Tag: pbs

This Month in Black History – September

this-monthin-blackhistory

This month sped by so fast I almost missed this month’s history wrap up!

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September 5, 1859 – Harriet Wilson’s novel Our Nig is published

September 8, 1965 – Dorothy Dandridge found dead

September 8, 1986 – The Oprah Winfrey Show debut

September 9, 1739 – The Stono Rebellion, the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies prior to the American Revolution, occurs in South Carolina

September 10, 1963 – Schools in Alabama desegregated

September 11, 1977 – Roots wins 9 Emmy Awards

September 12, 1905 – Master Horseman John Ware is killed when his horse trips, crushing him and breaking his neck

September 12, 1913 – Jessie Owens is born

September 12, 1947 – Jackie Robinson named rookie of the year

September 13, 1885 – Alain Locke of the Harlem Renaissance is born

September 15, 1963 – The 16th Street Baptist Church is bombed in Birmingham Alabama leaving 4 little girls dead and one blind in one eye

September 15, 1978 – Muhammad Ali becomes the WBA Champ

September 16, 1794– The French Abolish Slavery. (Slavery is reinstituted under Napoleon in 1802 along with the reinstitution of the “Code noir”, prohibiting Blacks from entering French colonial territory or intermarrying with whites).

September 17, 1858 – Dred Scott dies of Tuberculosis 17 months after emancipation

September 18, 1850 – The Fugitive Slave Law is passed by Congress

September 18, 1919 – Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard is the first African American professional football player for a major team

September 18, 1970 – Jimi Hendrix dies in London (at the young age of 27)

September 20-24th 1830 – The First National Negro Convention met in Philadelphia

September 20, 1958 – Martin Luther King Jr. stabbed in the chest while signing copies of Stride Toward Freedom in Blumstein’s department store in Harlem

September 24, 1957 – Eisenhower orders the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock Arkansas to force desegregation at Little Rock Central High School

September 24, 1935 – Joe Louis defeats Max Baer at Yankee Stadium, Bronx New York

September 26, 1967 – Riots erupt in Tampa, FL after police shoot Martin Chambers, an unarmed  black teen

September 28, 1991 – Miles Davis dies

September 30, 1919 – Oct 1 –  The Elaine Race Riots (also known as The Elaine Massacre) occurs in the Elaine town of Phillips County Arkansas

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In Case You Missed It: This Month in History – August

Discover My Top 8 Historical Reads (That you’ve probably never read!) Get it Here.

Wait for Me

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Would you let me ribbon tie my waiting into your lap?
Take me dripping in mistakes like I got flaws for fragrance
Can you wait for me to get it right?
This belly
filled to the brim with passion
like I got fire clenched in my fists and a furnace in my throat
As if you’d just emerged from the safety of your mother’s womb
would you wait for me
to breathe life into your lungs
to breathe logic into your conscience?
Let kindness touch you gentle,
soft like pillow talk
or whispering prayers in a bowl of incense
Touch me endurance
and I’ll dip my hands into purpose
and feed you hope through a straw
So let the storms begin
let the winds blow
and the nations rage
let the heavens chop off pieces of ice for our tribulation
let hailstones come bungee jumping from the sky to put dents in our joy
and I promise you
if you wait for me
I’ll command my words to stitch you a smile
and in time
we will simmer tragedy
into the polished pillars
of diamonds in the ruff.

Wait for me.

The Ultimate Guide – Chapter 16

That first picture is funny lol. Great post. Post quote: “The author that thinks he can edit his own work has a fool for a client.”

Don Massenzio's avatarAuthor Don Massenzio

snobPhoto credit: www.businessesgrow.com

The Snobbery of Traditional Publishing

During a recent weekend, my seven year old daughter had an event with her dance group at a local street festival. As we walked around and looked at the various tables, we happened upon an author of children’s books who had some of her work displayed on a table. My daughter saw the books and we stopped at the table and listened to this friendly, grandmotherly figure tell us about her books.  They were based on the antics of her grandson and looked very nicely illustrated.

SPBHPhoto Credit: www.creativereview.co.uk

We were about to move on when my wife blurted out that I had written some novels.  The author’s first question was not about the genre or the titles. Her first question was, “who’s your publisher?” Before I could get the words DSM Publications (my initials are DSM) out of my mouth, my wife told…

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8 Ways to Avoid Stress

Woman laying in grass

  1. Take some time to sit quietly and appreciate everything that you have. Happiness is not in having more physical wealth but having less wants.
  1. Stop trying to change things that are beyond your control. Sometimes stress comes from not being able to alter those things outside of our control but trying to anyway. Stop that. You’re just going against the grain and you’re not going to win.
  1. Forgive yourself. If you make a mistake, get back up and forgive the less mature version of yourself who made it. Peace cannot exist around you if it does not first exist inside of you.
  1. Forgive those who hurt you the most. After you forgive yourself, forgive others. Instead of seeing what they did to cause you hurt, try and see them through the eyes of mercy. Sometimes people have been hurt and they pass that hurt on, try to see that. Look at them with the eyes of love instead of revenge. Excess pain is just baggage and in the words of Toni Morrison, “If you wanna fly, you gotta give up the stuff that weighs you down.”
  1. Learn to create balance in your life. Being busy is no excuse for surrendering your peace. We like to use the “I’m too busy” for everything but it just ends up being an excuse. Take breaks. Go on vacation. Date. Take some time to actually smell the flowers. In the words of Lena Horne, “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”
  1. In times of pressure, seek to be calm and centered instead of frustrated and angry. The calm person is the most productive person and makes the best decisions. Quick story. When I returned from a road trip last month, I thought I lost my USB or better yet, left it in Chicago, a 13 hour away drive from home. Upon realization that I’d lost the drive with all of my files and manuscript revisions (which I’d unwisely not saved anywhere else), I was actually too tired to worry about it! I literally put my worrying off. My exact words were, “I don’t have the energy to worry about this right now.” I didn’t even look for the drive. A few days went by and I knew that at some point I had to try and find it. Those things on that drive were very important after all. On the third or fourth day, I sat down in my chair and searched the place I last remembered it and found it. Just like that. By choosing to be calm and not worry instead of frenzied and out of control, I was capable of thinking clearly about where I’d last had it. I also learned a very valuable lesson. In remembering everything has a purpose, I understood that I should never save important files in just one spot.
  1. Don’t compare yourself to others, it’s the easiest way to fail. It is also the easiest way to cling to your fears. Sometimes you can be so sure something is for you until you look at how others are doing it, saying it, or have done or said it. Own what you know to be true and perfect being you. People don’t want to see how you can do something the same as others are doing it. They wanna see how you can do it differently.
  1. Speaking of comparisons, be true to yourself. Stop worrying about being accepted by others. This too can cause unnecessary stresses. Don’t dilute your light for something superficial. The light bulb may shine bright now, but it is in no comparison to the sun.

Meet a Book Reviewer

Wow, I’m truly honored! Special thank you to Linda for introducing me!

Linda G. Hill's avatar

I’m writing this quick post to introduce you all to Yecheilyah Ysrayl, a book review blogger, author, and all-round nice gal here on WordPress. It’s not just because she reviewed my novelette, All Good Stories, and gave it 5 stars, I’m writing about her because she gives great (and helpful) reviews. In a market so full, it’s hard to choose what to read, isn’t it? We really need reviews these days that go beyond the minimalistic, “I liked it,” to know what we’re investing our money in. Because money doesn’t grow on trees. Neither do books anymore, for that matter. (Sorry for the cheesy joke, I’ve been watching too much Stephen Colbert.)

If you’d like to check out Yecheilyah’s reviews, you can find a great example by clicking here. (Spoiler alert: it’s mine. It’s a really fantastic review!)

And even more importantly, if you’d like her to review YOUR…

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