Monthly Archives: April 2012

Long Awaited Return by Award-winning Author and Activist, Robin G. White

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Boston, MA – April 24th, 2012 Award-winning author, Robin G. White will release her long awaited second collection of poetry, Reflections of a Life Well Spent (Sunset Pointe Press ISBN #978-0-9838208-0-2) on April 30th, 2012. The collection, which is the first release of her work since the award-winning (Georgia Author of the Year Award finalist, Chicago Literary Award winner) Resurrection: A Collection of Work was released over a decade ago.

The author turned publisher spent nine years focusing her inestimable talents publishing and promoting the works of other writers as one half of the Lambda Literary Award-winning publishing duo of Kings Crossing Publishing. White moved on to promote new works with her newly acquired Sunset Pointe Press of Clearwater, FL. The company works with new talent in the inspiration industry. Reflection of a Life Well Spent is a prime example of the company’s new line.

Reflections of a Life Well Spent focuses on an emotional three-year period of the author’s life following her through the end of her long-term relationship, break-up of her family, joblessness, homelessness, and the death of her birthparents shortly after finding them after a 40-plus year search. And while the reader may expect to find bitterness and despair among the pages, White expresses the numerous losses with candor and grace, arching each challenge with faith, love and a tremendous amount of hope. She dives into raw emotion, searching not for answers, but for the lessons that each challenge might bring. The poems become touchstones for her readers who relate to the themes of loss and resolution.

Much of the work in this book has been posted on Facebook and her blog, Omphaloskepsis by Bobbie, over the years, which has offered White a unique understanding of the moving quality of her prose-imbued poetry. Her slice of life and “this is what is happening in the moment” themes read like the diary that they are. Her love for family and friends, children and lovers are all present and are richly palpable on the page. It is enough to make you wonder what she is like in real life.

White expects to do readings and signings at the usual bookstore venues and will follow the award-winning path she took as a publisher with Kings Crossing Publishing by focusing on her inspiration niche. Personal appearances at trade shows, churches, book clubs and private parties will follow the release.

About the Author: Robin G. White is the award-winning author of Resurrection: A Collection of Work, Reflections of a Life Well Spent, Omphaloskepsis Guided Writing Journal, First Breath, When Love Departs and two pseudonymous authored children’s series. As one half of the duo of Kings Crossing Publishing, she won the award for best LGBT Independent Publisher from the Lambda Literary Foundation, was honored as an Astraea Foundation Poetry Judge, has won the Lisa C. Moore Poetry Prize from the Chicago Literary Foundation and was a Georgia Author of the Year Award Finalist for Resurrection. She was honored with an Urban Media Makers Award for her children’s television program, The Naptime Adventures of Princess Cynaya.

Her groundbreaking play, PantyLiners, was performed at Boston’s The Theater Offensive, and her poetry has been performed with the neo-soul, band Sweet Black Molasses. She was an original cast member of Boston’s famed, DKSG sharing the stage with Sandra Valls, Mia Anderson and Rajdulari Barnes. White has performed on numerous stages including Boston Gay Pride, Detroit’s Hotter Than July, Chicago’s Mountain Moving Coffeehouse, Provincetown Women of Color Weekend and as host of Atlanta Black Pride’s Speakfire. During her 30+ year career Robin has performed or read at hundreds of events, nightclubs, colleges and bookstores throughout the US including, Boston, New York, LA, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, DC, Philadelphia, Provincetown, Memphis, San Francisco and Palm Springs. Her work has been widely anthologized.

In addition to her writing, Robin is a longtime activist/artist. A founder of the Women’s group at BAGLY (Boston Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth), Robin began her social justice work at 15 appearing on television and radio shows speaking out about bullying and suicide among lgb youth. At 18 (in 1979) she was a Massachusetts delegate to the first National Conference on Lesbians and Gays, which began the first organization to produce a national agenda on Gay and Lesbian rights. In 1983 she co-hosted the first gay television news magazine, Gay Boston. Her work continued in theater (Ten Percent Revue, Doric Wilson’s Street Theater) and film (Two in Twenty: The Lesbian Soap Opera). She has been an outspoken advocate in Youth and Social Services and was a founding member of Good Company Theater of Atlanta under the direction of Rev. Dr. Shirlene Holmes. She also was a member of the organizing committee for the first Zuna Institute conference in Atlanta in 2000. She continues her activism through Sunset Pointe Press as a teacher and advocate for new writers.

Robin participates in multiple philanthropic endeavors including as a co-founder of We Can We Care, which supports and builds orphanages and schools in third world countries; founder of OneDayOneDollar, an artists’ organization which supports grassroots campaigns to fight hunger among children; and Sunset Pointe Press which will fund an annual scholarship for lgbtq teens.

She lives in her hometown of Boston, Massachusetts where she gratefully serves in the music ministry as a member of Unity in the City in Brookline.

For bookings contact company representative, Nathalie Hills at Nathalie@winnmarkpublishinggroup.com. For more information about the author, email info@robingwhite.com.

Reflections of a Life Well Spent is available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles, local bookstores and will be available via http://www.robingwhite.com and http://www.sunsetpointepress.com.

Call for Submissions: The Brown Grrlz Project

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FEMMEZ!!! WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR STORIEZ!!!!

The Brown Grrlz Project is a collective dedicated to the love/self-love, support and celebration of “femme of center”, queer, trans, cis or FAAB (Female Assigned At Birth), 2 spirit, intersex people of colour.

We will offer platforms for us to share in our experiences. We welcome submissions of your stories, articles, pictures, art and any means of which you would like to express yourself or your experiences as a femmes of center womyn of color. We’d love to hear from you, tell us how you do femme!!!

To submit or for more info, visit http://browngrrlz.com.

Follow @BrwnGrrlzProjct on Twitter, http://thebrownggrrlzproject.tumblr.com on tumblr, and like us on The Brown Grrlz Project on Facebook.

Have You Seen This: My Family! TV Commercial (LGBT Families!)

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Cheril N. Clarke, author of Intimate Chaos and Keesha & Her Two Moms Go Swimming, has produced with wife Monica a TV commercial for their My Family! Products, offering a wide range of children’s products for children of LGBT/same-sex families. This commercial makes history as the first TV commercial for children’s products geared toward children of LGBT parents! Watch it below.

To order items from My Family! Products, visit http://www.myfamilyproducts.net.

SOTS Books 2 Check Out – April 2012

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Looking for a good book? Here’s a round-up of a few novels you should check out (the titles in pink are linked to where you can purchase the book):

Bi-Curious 2: Life After Sadie – Natalie Weber
Natalie Weber takes you on another erotic ride to the bi-curious side! Serenity’s started a new life in Detroit after the death of her lover-turned-enemy, Sadie. She’s even begun a hot-and-heavy hetero relationship with a hood-smart restaurateur named Cass. But Serenity can’t deny the sexual satisfaction she can get only with a woman…so she sleeps with Cass’s sister, Heaven! And it’s goooood, so good…but she can only get so much Heaven before Cass finds out—or before someone from her past finds out. Soon, she’s ensnared in a scheme masterminded by the late Sadie’s murderous brother, Shawn P, and it seems like Heaven may not be so heavenly after all. When the stakes skyrocket to life and death, will bi-curiosity kill Serenity?

Even the Rain Was Crying – Juanese Brooker
After the Ku Klux Klan murders her father in 1950s South Carolina, Chancie and her mother, Clara, move to Hicks, Georgia, for a better life. Clara works for the Parsons, a well-to-do black family. For a while, Chancie believes her life will return to normal. But when Clara unexpectedly dies, Chancie soon discovers that she is alone-and the odds are stacked against her.

Her luck changes when the Parsons take her into their home. Chancie is fine for a while until her new family’s daughter, B.J., seduces her. Before long, domineering B.J. pulls Chancie into an abusive relationship by possessing and controlling her every move.

Seeking refuge, Chancie meets Cynthia and falls in love with the older, more experienced woman. Cynthia showers her with love and affection. Then a frightening pattern emerges as Cynthia begins to be abusive too.

Chancie’s future happiness is in jeopardy. Can she break the cycle of abuse before it’s too late?

Everything I Miss At Home – Dawn
What’s love when the world is at your fingertips? Crosse Point, Virginia’s most notorious residents come together in a race for love, money, and lust while doing every dirty trick in the book to win at any cost. The allure of power and respect turns personal and professional relationships into bartering tools for the next big score. Erin Powell, slick talking sales guru, Devyn McAllister, the clueless and vilified vixen, and angry former basketball star Nikki Brown throw caution to the wind to feed the needs they lack in Everything I Miss at Home, the debut novel from author Dawn Marbury. This page turning corporate sex thriller is a soap opera on steroids that somehow feels like real life. As the players succeed in making their wildest dreams into reality, reality returns with a vengeance in a karmatic tornado that simultaneously spares and destroys. C’est la vie.

Finding Us – T. Jurrette
Te’anna Marks is full figured, business savvy, sexy and smart. Dana Reynolds is quietly cool, laid back, and equally smart…and sexy. She knows what she does and doesn’t want out of life and is the go to person when you want results at the state attorney general’s office. Te’anna and Dana find love when they find each other. Although their union appears idyllic, ghosts from the past and present day solecism threatens their relationship and brings questions of loyalty to the surface. Will their love and careers survive attempts to compromise them?

GIRL (A Story For Every Les Being) – Christiana Harrell
Christiana’s first novel introduces you to the life of women who love women and sometimes men too. Studs, femmes, doms, pillow princesses, no labels, butches, FTMs, and bisexuals, meet them all between one cover as your eyes explore fictional stories that will make you laugh and cry, both at the same time. None of these ladies are the same, but there is one thing that that they all have in common, WOMEN! Heated arguments, fist fights in the club, closet cases, and passionate sex scenes fill these pages leaving nothing to the imagination. There is something for every lesbian that walks the earth, lonely or attached. This is just the beginning, keep your eyes open for more.

Indiscretions – Skyy
Indiscretions is a fast paced ride through the lives of the unfaithful and the ones who love them. Relationships are tested, hearts are broken, but revenge is sweet in these four short stories by Skyy – the author of the popular series, Choices, Consequences and Crossroads.

You can feel the storm coming in your bones, but after the hurricane only the strong will be left standing? When love is involved is there really such a thing as no strings attached? What do you do when you catch your mate with a person you also crave? And a man learns that he can’t have it all, or can he?

Take a seat and enjoy this steamy ride.

Inside Out (A Perri Stone novel) – Juin Charnell
Prison.

Rape, murder, and drug overdoses are normal. But not in one week. Can Perri Stone, prison investigator, find a connection before more inmates die needlessly? Will Perri use the prison incidents as an escape from the personal upheavals outside – threatening to break up her happy home?

It’s not easy working in a prison. But sometimes the prison on the outside can keep you from acting. Between the inside drama and the outside drama, Perri is missing the things she normally sees.

A Little Sumthin’ Sumthin’ – Imani True
When is the truth not true?

When it’s been a lie for twenty years!

Fatimah Briggs has thrown her whole self into a marriage that’s falling apart. Her husband cheats and he’s extremely violent.

But that’s not even the worst part.

Once Fatimah decides to start her new life, Malcolm has a plan to make the transition a living hell for her. And he’s going to enjoy every minute of it.

But he never counted on Fatimah getting help from her sexy new boss, Xiomara Stallworth, who wants to be so much more than just a boss.

All of this opens up a huge can of worms, forcing Fatimah to re-examine her life and interpret “a little sumthin sumthin” in ways that she never imagined.

A Little Sumthin’ Sumthin’ is a story about survival, finding inner strength, and accepting what is. It’s a tale of overcoming devastating heartbreak that makes you question yourself and everything that you once believed to be true.

Love, Lies and Basketball – Rita Rashad
Kendra Michael is now a professional basketball player with the WNBA. While her popularity as a professional basketball player grows, so does her ego–threatening her relationship with her lover, Simone. In the meantime, Pete, Kendra’s good buddy from back in the day is hiding a secret. What will become of Kendra and Simone’s relationship? Will Pete’s secret threaten his relationship with Kendra? Follow the story as love and friendship is truly put to the test. This is the sequel to Rashad’s Love At Half-Court. The third and final book in the trilogy, Love Don’t Cry, will be released summer 2012.

The Weight of the World – Renee Huggans
A lesbian erotica about La’Tischa Mitchell, a smart, full-figured, and independent black lesbian living in Washington, DC. She meets and falls in love with Kelly, a Brazillian hottie from the South. Their relationship goes through all types of highs and lows before coming to an end. That’s when La’Tischa stumbles upon her deep dark secret.

Live Chat With Fiona Zedde on April 13!

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Want to chat with author Fiona Zedde?

Come online and join author, Fiona Zedde, as she talks about the creation of her newest novella, Nightshade, and this new (for her) type of fiction. Bring your own questions and bring friends!

The live chat will be hosted on April 13 from 8-10 p.m on Facebook.

To read Nightshade before the event, get it at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble for your e-readers and check out the synopsis below:

Assassin, Bronwynne St. Just has a knack for finding trouble, usually in the form of a beautiful woman. After fulfilling a haunting contract on her sister’s childhood friend and former employee, she takes off for the Caribbean and business as usual; but danger waits for her in the most unexpected places.

With an endless appetite for luscious variety, Wynne courts danger and pleasure from all corners of the globe. But she must wrestle with her own demons as she trades kisses and blows with some of the deadliest women in the business. She’s been lucky in all her years in the game but will a young woman bent on revenge become her Achilles heel?

To check out more about the event, check out https://www.facebook.com/events/263956600353407/.