then black populace or modern immigrants populace get to not see the problems they don't want to see. 

 

Original Questions thought as listening

• Question : Levi Catoe, can the empowerment of the black populace in the usa in some way repair the earlier sin from the whites in the colonies or the  usa later toward the native american? 
• Question: Russell Nurick, What are your thoughts to most high end prostitutes in new orleans in its past stating a lie that they had partial black ancestry? 
• Question: Dionne Bennett, has the failure of black men in leadership positions to embrace black women as equals made the movement by blacks in modulating the usa's democractic form too slow? 

https://www.clascholars.org/

 

presented questions
Levi Catoe, will the native american populace be healed in the usa at the goal of the black populace  ?
[he answered the question, he speaks for both naturally]

 

Russell Nurick, what are your thoughts to whites lying about black ancestry in history, like prostitutes in old new orleans?
->I'd be curious to know what particular historical lies you are referring. If you care to elaborate. 
Russell, yes, in storyville in old new orleans, most high prostitutes were white absent any black ancestry, but many of them said they did because white customers had the myth of black sexuality embedded in them.
->Oh wow, I was not aware of that, but am disturbed, though not, surprised byit.
Russell , ah ok, take a look , that theme of advertised black sexuality side how white people commercialize it. 

 

Dionne Bennett, I view black music as poetry, I think you do as well, what needs to happen to get more to do so?

Dionne Bennett, Do most black leaders in modern usa embrace black women in their struggles equally, with equity?

Dionne Bennett, no group votes in high numbers all the time. how can a black populace that can't dictate who is elected on its vote alone protect  the DEI agenda if a white populace can vote for an elected official on its own that is opposed? 
 

[richardmurray]

Day 2 part 2

Tiya Miles in conversation with Brenda M. Greene < https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Brenda+M.+Greene >

Tiya Miles is the author of the book "The Cherokee Rose" about various Black people who find themselves on a reservation with a threat

https://aalbc.com/books/home.php?isbn13=9780593596425

https://aalbc.com/books/home.php?isbn13=9781324020875

GQ- Greene Question

MA- Miles Answer

My thoughts

 

GQ Why inspired plus brief synopsis?

MA Family of enslaved black women, a member sewed their story into a sack, based on a real sack. The sack was found by a white woman in nashville in a bin of things for twenty dollars. Signed by middleton. The middleton's are white people from england through barbados, still rich and have a foundation today. The white woman said she was given a vision to give the sack back to the plantation but she could had made more money if it was auctioned. Sack was on in the smithsonian now it is in the middleton foundation.

In my own home we have items of bloodline history that is uncommon. I wonder how many similar items have been destroyed or thrown away by black people since the end of the war between the states.

 

GQ What about embroidery?

MA It was viewed as a white woman's pastime. A symbol of high femininity by whites, in a phenotypically judged way, not for black women. Miles first saw the sack as an object but progressed two stages to see it as an art. She question the sack is back south. The item that is a symbol of a black bloodline leaving the south, escaping the south is not back in the south, charleston, on a plantation. The black bloodline fled to philadelphia to freedom with the sack originally. The Foundation now has a black middleton side white middleton reunion plus a scholarship for descended of enslaved.

Whites deem black women masculinized, as in unnaturally physically strong,  ala the black woman , who was a happy enslaved, hitting black men with a broom in birth of a nation. If you recall the scene she is so strong that she can successfully fight against a horde of black men, who never once harm her, fleeing from her broom. In parallel the imagery suggest a continued stupidity or physical weakness, femininized, in the black male populace.  The question is what is the true feeling and place of the southern states to DOSers in the black populace in the usae. I know a black man recently suggested the south should be a place of strength, regardless of its past. But I think it is fair to argue the south and the greater usa is a place of historic pain that black DOSers in the black populace in the usa have the right to choose to embrace. 

 

GQ Explain the process to write the book?

MA The sack was the best or primary source. The book was an unwise undertaking with so few sources. But she got help from an anthropologist. Mark LASTNAME. The Middleton foundation had assessed the material the sack was made of. She looked for a woman named Rose with a girl named Ashley. Rose was a popular name. While, ashley was a name given to white men mostly at that time. She found one ashley had connection to one rose in the region. She can never know what is on the mind of people living today so knowing the mind of people living in the past is farther off. But she used slave narratives to guide to the mindset Ashley or Rose might had. 

She was very lucky. The whole point of the recording history of enslavement by whites in the usa was to delete links to the past for black people living or in the future. That was the point. That is why I wonder why it is so hard to get black people in the usa or wherever we have been enslaved which is , everywhere on earth in the last three hundred years to keep a better genealogical or bloodline log to themselves.

 

GQ Why are relationships complicated between indigenous people side Blacks

MA American slavery. She wants slavery on the land commonly called the usa to be represented for the expansive institution it was and expansive mutating legacy it is. The lands of the usa are not everyone's they are indigenous lands. She focused in the book on south east indigenous nations and the slavery within them. The enslavement of blacks by native americans is complex. For example, a native american named Shoeboots purchased a black woman named Doll. Why is their story important? Cherokee law makers in the 1700s , not wanting to be classed  aside blacks by whites, made laws to disassociate black indigenous people  wholescale.  Shoeboots sisters embraced their nieces plus nephews from Doll but the larger indigenous community did not. She calls these American stories which are part of composite stories.

I have said it for a long time. The entire American continent , which includes the USA, is owned by the native american in my eyes. Now, some places like many islands in the caribbean have a completely deleted indigenous populace. But, every country that has an indigenous populace: USA/Canada/Brazil/Mexico/Venezuela/Peru plus most others have a living indigenous populace that in my mind is the proper owner of the countries land. And many Black people have told me offline or online how they oppose this position. But the truth is what they oppose. To accept the indigenous ownership of the land in the American continent is to reject the creation of a majority of the governments in the American continent and by rejecting said governments the logical next step is to ask where do the non indigenous in the american continent belong. And that question's answer ranges from overwhelming in function to terrifying in implementation for a majority of non-indigenous in the american continent. And all the talk about forebears or the laws value in determining the place of their descendants from white europeans, black dosers, willing immigrants legal or illegal are all dead in the water if you accept the truth that indigenous people of the american continent had their continent taken. So any government with indigenous has a majority non indigenous populace that is in modernity a functioning encroacher/pillager/defiler regardless of their mindset, until they leave the american continent and go back to a location of their descendants or themselves. And that migration by the non indigenous, in countries with indigenous people, to wherever they or their forebears came from is what is the most honest or truthful act that can occur in the american continent. And the lie against that act exposes the truth about most in the non indigenous in the american continent. 

The great Tecumseh asked indigenous people of the south east region to join him and they opposed. Tecumseh later died in the canadian forest fighting the usa. One of the many Indigenous side Black DOSer leaders whose goal was against the white populace in the usa or the british colonies that preceded it and the creation/growth/expansion of the USA, who were supported by the british militarily sometimes. The fact that said Indigenous or Black DOS leaders failed doesn't mean they were wrong or that their struggle should be deemed false. Like the Indigenous populace in the usa, the Black DOser populace once bereft of the leaders who fought against the whites with violence, or the usa at every iteration became populaces enslaved not merely physically but culturally to the usa. It is no accident that the modern indigenous or black dos populace in the usa are in majority USAphiles, Statianphiles, that is a result of the death of a majority of either of their populaces earliest leaders who were adamantly or strongly anti white plus anti usa and the following leadership by the appeasing or non violent, the fearful of whites who sheparded either populace successfully to the their modern forms. 

 

GQ Why the modern conflicts of who is black or who is indigenous

MA Native peoples in the usa have been stripped completely and have many false clones , false indigenous people of all phenotypes, modernly called identity theft, for centuries. The Shoeboots side Doll's descendants plus others are overly questioned by indigenous with that centuries old legacy. . But many enslaved descendants are treated as a subclass on reservations. A place in the oklahoma territory is named Nigger Hill where many people who are descended from formerly enslaved in the native american nations. The situation reached even a greater negativity at the end of the war between the states.  In her view the chrorkee have come the farthest in giving rights to descendants of enslaved. 

No answer satisfies all or insults none. This is the result again of a negative past with indigenous people or black dos that predates the creation of the usa and is really two unsettled blood feuds against whites. Why shouldn't Indigenous or Black DOS populaces mimic whites in the usa when the leadership of either populace that was truly against whites was long dead? Two populaces led by whitephiles for centuries are not going to arrive today absent a mimicry of white behavior.

 

GQ Talk about Cherokee Rose

MA She know someone who searched for indigenous roots and they were wrong in their assumption and felt embarrassed.  In the USA,  native american descendance is romanticized while Black DOS descendance is barbarized.

Yes and both of those views are not universal in creation but  from whites where the black dos or indigenous leaders aided or abetted in their own populaces.

 

GQ Talk about Wild Girls?

MA She made during the height of Covid. She talks of how Harriet Tubman was continually loaned as an enslaved girl, mercilessly. But Harriet TUbman said later in life, she felt her work in timber prepared her for the work to come.  She was the only female. She listened to the men, learned of water flow, what is edible. Tubman learned from being outside and changed the world. 

Love Harriest Tubman. A legend and I argue absent proof that Tubman wanted black people to go all the way to canada more but Frederick Douglass, one of those USAphile black leaders corralled black people to suffer in the usa even though if all the black people who escaped enslavement in the usa would had gone to nova scotia, history would be very different today in a positive way for black people in nova scotia and i argue throughout north america. USAphile black leaders insistence through centuries that black people suffer whites throughout the usa is the self inflicted wound. 

 

 

ANSWERS FROM AUDIENCE MEMBER QUESTIONS TO TIYA

Q - from audience

Tiya Answer- her reply

My thoughts

 

Q What is difference between history and fiction?

TA History means you don't need a plot. Many people in her offline life family, never read any of her books till she made a novel. Fiction has more room to find a way in. Invites people to feel. History makes arguments , doesn't have a built in promise to feel. This leads to two different audiences for fiction or history. 

Also the various populaces in the usa don't like the questions history poses to self. White people will say my family wanted betterment. But your family killed others, aided or abetted in harming others for that betterment. You forebears are heroes to you, while  tyrants to others you don't want to acknowledge. Cause that means the opportunity or advantage you have comes from that tyranny, and the ignorance they presented to the descendants is not the act of a hero but a coward to ashamed to admit what they are or are apart of. Black people will say our people built the usa. But our people hated every second of it, wishing only in their hear to have it deleted. And they were made worse by tricking themselves or their children into buying into a lie of ownership when they knew fully well they never owned the usa or had ownership in it. Indigenous people will say they love america. But your forebears  and the forebears of the cousins, the many more cousins who never got to be, were murdered by the usa and its predecessor. To love the usa is to forgive its murder of your own people, which either makes you a coward or a traitor. Immigrants will say, they came freely on their own with no desire to abuse. But only a self centered person will go to a new land absent knowing its true nature and then hide behind their individual greed or needs to warrant the move. You fled from your country instead of having the willingness/strength/daring to make it better for convenience to a land made by white europeans who were and are like yourself , and you call that a dream, while the heritage of the country you came to or the situation of the country you left you can't even acknowledge is a nightmare you aid in growing.

 

Q What about hand craft?

TA Experiencing what people make by hand is cherished. She took classes in college for sewing and her family loved the craft she made.

In the USA a culture of electronic crafting is growing at such a rate, in the usa non electronic hand craft will have a lessening, not deletion but lessening.

 

Q What steps should be taken to come together?

TA John Stewart , the english governor of carolina , pre USA, in his writings admitted you can't allow bindings of indigenous people with black dos. Later in the usa, circa seminole wars, blacks fleeing georgia were strengthening the union of black dos side indigenous so laws were made to put at odds by giving allowances in the white system for one while not the other. Examples exist of indigenous abuses toward blacks but it must be comprehended they are not everywhere throughout the indigenous lands in a comparable way to the abused to blacks throughout white european lands. In her personal experience, indigenous people easily accept those they know who are indigenous while black but the people who are unverifiable becomes frustrating as well as problematic for the same indigenous people.  After killing of George Floyd native american solidarity to blacks increased , not at the strength of the seminole movement in florida but stronger than recent past. 

The problem with labels is their misplacement. When I say indigenous, that is not a phenotypical label. that is about descendency. When I say Black that is a phenotypical label, it is about appearance. Connecting indigenous to white or non indigenous to black is where the errors come in. 

 

 

Q How to galvanize communities, bridge the gap? Her mother applied for a job as a nurse in the choctaw nation, saying she never embraced her indigenous roots. Her mother's experience was horrifying. She cried daily in tears. She herself identifies as black dos wholesale with no desire to claim her indigenous roots. What kind of conversation do we need to start having? 

TA She admits to things she will not speak publicly that occurred to her in montana.... she thinks sometimes we think their must be an affinity between indigenous side black. When she did research on indigenous people side black dos, she found the most binding heritage between the two people absent any near challenge is enslavement, the institution of slavery in the usa. The optimism of what should be accepted contradicts what happened in the past. But the fleeting stories can be inspiring or models.  The best examples of bonding are when both are under the heel. For example when indigenous plus blacks were both enslaved a communion existed but when indigenous enslavement was outlawed or banned the indigenous community in majority fled. When historical winds are negative people choose to flow away from such winds. But she says small communication is the best at the moment.  

A black lady behind me said they think they are white anyway. And she is correct, but it goes back to Tecumseh. A people whose leaders that love them while hate their enemies when they are murdered and replaced by those that love them while also love the enemy creates a choice of convenience that truthfully while sadfully has led to the growth of whitephile or usaphile quantities in the indigenous or black dos populaces who are empowered by whites or the usa with advantage over the remainder of their populaces. It is not that indigenous or black dos do not have many who want to be white but the why is inevitable with said leadership in an environment controlled by their historic enemy. 

Yes, for me, the seminole wars, all four phases, is the most positive union between the indigenous side black dos populaces in the usa. No moment has a more positive  union between indigenous or black people in north america and what is the situation. Both indigenous plus black dos are technically not in the USA but in spanish florida being given the right by the spanish to defend the lands as the spanish are impotent. Like the english before, or the french in some ways in louisiana, the white european continental powers gave situations that were far more favorable to indigenous or black people but the numbers of white european settlers and later statians was too great and overrun indigenous or black dos efforts through numbers.  But how can modern indigenous or black dos populaces in the usa mirror the seminoles, which is a word signifying a collective of peoples, not just one, in spanish florida in opposition to the usa while in the usa? Look at Tecumseh again. At the end, he died in canada but his goal was in the usa or the usa to be. It is hard being anti usa in the usa. and , at least historically though i think modernly, if you are anti white then you are anti usa in the usa. 

 

Q Have you felt blocked in creating?

TA She hasn't felt block but many scholars came before her. She has heard some scholars be formally discouraged cause the history may lead to a negative light.  She idd not go to the Tsalagi and get their blessing for her book. She knew a writer who found intermarriage  evidence between black dos side indigenous and Tsalagi told him to take it out and he did. She received negative communication from descendants of enslavers white or indigenous or others for the history she found wasn't what they knew or accepted or wanted as the main publicized or advertised narrative. But in her engagements she has never had people stay the same after discussing. When she started a native american scholar felt her book would destroy the native american populace but years later said she is thankful she wrote the book. 

Again, people in the usa, all phenotypes[black/white/mulatto/native], all descendencies [indigenous/european/african/asian/suth american/caribbean] have been bred on lies by those in the past in their own homes. Often with lies at the core of their relationship to the usa, or the whites to own it, and to disprove those lies is a bridge many are fearful of. 

 

Q How to transform the youth of today

TA  She feels a gap between herself and some members of her household.  Her best guess is to bring younger people in a dual directional project. To learn the language of the youth and speak the communities needs or elders concerns in said language while elders allow young voices to change themselves.  She admits, sadfully, she knows things  she wish she will see, she will never see in her lifetime, she wish she will. And, governmental policy matter and the things people make matter. The culture matters and move all of these things into the political realm. 

I think a faster question and answer, plus more interactive will help. The kids are used to more speed, less sitting while more interaction , less absorbing. It isn't that the kids can't sit or absorb but they prefer either of those actions to be accompanied by said other. 

 

IN AMENDMENT

Great Talk in my view, like the first day. Learned but a lot of truth. And wasn't a bad crowd to be fair. 

[Troy]

I have not had a chance to read this yet, but UII wanted you to know that I appreciate the coverage.  Since local media is missing and under resourced the events are not covered -- despite being newsworthy.

 

Your report bring to mind the "Reports from the Field" Kalamu ya Salaam used to publish on our events.

 

Here are The Reports from the Field of the 5th National Black Writers Conference by Kalamu ya Salaam (from April 2000).

 

If we don't preserve the story they never happened

[richardmurray]

oh thank you @Troy I wanted day 3 and 4 typed up by now, but I am racing against the clock for a contest. but by this end of week i hope ot have all four days in for reading leisure:)  thanks for the link. I will add it to my early dos literature group.

You look like you can be in the whispers back then:) cool

 

 

I didn't realize lawrence fishburne was a member of the whispers:)

 

 

[richardmurray]

Day 3

SUMMIT KEYNOTE A Conversation with the 2024 National Black Writers Conference Honorees Friday, March 22 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm Honorees

1-> Paul Coates  [ https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=W.+Paul+Coates ]  •

Percival Everett [ https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Percival+Everett ]

2->Peniel Joseph [  https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Peniel+E.+Joseph ] •

3->Bernice McFadden [  https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Bernice+L.+McFadden , https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Geneva+Holliday  ] 

M-> Moderator: Gloria J. Browne-Marshall [  https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Gloria+J.+Browne-Marshall ] 

Emcee: Wallace L. Ford, II

 

M Question

# Answer

My thoughts

 

M-> What writers you carry with you?

3-> Alice Walker then Toni Morrison

2-> CLR James Black Jacobins. Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, James Baldwin. Baldwin's ability to talk about history shaped him.

I carry Zora Neale Hurston with me. The black storytellers or griots or jaliyahs from ancestral times to know that carried the stories of anansi to high john. I carry the lyricists who made the negro spirituals to the pop music at the end of the 1900s. 

 

M-> What inspired you to do obscure?

1->Obscure connects the more well known. Malcolm X, Baldwin, but he followed Richard Wright more. He grew up with Richard Wright. Haki R. Madhubuti. Drusilla Dunjee Houston [ https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Drusilla+Dunjee+Houston] wrote a book in 1926 [[the wonderful ethiopians]]. She was just 26. Her book informed him on what it means to tell your own story. She was a witness to the attack of the black populace of Tulsa by the white populace of Tulsa. He said she said, she was happy she didn't have a son cause on that day she would had sent him to die. Doctor Ben.  Amy Jacques Garvey, it was she who recorded all of Marcus Garvey's stuff . When we read Garvey we are reading her. 

One thing I notice is when you write against audience expectations it doesn't lead to the path of money as a writer. Even if people praise a work, its uncommon setting styles or character definitions tend to push the potent commercial crowd away, for the identities common in the potent commercial space. 

 

M-> You say the first reconstruction was the exodus from the south and the second reconstruction is the 1960s but what was brought back from 1877 to 1960s to now?

2-> He goes against the commonly attributed timeline suggested for reconstruction. Two main factors come in. Dignity , which is god given. He thinks of IDa B Wells as exemplary of this. Citizenship- external form of dignity. From eighteen hundred and fifty four to eighteen hundred and sixty eight was the first reconstruction. From nineteen hundred and thirties to the nineteen hundred and seventies is the second reconstruction. From Barack Obama's presidency to now is the third reconstruction. From first to second to third the duality of dignity side citizenship is battled over or redefined. In the third reconstruction, we all count or no one counts. For him, the locus of Black art is with Lorraine Hansberry.  We are in it together.

For me, Slavery ,the enslavement of Black people by whites took several forms, each legally weaker than the prior, but none less potent or influential than the other, especially on black people. The first form, which was global, was direct white european imperialism, black people no matter where they were indigenous to: africa/asia/america [[as in continental usa from modern day canada to argentina]] were enslaved to whites living in the region of earth they lived in for the most part, barring rare exceptions. Siddi or Negrito in Asia, the city states along the coast of west africa as tributary states aiding in enslavement for arms which kept them protected from larger military entities like the hausa caliphate, who through the islam route enslaved as well. Black indigenous people, meaning indigenous people in the american continent who are phenotypically fitting the label black.  The second form in the usa, mirrored by the creation of governments after the end of direct white european rule in various places outside of europe, is blacks in the USA enslaved to whites in the usa. This form's key point is that governments were started with enslavement of blacks as a pillar of identity. You see this in south africa , australia, India, Brasil. or many others. This pillar was about generational wealth for white people, regardless of european ancestry. This is why you see mestizos or blancos in latin america who from the strictest anglo american view are not white statians, benefit from being white in the usa, no different than other white people.  The third form in the usa I will call the thirteenth amendment. In this form, slavery no longer is completely allowable or legal as in the prior two forms in the usa. In this form, slavery is allowable once incarcerated under the law. So in this form, even though black people were legally enslaveable before at the desire of whites,  the negative manipulation of black homes or populaces becomes the norm as an automatic strategy for the thirteenth amendment simply states that to continue the enslavement of blacks in the usa you have to legally bind the actions, regardless of legal quality. Slavery in the third phase is no longer a natural right for whites to impose on blacks, while slavery can be an aspect of a legally bound condition whites through the government impose on blacks. This is why violence was so expansive. The thirteenth amendment didn't change the heritage of white people, it simply forced white people to change from a culture of public pride as enslavers to the non white which made the black to non black relationship simple into public liars about all abuses to the non white using statistics or laws as the cover, which turned the relationship of black to non black complex. A complex relationship the black populace has never been able to handle internally well.   The fourth form is what I call the 1960s. This form is about deleting enslavement in the federal government of the usa, while allowing states or cities all controlled by whites to expand abuses to black people in states or cities. The third form isn't dead but mutated so that within the federal government alone in the usa, multiphenotypical peaceful coexistence can grow or become . This leads to more black elected officials. A huge growing presence of blacks in the usa military. Which can be deemed by peaceful integrationist as a positive, while in the cities or states, you have the white flight alongside urban plight which was cities supported by states, moving all wealth to where white people displaced themselves while placing black people in financially destitute city environments, void farmland or land ownership capabilities as well as local governments with enough whites to deny black governmental control or dominance, thus maintaining the urban plight. The fifth form is The End of the Old USA empire. The enslavement of blacks to whites went from under the british empire to under the declaration of independence to a province of illegality to planned obsolescence in the federal administrative apparatus to residual functions through the usa's administrations or organizations.  I argue reconstruction, meaning to build again for black DOSers can never happen in the usa cause the rebuilding to an enslaved people requires two things the usa can not give, physical freedom from the usa plus a commonly accepted idea from black people in the usa on what they want their future to be as a group or what they want reconstruction to lead to. 

 

M->To your book Sugar, it deals with an underclass of women, can you speak about that?

3-> She wrote Sugar 25 years ago and she was thinking about her family and wanted to know them more. She sneaked about and listened to their stories as a kid. We carry twelve generations of Deoxy ribo nucleic acid in our body. She wants to make ancestors proud.

 

M->You decide who will be published. What books do you think?

1->He was looking for his wife all night and glad he found her in the crowd. ... He wants to know more about the three reconstructions from Peniel Joseph's book. He wants to know about the periods.  Publishing for him is a way to resist. He doesn't have the luxury of thinking commercially. He has a different approach than Simon and Schuster. The first book he published predated the New Negro in time. He is focused today on black cookbooks which need to be republished. He has the responsibility to decide impact and right now it is obscure cookbooks

From Black newspapers to Black publishers to Black owned websites, Black owned avenues of information emission have always existed. But the problem is they never had the kind of financial support needed to be expansive in the black populace of writers or other artists. 

 

M-> What do you carry from cookbooks?

1->The way black people made good out of things that are no good . His father knew how to cook waste products . He will love to know where his father got that from. How do you build the nutrition when they say you are lower than dirt. 

Like Chitlins, which is the gut of the pig. Many people in modern humanity speak of recycling and yet, the ability to reuse waste is mostly in the Black Statian heritage which is disconnected from the methods or ways implemented by white statian firms who control the plans on recycling. 

 

M->Geneva Holiday is a pseudonym for Bernice McFadden. Why was she created and what does she carry?

3-> It took her ten years to sell her first novel , Sugar. Publishers were saying their was no audience for her work in 1998. She decided she would write a chick flick. From nineteen hundred and ninety nine to two thousand and three or two thousand and four she will write a different type of writing. She didn't want to confuse audience , not all who read Mcfadden love Holiday or vice verse. Holiday carries sexual liberation. 

 

M->The Stokely Carmichael definitive book you wrote?

2-> He met Kwame Toure at college before Toure's cancer. Toure asked him, what are you doing for our people's liberation. In his dissertation he thought to Toure.  He thinks Kwame Toure doesn't get the credit he deserves. After MLK jr + Malcolm , Toure is the leader. Toure lives in Africa and critiques USA imperialism everywhere. HE devoted ten years to write the biography and media turned the biography into the MLK/X show. As a teacher he knows students who know MLK/Malcolm/Ida B Wells /Fannie Lou Hamer but not Stokely. 

Well, I argue this is an internal black statian issue. Stokely showed he had garveyism in him, and was a segregationist. These two elements, leaving non black countries for black countries, or living in a Black country or a Black space in a non Black country was and is against many black adults in the usa in the mid to late nineteen hundred or still today. Many Black people parents or guardians in the usa speak to their children adopting the usa, embracing the usa or the whites in it. Kwame Toure was vocal in not doing that except under beneficial circumstances for black people. 

M-> What do you want your work to carry to readers , want readers to carry forth? 

3-> She didn't know in the Book of Harlan black people were in death camps in germany. She didn't know that and wonder why no one else around her knew. So learn and pass on knowledge. 

2-> The older he gets the more he comprehends Black folk have a lot of empathy. Ida B Wells for example had a deep profound love for Black people. He recalls a press conference where Malcolm was asked , what is his credentials, and Malcolm responds, his sincerity. To often we buy into denigration like the Moynihan report. It happens in churches as well . Good black people become mesmerized. 

Black Lives Matter was by three black women, showed what happened to Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, George Floyd , Breonna Taylor. To give dignity and by honoring them we honor ourselves. 

 

M-> Maybe if we talk more about our joy, it may help the young people. Brooks, you chose the black panthers for your skills then you chose The Black Panther Party to place into Howard. What do you want writers/researcher to carry out of the Black Party archive?  

1-> He realized coming out of the Black Panther party, Black folk talk too much. The rhetoric is no critique-able which helped carry that small movement, the black panthers for self defense. But, overall Black people talk too much and do too little otherwise. 

He wants a researcher to come with what Black Classic Press is, a catalog of resistance. Prescence African [[  https://www.presenceafricaine.com/ ]]  eh thought of as drum and spear. Presence African go itself from the Harlem Renaissance. Black Classic Press has documented that resistance. He listened to earlier speakers and no one used the term white supremacy. Stop talking about book bans, it is a system of white supremacy. Black people are attacked all over the world. In Black Classic Press it is only the Black presence in the USA but everywhere on Earth is a black presence and that global or holistic approach is the best way to battle white supremacy. 

Being nonviolent in a populace of people who want to be violent, have every reason to be violent, while guided by a more powerful populace beyond or a part of a populace within to be nonviolent tends to lead to a very talkative nature. Speaking against tends to become more potent or influential while other non violent actions repeatedly yield negative results. I will never forget a black woman who owns a house in texas, that her bloodline has owned since a time period nearest the end of the war between the states , telling how her great grand mother as head of her clan told two grand cousins who sought violent actions against whites to go to chicago. Now, people may say this saved their lives. But it also taught lessons and made problems. Two black people who wanted to use violence against non blacks who are attacking the home of their clan, are not being supported by their clan but told they have to leave to a white city devoid of black potency. What should the cousins think? Should they want to be active? why? They wanted to be active in texas and just to ensure stay alive were taken from a better place of black empowerment to a worse place of black empowerment by their own clan. I think Black people in the USA , especially DOSers make too little of what the path of nonviolence does to black people who are engaged. 

 

Question and Answer session 

Q->Question

# or M->Answer

My Thoughts

 

Q->Malcolm X was asked about what he thought about the noble peace prize, what was his answer?

2->Malcolm X said if he was the general of an army he would not accept a peace prize in a time of war. But he was asked the question alot, and asked it variantly. 

Malcolm always comprehended that being nonviolent living aside those who are violent to you is a dysfunction on the part of the nonviolent. Cause the violent can attack the nonviolent naturally. While the nonviolent can be abused naturally. PEace isn't always a positive. 

 

Q-> At his children's school they don't have a library but a tech center. How can we carry this knowledge to a generation that may not be reading it, how to build a bridge that can keep ?

3-> Everything begins at home. If I am reading a book the child will. You can't depend on outside influencers to guide what we want

M->We don't need a license. We have to take young people to the library. We can do things going back to midnight schools post war between the states and why would we expect schools run by the government in the usa to do that.

3-> He learned as a parent , that time or ability to not rely on school systems is a luxury. 

M->  One of her books is banned in florida and sometimes you have to go online to get some resources

2-> We introduce them to literature where they are at. He shows his students videos. What we do wrong sometimes is criticize young people for their way so the comparison is unfair between generations. This is not 1923. We have to meet them where their at. 

The home is correct but it must be said, over one hundred and fifty years since the end of the war between the states, it is telling that the Black  populace in the usa doesn't have in any city or town in the entire usa a publicly funded organization to maintain black heritage/history/culture absent  in that city robustly enough to demand all embrace it at some level who live in said city. 

 

Q->  How do you get out of Weeds of research ? What about a process?

3-> I probably shouldn't answer. She hears the challenge all the time. She doesn't struggle. The characters make it form.

2-> I struggled and I continue to struggle. In the last few years, he has been in the groove of writing every day . Chester himes said: "fighters fight and writers write". He stopped writing when he felt inspired. He learned from Amiri Baraka. Baraka is one of the most important artist that lived. Baraka said Max Roach said: "you have to put in the time". The great artist comprehend it is a labor, not a ditch digging but it is a labor. he teach students we are all a writer. You narrate your life every single day. The only thing preventing unleashing their literature is themselves. You are all brilliant writers as a memoirist and it is your story. So you need to think about the labor. It doesn't mean abandon your family, but if you do i t everyday you will have a manuscript after three hundred and sixty five days , and then you revise it. That is writing. 

 

Q-> I read the Sugar series. You go into graphic detail about abuse of black women. How did you tend to yourself writing that and what can I tell students who think it is trauma porn.

3-> When she has to reread she feel the emotion but when creating she doesn't . She inherited it from her mother. She regrets the term trauma porn is used. Slavery was not manufactured. Many young black people see the enslaved as slaves and that has to change. Many black people call our forebears slaves when they were enslaved. Free people whose freedom was taken from them. 

M-> I am doing a book, a history of activism, due in a week. She tells students if it becomes to much, walk around the block, watch something silly. She can compartmentalize. Remember, we are not being harmed, separate from this and gain from the courage of those survivors. Give the heroic experience from those who survived the respect it deserves. So have researchers not put themselves in peoples shoes but put their story and the responsibility of telling their story because the people they are writing made it where the modern can be. 

This goes back to one of the negative results of the nonviolent path the black populace in the usa has brewed for over one hundred and fifty years. When Black peoples homes generation after generation speak ill to violence, speak ill to anger, speak none to enslavement, speak none to white abuse, generation after generation supposedly to spare black children the deadly truth to their blood relationship to the country they live in, you allow for the growth of an anti violent culture, which is against black people themselves bringing up the truth, cause the truth is not mostly positive or pretty for black people in the usa. It may be unfortunate, but that is the truth. 

 

Q->  White liberals seem to eradicate the militant aspect of some leaders?

1-> The history isn't attacked because of militancy but a counter narrative against one whites have made. unless you tell your story the way whites want, your story is attacked, unless you tell it their way. It is not coincidental that wherever you see black people you see a white narrative, it has nothing to do with the variation of black people or how radical or not a black person is. We have to comprehend we are under assault from those who want to enslave all who are not them. A system of white supremacy, no matter what you, non white, are talking about. I don't know if Blacks, or nonwhites, or anyone we can unify around opposing the system of white supremacy. And, today white supremacy isn't the Klan coming down the road. 

2-> When you tell stories of Ida B Wells or Stokely or other Black leaders  people would delete elements from them. Malcolm was talking about Congo in the 1950s and 1960s. Pedagogical or university organizations would save what Malcolm said but would cut out Congo. Ida B Wells plsu Malcolm X remind us of this. Students ask me, what did Malcolm accomplish. They comprehend MLK jr and I answer, MAlcolm turned negroes into blacks. Toni Morrison  was a champion of this. When Toni Morrison replied to Charlie Rose who asked , where are the white people, and she replied, it isn't about you. 

I concur the larger issue is the non black oppressing the black. The complication is that modernity was reached with the less simple relationship of over one hundred and fifty years ago of non black enslaver, black enslaved. So you have interminglings of black side non black that are internally complicated and flexible enough to serve various actions. 

 

Q-> How to bridge generations?

3-> Have conversations with elders

2-> Share stories. Young people need to attack the redemption version of the usa and support the multiracial. Oral histories are more important than written histories. Maga got an oral story on January 6th , and emit that story through voting or violence. We must share our oral history with elders. Financial literacy , equitability.  Black wealthy haven't helped the community  back enough but doing that is not enough. Black people in the 1860s could had been president. Black people in the past could had been president. 

M-> A lot of young black people today have white friends. But that white friend don't have to like any other black people. The Tom Test . Do you pass it? Ten or fifteen years go before the black youth with white friends realize white powers negative affect in their lives , wasting years. 

I do think specificity may help also. Find the black people young to old who are similar minded. 

 

[richardmurray]

Day 4

1->Regina Brooks [  https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Regina+Brooks ] 

2->Karen Hunter [ https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Karen+Hunter  ]

3->Christopher Jackson

4->Lisa Lucas

5->Jamia Wilson [ https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Jamia+Wilson]

M->Moderator: Yahdon Israel

 

M Question

# Answer

My thoughts

 

M How to help writers publish ?

3 No normal production cycle, manuscript and editing and nine months o processing. Sales meeting, whose the audience, how to make audience visible 

1690 project was six or seven months in production. Intense editorial process

4 information sheet, sales conference people, sitting in a room discussing how to sell the book and they go around

The problem with many artist: musician/writers/illustrators is they ask how to help get published when publishing isn't the problem anymore in modernity, if you live under a government of power. A million online forums exist to publish audio/visual content for free. The question people want is how to lead to profit legally in a sure fire way and said way doesn't exist. You can research till eternity, research your industry till eternity, it will not guarantee a work become financially profitable. 

 

M How many books published? three million in total. Two million self published. One million by major publisher. People don't see the context of failure from success. To get a number 1 is hard.

2 She came in publishing pollyanna. She went to her first sales meeting, and is hyper competitive. Most of the people at the top of the masthead know  nothing about blacks. What most units of any book you sold

3 Three million 

The USA has circa 325 million people in total. one percent is three million.  The black populace in the usa is circa 47 million so one percent is 400,00.  The black populace of New York City is circa 1.7 million. So New York City has circa 4% of the black populace in the usa. So , if a black author, I am thinking of myself,  can get a quarter of the black populace in NYC. That isn't bad. 400,000 at the least is six figures and if your book is double figures we are talking a million. Not bad i say. 

 

M Somebody does a report , publishing is dominated by whites?

4 Nobody listens to me

2 Editors still feel the need to cater to white. you have to get clearance of publisher, so you need green light. But clearance is not on publishers. 

4 You need CEO's that are people of color to make it change. Hundreds came in three years  but none have left. We haven't changed retail , group cons, the bureaucracy of the industry is still mostly filled by whites.  

2 The success is by luck, Harry potter sat in some one's bin. You put money in. You get money back. Austerity, she brought in big names on the cheap. 

4 All skin folks ain't all kin folks. Celebrities of color have not been treated as white celebrities have. They put a lot of white ghost writers on them, not same per diem. But the basic mechanism are getting better. That changes the conversation. 

2 It is more complicated if the whites know charlemagne an d the black book ecosystem. 

1 Many industry elements are not consistent in the industry. How am*zon or Barnes and Nolbe compare to black book sellers. How to change?  Some is data. They d a lot of research and development. But But publishers do a lot of gut but doing more data lately. 

I have always said nothing is stronger than being an owner, in any industry. But the black populace in the usa, who in majority embrace nonviolence, are on a path of non ownership. You can't be an owner when the owner is already your enemy and you choose not to attack them. Working through the system doesn't work. The people who mostly own in the usa, didn't work through a system to become an owner. They murdered another, another being the native american. 

 

M With all acknowledged, what sustains you, keeps you going?

5 I love books. We love our people, we want to create opportunities. I envision my audience for my writers. Who might see themselves changed. I love a riddle of a book that presents challenges.  For "The black period" the details bring her joy. Calling people who have hardships and being able to tell them they are about to get alot of money. 

4 I like a good fight. Winning s possible. She sees many older generations. It is a cycle. We are proof it is a cycle. It isn't overnight work. I say " I am sick of these people"  She sees more people buying books. How many people have bought a book in a week? 

3 When Lisa was at the national book award she changed it from a national white book award. He mentions Yahdon.

2 I don't have Jamia's joy but feels optimistic. There are gatekeepers but if you have it can be published and have an audience. 

1  I am an eat what you kill as an agent. I am not salaried. We can all keep creating and doing new things. It is hard on poets but we will work with people. Audio book over text. More Black press. 

Loved ones offline keep me going physically, but mentally or spiritually, it is that I like to create . 

 

Question and Answer

 

Q Question

# or M  Answer

My thoughts

 

Q What do you do to relax?

1. She fishes, she loves to fish and fly her plane.

Playing pinball lately:) 

 

Q What is the myth or realities of AI publishing?

2 She want people to know as much about AI as possible. 

4 She is doing a book with an AI  writer combination

Modern computer power allows a unprecedented level of mimicry or imitation. And as time goes on computers will gain a stronger imitative ability to all arts. The question is the path to profitability will require imagination. 

 

Q She watches Karen on youtube, what is happening on black owned publishing?

2 Just U Books, she works with

M am*zon can sell cheaper but often we are asked to spend more cause they are black owned. I funnel black authors to independent sellers. Publishers is who we as consumers support, if you say support black and you are looking at your budget and you don't buy black you are talking sideways. We did an event , with an independent book seller. They made no record. No record was made to notify. How you run your bookstore as a business matters. In terms of sustainability we can publish books but if we don't know how to navigate it , it is sending a good signal through a bad device. 

I return to ownership. Black people in the usa are not historically an owning populace... they are an owned populace and the path of integration doesn't have a destination in ownership that blacks in the usa need, desperately.

 

Q You have a sea of black folk interested in literature. Is their a way to send work and not to the slush pile? What about story collectives? 

2 If they want to submit to me, if you say you were in the conference you can send it to her.

I tried but I didn't get or didn't see the reply

 

Q She just published an ebook, and she is overwhelmed . Her book is about vulnerability. And she hasn't received good feedback, and her history in NYC, and how you pitch?

M Publishing was best in 2020 but the two highest titles were back books and biographies.  96% of debut sold less than 500 copies. What people don't comprehend is it is a slow industry. You have to reconceive success. If you look at Toni Morrison's career you may say great but that is a career. Many writers put so much energy in a book that if it doesn't return they are spent. Every engagement or moment is part of the process. 

An artist told me a while back, if you stay in the game long enough money will come. Look at George r Martin, in all earnest. The wealth took so long, he is to old to finish the winds of winter.

 

Q [The questioner asked a question so long I lost track of it] What was the book that was great for you?

2 You need an editor

5 She broke into tears when a black woman, a stranger, recommended her book " mambo sauce" to her

 

At the end of the conference, it affirms what I have said in the past few years. Art has two sides, a creative side commercial. The creative part is free for all to do today, from your inner mind to being published. This means the quantity of published content is larger than ever in all fields. But the commercial now has an issue today. The quantity of oversaturation is so high , all artists need a way to get through it. to be viewed by a larger audience or attached to a larger audience. This is why publishing firms are still needed cause someone has to spend advertising dollars for your work to be seen by a larger audience if unattached, even if you are famous. The second is a group. Find something a group can be a part of,that fits your art. not simple but...