NYC FireWalkers...Come Through!

Hey loved ones,
Just wanted to invite you to the panel I am speaking on at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies this coming Thursday. It would be really great to see you. And while the description they have below of our panel makes us all sound really smart and somewhat inaccessible...you should know that what I am really talking about it the hilarious and powerful poetics of angry letters by June Jordan to the editors of publications she wrote for.
Should be a good time!
Would love to see you there!
love always,
Alexis

Thursday, October 1
Rare Form: Crafting Queerness in Contemporary Literature

LGBTQ Panel Discussion

This panel explores contemporary queer literature and culture with an emphasis on form. Situating North American literary and theoretical texts in a diasporic frame, the panelists will analyze forms of literary expression through the generic lenses of language, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and race and will also consider richer and stranger forms of difference. One of the central questions raised and discussed will be: How do representations of difference impose formal restrictions upon or create new formal possibilities for a text? Taking up contemporary work on futurity, the body, motherhood, sovereignty, and visibility and voice, these presenters ask what difference it might make for contemporary queer studies to make questions of form and craft central.

Panelists: Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Ph.D. candidate, English, Africana Studies and Women's Studies, Duke University; Sarah Dowling, Ph.D. candidate, English, University of Pennsylvania; Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Ph.D. candidate, English, University of Pennsylvania

Moderator: Jennifer Williams, Assistant Professor of English, Michigan State University

Graduate Center
Room 9207
7-9 PM

3rd Annual In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project

Community Writing Intensive

Poetry. Hip Hop. Performance. Instead of Prisons.



Contact Ebony Noelle Golden
inthepeopleshands@gmail.com
www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
919.423.3780


Durham, NC—Oct. 1-4 artists from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, New York, and beyond will gather for the third annual Community Writing Intensive in Durham, NC at the New Horizons School and The People's Channel. This year's theme, "to p.i.m.c. w/ love", is a satirical take on the lack of justice the prison system practices towards people of color and poor people. Visit http://www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com to register and see full schedule of events.

Participants will engage poetry, media, hip hop theater, and music as tools for critically and creatively engaging community wellness, prison reform, the school to prison pipeline, and decreasing violence in local communities.

Nia Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "This program is absolutely necessary. Our path to freedom is informed by being able to articulate our stories, our visions, in our own words. SpiritHouse is dedicated to creating these intentional spaces for the entire community to dialogue, write, perform, and heal."

This year’s intensive features:

· Tuition-free workshops
· Workshops led by community poets and community organizers
· Travel Scholarships for commuters
· Youth-led workshops
· Writers-in-Residence
· Performance workshops
· Action-based community dialogue
. Manuscript workshops
. Open-Mic
. Virtual release of e-zine www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
. Establishing a community board of artists and writers in the rooted in the south east

The In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project is based on June Jordan's 15-year old "Poetry for the People" program. The program "continues to pursue Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a beloved community for all".

June Jordan crafted Poetry for the People with three guiding principles in mind:
1. That students will not take themselves seriously unless we who teach them, honor and respect them in every practical way that we can.
2. That words can change the world and save our lives.
3. That poetry is the highest art and the most exacting service devoted to our most serious, and our most imaginative, deployment of verbs and nouns on behalf of whatever and whoever we cherish.

For more information about June Jordan and Poetry for the People, visit www.poetryforthepeople.org.
This project is made possible by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the We Shall Overcome Fund, The People's Channel, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, and SpiritHouse-NC.

For more information about the intensive, to apply or to donate time, money, or services contact inthepeopleshands@gmail.com, or call Ebony Noelle Golden at 9194233780. To register for the intensive, visit http://inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com/registration.php.


-END-

3rd Annual In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project

Community Writing Intensive

Poetry. Hip Hop. Performance. Instead of Prisons.




Contact

Ebony Noelle Golden For Immediate Release 919.423.3780 www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
inthepeopleshands@gmail.com





Durham, NC—Oct. 1-4 artists from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, New York, and beyond will gather for the third annual Community Writing Intensive in Durham, NC at the New Horizons School and The People's Channel.


This year's theme, "to p.i.m.c. w/ love", is a satirical take on the lack of justice the prison system practices towards people of color and poor people. The intensive will engage poetry, media, hip hop theater, and music as tools for critically and creatively engaging community wellness, prison reform, the school to prison pipeline, and decreasing violence in local communities.

Nia Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "This program is so absolutely necessary. Our path to freedom is informed by being able to articulate our stories, our visions, in our own words. SpiritHouse is dedicated to creating these intentional spaces for the entire community to dialogue, write, perform, and heal."


This year’s intensive features:
· Tuition-free workshops
· Workshops led by community poets and community organizers
· Travel Scholarships for commuters
· Youth-led programs
· Writers-in-Residence
· Performance workshops
· Action-based community dialogue
. Manuscript workshops
. Open-Mic
. Virtual release of e-zine www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
. Establishing a community board of artists and writers in the rooted in the south east


The In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project is based on June Jordan's 15-year old "Poetry for the People" program. The program "continues to pursue Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a beloved community for all". June Jordan crafted Poetry for the People with three guiding principles in mind:

1. That students will not take themselves seriously unless we who teach them, honor and respect them in every practical way that we can.
2. That words can change the world and save our lives.
3. That poetry is the highest art and the most exacting service devoted to our most serious, and our most imaginative, deployment of verbs and nouns on behalf of whatever and whoever we cherish.

For more information about June Jordan and Poetry for the People, visit www.poetryforthepeople.org.

The Community Writing Intensive is sponsored by the We Shall Overcome Fund, The People's Channel, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, SpiritHouse-NC, and the North Carolina Humanities Council.

For more information about the intensive, to apply or to donate time, money, or services contact inthepeopleshands@gmail.com, or call Ebony Golden at 9194233780. To register for the intensive, visit http://inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com/registration.php.


-END-

3rd Annual In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project

Community Writing Intensive

Poetry. Hip Hop. Performance. Instead of Prisons.




Contact

Ebony Noelle Golden For Immediate Release 919.423.3780 www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
inthepeopleshands@gmail.com





Durham, NC—Oct. 1-4 artists from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, New York, and beyond will gather for the third annual Community Writing Intensive in Durham, NC at the New Horizons School and The People's Channel.


This year's theme, "to p.i.m.c. w/ love", is a satirical take on the lack of justice the prison system practices towards people of color and poor people. The intensive will engage poetry, media, hip hop theater, and music as tools for critically and creatively engaging community wellness, prison reform, the school to prison pipeline, and decreasing violence in local communities.

Nia Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "This program is so absolutely necessary. Our path to freedom is informed by being able to articulate our stories, our visions, in our own words. SpiritHouse is dedicated to creating these intentional spaces for the entire community to dialogue, write, perform, and heal."


This year’s intensive features:
· Tuition-free workshops
· Workshops led by community poets and community organizers
· Travel Scholarships for commuters
· Youth-led programs
· Writers-in-Residence
· Performance workshops
· Action-based community dialogue
. Manuscript workshops
. Open-Mic
. Virtual release of e-zine www.inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com
. Establishing a community board of artists and writers in the rooted in the south east


The In the People's Hands Arts and Activism Project is based on June Jordan's 15-year old "Poetry for the People" program. The program "continues to pursue Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a beloved community for all". June Jordan crafted Poetry for the People with three guiding principles in mind:

1. That students will not take themselves seriously unless we who teach them, honor and respect them in every practical way that we can.
2. That words can change the world and save our lives.
3. That poetry is the highest art and the most exacting service devoted to our most serious, and our most imaginative, deployment of verbs and nouns on behalf of whatever and whoever we cherish.

For more information about June Jordan and Poetry for the People, visit www.poetryforthepeople.org.

The Community Writing Intensive is sponsored by the We Shall Overcome Fund, The People's Channel, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative, SpiritHouse-NC, and the North Carolina Humanities Council.

For more information about the intensive, to apply or to donate time, money, or services contact inthepeopleshands@gmail.com, or call Ebony Golden at 9194233780. To register for the intensive, visit http://inthepeopleshands.synthasite.com/registration.php.


-END-

BrokenBeautiful: Fall in Love All Over Again!

Schools in! And your summer-lovin, nerdy quirky space for creation is exited to check out your new And you keep on keep on falling in love with the world we are making together! I know you are so ready to see what BrokenBeautiful Press is up to in this amazing season of transformation!

MobileHome Money!: Buy Lex and Julia this MobileHome for our traveling queer black intergenerational community documentation and education project! Read all about it and contribute via paypal if you can here! Also, all proceeds from the DVD and Lex's speaking circuit will go towards the sustainable media making love bug extreme!



Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind EVERYWHERE!!!: Spreading the gospel of black feminist possibility and legacy by every means necessary, the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind project has a multi-media life of it's own! In addition to the in-person study group (see more details below) Eternal Summer stays portable and interactive with the new

Eternal Summer PODCAST Series with amazing music, poetry and information! Scroll down or click here to download or listen to 1979 and Meditations on the Rainbow. I just recently got word that sistas in Kenya are using the podcasts for discussion sessions. You should too!

Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist MIND TV!!!! If you have the great sense to live in Durham, North Carolina you can get black feminist goodness right in your living room on Channel 18 Monday nights at 9pm!

AND the videos!

Eternal Summer DVD of black feminist educational videos (available on a sliding scale fee for use in your community or classroom.) Paypal a donation between $11-25 to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com for your copy. shipping included!)

AND the Black Feminist Poet/Speaker/Workshop Leader for hire!

This year Lex is using her best developed and most cherished skill-the art of the life-changing workshop-to raise funds to support her decision to spend the next year doing the MobileHomeComing an immersive intergenerational community documentation and education project based on her lust for back queer community! (It’s weird that somehow I have to be consistent with a choice to talk about myself in the third person here, but I want to interject in the first person to say that your support means everything to me and it is evidence of the fact that it is possible to be a community supported, community accountable scholar in the 21st Century. More details here!

Queer Renaissance Film Screening/B-day Bash Fundraiser: BrokenBeautiful Press is partnering with Queer Renaissance to create the party of the fall! On Saturday September 19th in Atlanta, GA we'll be screening Julia Wallace's film "Until" two Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind videos, a fashion line, music dancing, ties and more beautiful madness. For more details look at the event page here! The event is a fundraiser for intergenerational technology classes that Julia will be conducting in under-served communities in Atlanta.

Love Harder: Women of Color Working it Out

This is a reading group specifically designed for women of color in different communities to respond to the complicated matrix of oppressions that face us by loving each other even harder, with more intention, focus and specificity. We will be reading, gathering locally and posting our insights at www.loveharder.wordpress.com every season. Fall 2009 we are reading Andrea Smith’s essay about the three pillars of white supremacy. Comment on the blog or email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com if you want to participate!

The Summer Recap:

How amazing was our Summer!!??? Check it out!

Black Feminism Lives...ALL SUMMER LONG!

Combahee Lives!: All summer long the Combahee Survival initiative has been sparking conversation on the Quirky Black Girls discussion forums and the Combahee Survival Blog invoking the brave brilliance of the 1977 Black Lesbian Feminist Socialist Combahee River Collective with contribution and statements from contemporary movement genuises! And it don't stop! Join Quirky Black Girls or email brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com if you want to get weekly discussion prompts!

Eternal Summer Study Groups: This summer Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist mind grew wide and deep. With intimate session on Lex's porch in Durham we discussed the poetry of Audre Lorde and Nikky Finney and we kicked of the Eternal Summer Warrior film series with a documentary about Ida B. Wells (which we screened in honor of her birthday!)



Sistas in D.C., Ethiopia, Chicago, etc, have been doing local Eternal Summer sessions. Stay posted at www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com to see what's happening near you...or better yet...gather with folks in your own community and read along!

In MAY Lex spoke at the Caribbean Studies Association meeting in Kingston Jamaica and Lex and Julia of the BrokenBeautiful Press/Queer Renaissance MobileHomecoming Collabo attended the inaugural visioning session of the Caribbean Region component of the International Research Network, a clearing house for LGBTQQI activists, artists, scholars and community organizations in the Caribbean!



In JUNE the hotness of the annual Gemini Jam (replete with Gemini juice and love message posters and the sweet sounds of DJ Superfree) popped off in Atlanta.



And THEN Lex went to the AMAZING Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University in Virginia and had the honor of celebrating Lucille Clifton's birthday and her amazing body of poetry with some amazing poets and teachers (including Nikky Finney and Akasha Hull! AND in a very BrokenBeautiful way...her chosen family and community paid for her to go! Here is a link to the thank you video!



In JULY BrokenBeautiful Press was all over the Allied Media Conference in Detroit!



Shawty got Skills2Share was a space created by our beloved Cyberquilting Crew that encouraged Women of Color to learn skills from each other, from digital social networking, to quilting to video livestreaming to urban foraging.



The Cyberquilting/SPEAK/INCITE: Radical Women of Color Media Strategy Session was the jumpoff of a year of collaborativeworld changing initiatives (like the above mentioned LOVE HARDER) about to pop off in your local and cyber community!

See more pics from the AMC (taken by Moya Bailey) here!

In AUGUST the education working group of Bull City (Durham) Affiliate of Southerners on New Ground and the Queer Collective took an idea from Lex's kitchen table to the streets and created a grassroots guerilla film festival focusing on Queer People of Color in just over a week! Imagine Born in Flames, Paris is Burning and Flag Wars projected large as life on a wall in downtown Durham y'all! The fest also featured Lex's short video "So You Know" about black queer publishing!



And just now over Labor Day Weekend was the delicious delectable Queerky Black Girls Cookout in the middle of the Black Pride Exuberance!



in short...BEST SUMMER EVER!!!!!

also feel free to share amazing videos and pictures from your transformative summer. Email links and pics to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com and we'll post them here!

Happy to be falling in love with you all over again!

love,

lex

"Meditations on the Rainbow": Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Podcast II

Filled with great music...rare and priceless poetry from Sapphire all presented in that quirky, interactive, meditative, writing workshop-esque Eternal Summer style!

(this is a photo of the brilliant Sapphire...but this time it's actually Lex reading Sapphire's juicy poetic set)

This podcast is dedicated to all of us, but especially to Tyli'a Nana Boo Mack, a black transwoman made early ancestor in a brutal act of violence in Washington DC.

Get your pen and your paintbrush and listen here:

Eternal Summer Podcast Two!!!!

(If you listen to the end you'll hear Lex singing the blues!)

*Sapphire is not a particularly PG poet so this podcast is for grown folks and the folks they can be accountable for sharing it with.