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The Straight-UpTruth About The Down-Low: Women Share Their Stories of Betrayal, Pain and Survival
Joy Marie
Creative Wisdom Books; March 2008
$16.95 US; ISBN: 0981544328
Imagine . . . You have finally met Mr. Right. He’s handsome, sexy, charming, intelligent, articulate, and financially successful. He even portrays the role of an excellent father. He does not smoke, drink or use drugs and he has a decent credit history. You marry him and buy your dream house in the suburbs. Your children attend the best schools and you live in a wonderful neighborhood. You’re finally living the American dream, but one day you wake up and realize Your Prince Charming is really a lying Queen. You discover your husband is secretly sleeping with men. He is part of the secretive subculture known as the ‘down-low.’
The purpose of this book is to provide support and resources for the wives, lovers and families that have been victimized by homosexual men masquerading as straight.
This is not a book full of statistics, articles or scientific data. It was written by two women who have experienced the anguish and misery of being married to men on the down-low. They will share from the depths of their hearts, souls and minds as they tell their stories and the stories of other women who have lived through this experience. Contrary to the beliefs of some authors, there are telltale signs when a man is on the down-low. We will address those signs and answer many of your questions that have been ignored by other books written on the subject.
Purchase your copy of The Straight-Up Truth About The Down-Low by Joy Marie today!
Our celebration of National Poetry Month would not be complete if we did not include poetry — rhythms and rhymes – enjoyed by our youth! On Friday, March 7, 2008, “Behind the Book” held an all-day series of author visits with various classrooms at PS 274, in Brooklyn, NY.
So check out this delightful video with Tony Medina reading a poem about jazz from his book, Love to Langston, with 3rd graders!
Spotlight Book . . .
Love to Langston Tony Medina
Lee & Low Books, February 2002
$17.95 US; IBSN: 1584300418
Book Descripion
From one Harlem poet to another, Love to Langston is a tribute to one of America’s most talented and beloved poets, Langston Hughes. Written in the art form Hughes cherished most, this biography in verse captures glimpses of the poet’s world through his voice as author-poet Tony Medina imagines it.
Our celebration of National Poetry Month continues with us focusing on Ishmael Reed’s excellent poetry reading at LitQuake 2007 October 6 - 13!
Spotlight Book . . .
New and Collected Poems 1964-2006
Ishmael Reed
Da Capo Press, July 2007
$17.95 US; ISBN: 1568583419
Book Description
First poetry collection in nearly twenty years. In language that is pointed, innovative and profoundly optimistic, Reed weaves politics and war with Nigerian poetry and jazz all in the service of his continual redefinition of American culture.
This week’s In The Spotlight is about the - Princess of Black Poetry — Nikki Giovanni who recites her poem, “Tennesean by Birth,” for the Cumberland University’s June & Bill Heydel Fine Arts Center in Lebanon, Tennessee. Enjoy!
Spotlight Book . . .
Acolytes: Poems
by Nikki Giovanni
William Morrow
1580176712
$16.96 US; Hardcover
Acolytes presents 80 poems that embody the main element that propelled Giovanni’s emergence as a powerful voice during the Black Arts Movement: the drive to keep slavery, injustice, and the struggle for civil rights alive in America’s consciousness. For this, Giovanni has become an important cultural figure.
Our month long celebration of National Poetry Month continues! This week’s In The Spotlight is on Poet/Activist, Dr. Sonia Sanchez as she reads, “Our Vision Is Our Voice,” during Def Poetry Jam’s 5th season. Enjoy!
Spotlight Book . . .
Homegirls and Handgrenades
by Sonia Sanchez
White Pine Press
1893996808
$14.00 US; paperback
This new edition of Homegirls and Handgrenades draws together all Sanchez’s poems of the 1980’s including the original collections of Homegirls and Handgrenades and Under A Soprano Sky, containing some of her seminal work.
This month publishers, booksellers, libraries, literary organizations, schools and poets from around the country will come together to celebrate poetry and its vital role in American society. Without a doubt, poetry is an important form of literary expression in which words are used in a concentrated blend of sound and imagery to evoke emotions and responses from those who experience them. The freedom and creative expression poetry brings is very powerful and is one of the reasons why this particular literary form is so popular among RAP and hip-hop song writers today.
Each week this month we pay homage to poets past and present.
This week we feature Former U.S. Poet Laureate & Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove as she reads her prose poem, “Prose in a Small Space,” at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, March 2007. Enjoy!
Spotlight Book . . .
American Smooth: Poems
by Rita Dove
W. W. Norton
0393327442
$13.95, Paperback
Pulitzer Prize winner and poet laureate Rita Dove is a formidable writer, so one expects if not a brilliant, at least a compelling twelfth poetry collection, and she does not disappoint. American Smooth is aptly titled since the book is infused with dance rhythms, and swings between historical and personal portraits of various Americans, from the “Great War’s negro soldiers” to jazz musicians and a young girl from Harlem.
From Dusk to Dawn
Niambi Brown Davis
Parker Publishing, April 1, 2008
$10.95 US; ISBN: 1600430368
Hear Author Podcast
Book Description
Successful body products CEO, Ayo Montgomery, has her life on track. Her son is away at Annapolis, her business is flourishing and she is comfortable in her own skin despite the untimely death of her husband. She doesn’t know she’s missing something in her life until on a hot, August day she meets a younger man, Bilal Abdul-Salaam. Bilal Abdul-Salaam has been waiting for the right woman all his life, a woman he can love, cherish, have children with and grow old with. On a hot, August day he finds her, but she’s everything he didn’t expect. Ayo and Bilal are worlds apart. She’s Christian and he’s Muslim. She is ten years older than him and already had her family, and he is just wanting to start his. But both are overwhelmed by a smoldering attraction that refuses to acknowledge their differences. As they work their way through the obstacles of family and friends, they discover their love is strong enough, passionate enough and deep enough to make every sacrifice worth-while.
From Dusk to Dawn Book Trailer
Purchase your copy of From Dusk to Dawn by Niambi Davis today!
Running from Mercy Terra Little
Q-Boro Books, January 2008
$14.95 US; ISBN: 1933967374
Listen to Author Podcast
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Book Synopsis
Pam always said it would take an act of Congress to get her to go back home to Mercy, Georgia, but all that’s really called for is the death of her twin sister Paris. Suddenly she’s eating her words and sneaking back into town like a thief in the night, trying to lay low and not draw too much attention to herself.
When she left Mercy, she was an orphan with a wild and loose reputation that had as much truth to it as it did falsehood. Fast-forward eighteen years, and Pam is a celebrity recording artist with money to burn and a reputation for being curiously reclusive. Nothing about Mercy’s quiet tree-lined streets and old-fashioned way of life welcomes Pam home.
To her it isn’t just the dreary little town she grew up in; it’s also the place where she lived her worst nightmare. Like every other small town in the world, Mercy seems like a safe place to live, but Pam knows different. Things have changed, but then again they’ve remained the same, and the longer Pam stays in Mercy, the faster things spin out of control. The people she calls friends turn out to be her worst enemies, the people she considers family turn out to be wolves in sheep’s clothing, and the truth about the life she lives is exposed for the lie that it really is. Everyone wants to know why Pam ran from Mercy, and they’re about to find out…
The Straight-UpTruth About The Down-Low: Women Share Their Stories of Betrayal, Pain and Survival
Love to Langston
