Your Silence Will Not Protect You

Alice Walker

This lady said it:  "No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow".  

And remember what Audre Lorde said:  "Your silence will not protect you.  My silence will not protect me".  

Our stories have been buried, distorted and misrepresented for too long.  We need to know our history and we need to share it.  It's time to tell the truth. 

If you haven't done so yet, click here to download Why We Need to Heal now.  Make sure your share this with your networks.  And please leave your comments below.  

Aimé Césaire Centennial at the Schomburg

Aimé Césaire

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in NYC, in association with Columbia University and Medgar Evers College, will be holding a series of events to commemorate the life and work of Aimé Césaire at the centennial of his birth.  

Aimé Césaire was a noted writer, scholar and political leader from Martinique, who is credited with coining the term Negritude. Césaire is known as the father of Negritude.  

Negritude (which can be translated as "Blackness") was a Francophone African and Caribbean movement of the 1920s, '30s and '40s which stressed the importance of accepting and celebrating Blackness, and understanding Black history and culture.  


Césaire wrote poems, plays and a biography of Toussaint L'Ouverture, hero of the Haitian Revolution.  

Negritude was influenced by Langston Hughes and other writers of the Harlem Renaissance, most notably Claude McKay, another writer of Caribbean origin.  Other members of the Negritude movement included Franz Fanon, Algerian author of Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks.  

Events include a screening of A Voice for History, a film by Euzhan Palcy; a live stage performance of Césaire's classic work Notebook of a Return to My Native Land [in English]; and a performance and discussion of Césaire's  A Season in the Congo, which explores Patrice Lumumba's fight to free his country from Belgian colonial rule.  

For details, see:  Black History and Cultural Events.  

Blogging While Writing

The Schomburg Center presents:  Blogging While Writing

Thursday, July 19, 2012, 7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Are bloggers the new writers? Is there a difference between blogging and writing? 

Writer Jozen Cummings  (pictured left) (UntilIGetMarried.com) talks to Rembert Browne (grantland.com, 500daysasunder.wordpress.com) and Gene Demby (huffingtonpost.com/black-voices and postbourgie.com), to discuss their independent blogs, their work for mainstream media outlets, and how bloggers have become the voice of a generation. FREE! Registration recommended: www.schomburgcenter.eventbrite.com  or call (212) 491-2040. 

Click here for information about my ebook Secrets of the Black Bloggers. 

Click here for more Black history and cultural events. 

The National Black Writers' Conference: The Impact of Migration on Black Literature

The National Black Writers' Conference: The Impact of Migration in the Literature of Black Writers will be a discussion and book signing at the Schomburg with Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.

Click here for more details of the National Black Writers' Conference.

See also: Women's Jazz Festival at the Schomburg.

The Truth about Black Writers (3)

In More Black Success Volumes 7 and 9, Black writers spill the beans. They are very real about their writing and their writing process.

Nahisha McCoy’s novel Sweetest Revenge serves as a warning to young women not to let a man or a relationship dominate your life.

She says:

I began writing when I was in public school. I use to tell a lot of lies when I was younger and my Aunt Barbara (R.I.P) told me that I should be able to write stories because I have a huge imagination.

I wrote this book because I was a young woman who was going through a bad relationship. I didn’t have anyone that I could trust, or to talk to about what was going on and I felt like I was dying a slow and unloved death. I had to get what I was feeling out so I put it on paper.

To read more, click here to download your free copies of MBS 7 and 9.

See also: The Truth about Black Writers (2).

The Truth about Black Writers (2)

In More Black Success Volumes 7 and 9, Black writers spill the beans. They are very real about their writing and their writing process.

Antwan McClean’s book Your Greater Self: An A-Z Guide to Becoming the Person You Most Admire encourages people to fulfil their highest potential.

He says:

A former author and current PhD student advised me to "write from my heart". I was struggling with the issues of making certain that my book was marketable, catchy, and essentially everything to all people. He advised that the most part of any artistic expression is to remain true to your own voice. It changed my entire outlook.

To read more, click here to download your free copies of MBS 7 and 9.

See also: The Truth about Black Writers.

The Truth about Black Writers

In More Black Success Volumes 7 and 9, Black writers spill the beans about:

- how to come up with ideas
- what inspires them
- the problems they face as writers
- suggestions for new writers

and more.

They are very real about their writing and their writing process.

Allyson Campbell has written a number of books. Her novel Chained and Bound describes what it is like for a woman to survive an abusive relationship.

She says:

In writing Chained & Bound, I was inspired by the knowledge of ladies who are experiencing abuse of some sort. It was supposed to be a short story, but once I started to write, I couldn't stop.

To read more, click here to download your free copies of MBS 7 and 9.

Tag Your Book on Amazon

Getting tagged on Amazon can help you to attract more readers and more sales. This is free. To find out more, go to Tag My Book on Amazon. There, you can submit details of your book and ask others to tag it.

To tag my book, go to Success Strategies for Black People.

To read interviews with Black writers, click here for your free copy of More Black Success Volume 9. For more details, see Black Author Interviews.

Here's to your success!

Black Author Interviews

More Black Success Volume 9 is the second volume dedicated specifically to interviews with Black authors. The first was MBS7. Click here to get your free copies now.

Bobby Richardson’s novel The Neighborhood describes how a completely illiterate street thug transforms himself to become a respected and mega-successful businessman.

H.V. Lyons, author of Supernature, is inspired by classic science
fiction writers such as H. G. Wells.

Author of Poison Reality: a Symphony of Bittersweet, Nedyne Shorts Nettles creates true-to-life characters in realistic
situations.

In Transformations: Give up the Struggle, Renee Wiggins asks, what’s keeping you from reaching your full potential and becoming all that you can be?

Lots of the other volumes also contain interviews with Black authors. Click here for your free copies of More Black Success.

See also: New Black Author Interviews

Black Books I Have Tagged on Amazon

Please help me by tagging my book Success Strategies for Black People on Amazon.

Click here, then Scroll down the page until you come to “Tags Customers Associate with This Book” and click on “add your first tag”. Then add any tags you want to, or just click on the tags that are already there. You need to be signed in to Amazon to do this.

Or just type tt quickly and you can add tags or click on the ones on the screen.

Thanks very much for your help with this.

Here are some books I have recently tagged on Amazon:

Cotton Pickin' Paycheck by Joan E. Gosier

Joan and I will be presenting a new radio show starting in June. Stay tuned for more details.

Nubian Women of West Aswan by Anne M. Jennings

Click here for a video by the author.

How Ya Like Me Now! by Leslie A Morris

Chained and Bound by Allyson Campbell

Your Greater Self by Antwan McLean

Sweetest Revenge by Nahisha McCoy

Situations by Shawnta C. Richard

Please tag their books as well and help improve their Amazon rankings.

To read interviews with some of these authors, get your free copy of More Black Success Volumes 5 and 7.

See also: Books for Truth-Seekers.

New Black Author Interviews

I am particularly excited about the new More Black Success Volume 7. For the first time, I have devoted the entire volume to interviews with fiction and nonfiction authors.

Allyson Campbell has written a number of books. Her novel Chained and Bound describes what it is like for a woman to survive an abusive relationship.

Antwan McCLean's book Your Greater Self: An A-Z Guide to Becoming the Person You Most Admire encourages people to fulfil their highest potential.

Nahisha McCoy's novel Sweetest Revenge serves as a warning to young women not to let a man or a relationship dominate your life.

Plus loads of resources.

To get your free copy, go to More Black Success.

If you would like to be interviewed, or for more information, go to Books for Truth-Seekers.

Where Do You Get the Information You Need?

I have some questions for you. Please take a few moments to read this.

The most important questions I have are:

What do you need information about? What questions do you have? What problems are you facing in your business and your life?

Where do you get the information you need for your business?

To read more, see: The Best Content for Your Ebook.

To read my free ebooks, visit: Books for Truth-Seekers

If you would like to submit an article, please contact me at the email address on that page.

To read my articles, see:
Black Success
Achieve Fabulous Success

Here's to Your Success!

Black History: Telling Our Stories

October is Black History Month in the UK. For BHM events and resources, see Black History International.

In my recent interview with Loretta N. Green, we talked about the importance of telling our stories. Harriet Jacobs recorded her experiences in her book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and I have told her story in my choreopoem, Harriet. A film of Harriet will be shown as part of the BFM London Black Film Festival.

Click here to read more and hear more radio interviews.