brokenbeautiful press: interactive creationspace

Eternal Summer for Real: The BrokenBeautiful Press Spring Update!

2010-03-31T06:10:00.001-04:00

Greetings Brilliant Transformative Flowers in Bloom!!!!

It is SPRING at the Inspiration Station and we are discovering surprise perennials, witnessing the birth of dreams planted long ago and preparing the soil of our interconnected communities for the future. This update is to let you know how you can participate in the ecology of Broken Beautiful Press and our two major projects. The Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Eduational Series and the Queer Black MobileHomeComing Project. Bloom baby! BLOOM! (p.s. this is a long post...so click here to get directly to the info about self-directed artist residences @ the Inspiration Station and how to become an Eternal Summerian)

The Itinerant Professor: Sista Docta Lex

After 25 years of schooling with no breaks (whew!) Lex and her committee have affirmed her dissertation on the Queer Survival of Black Feminism (click to read the prologue)!!!! Hooray it is SUMMERTIME from now on! Lex is excited to bring her skills, knowledge, reverence, confidence and new swag to support the intellectual visions of educational institutions of all kinds, and community organizations and initiatives. Go to: http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/lexicon/ to learn about the residencies, workshops and lectures Lex is available for and set up a transformative educational tryst, longer term affair, repeated divine encounter etc with Dr. Lex!

(All proceeds from paid engagements go to support Lex's work on the MobileHomeComing Project and the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind.)

Lex and the MobileHomeComing Project are grateful for the support of Queers for Economic Justice, the Disabled Young People's Collective, Public Allies of Cincinnati, the SpiritHouse Choosing Sides Program at New Horizons Academy of Excellence, the American Studies Program at University of Texas-San Antonio, the Women in Learning and Living Program at University of Richmond, the Sexual Assault Task Force at Reed College, the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, the Women's Center and Multicultural Center at Duke University, Holton Community Center for hosting Lex as a speaker/workshop leader and for donating honoraria to the MobileHomeComing Project.

The Inspiration Station: Community Education in Action

: Loving the June Jordan Saturday Survival School!

This year so far the community educational experiences at the Inspiration Station have been over the top!

Queer Families in Durham played danced, created hallway murals and their own all-ages illustrated intergenerational stories based on the unpublished speeches and out-of-print children's books by June Jordan at the June Jordan Saturday Survival School!

Devoted Durhamites gathered on Sunday mornings to sing the praises and celebrate the words of Audre Lorde, Joseph Beam and Toni Cade Bambara during Queer Black Sunday School.

: School of Our Lorde Poets at the Audre Lorde B-day Celebration and Poetry Performance

And Durham's poets and educators (joined by distance learning crews from Chicago, Western Mass, Tuscaloosa, Cairo, Rio Grande Valley, and NYC) deepened the meaning of life with interactive exercises and engagement with the archival and published work of Audre Lorde in the Poetics and Pedagogy units of the School of Our Lorde!

: Chicago Participants participate on the School of Our Lorde Social Network!

AND our beautiful local community gathered for potlucks to discuss the work of the Salsa Soul Sisters... Here is the audio documentary we created over brunch (Carolyn and Harriet drop knowledge!)the short non-fiction of Maia Williams on the complexity of transnational solidary (with a special guest skype appearance from the esteemed author live and direct fromCairo) and the poetry of asha bandele (deepened by our visiting guest expert on women in prison and resistance: Vikki Law!)

Actualizing Abundance!

Participants in the educational programs and readers of the RAGE Edition of the Little Black (Feminist) Book Series from as far as Berlin, raised and donated $1, 531 towards the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Community School in just 2 months proving that our Beloved Community in Creation VALUES community accountable education.

Become a part of our community sustained educational movement in any of the following ways:

Get Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Educational Materials!!!!

1979: Transforming the Meaning of Survival

What does it take to survive a year like 1979?

This first podcast is about the year 1979 and how the world, and black feminism began and ended in some crucial ways that year. With the election of Ronald Reagan, the Boston Murders, the Atlanta Child Murders and the Greensboro Massacre all attacking the the lives, minds and spirits of black women 1979 was a crucial year. This podcast focuses on how Audre Lorde, Alexis DeVeaux, June Jordan and Barbara Smith reach(ed) across time and space to transform the meaning of survival. (And there is some good period appropriate and anachronistic music too!)

Be sure to put "1979 podcast and study guide" in the subject line with your donation

Meditate on the Rainbow: The Poetry of Sapphire

Filled with great music…rare and priceless poetry from Sapphire all presented in that quirky, interactive, meditative, writing workshop-esque Eternal Summer style! Based on Sapphire's out of print seven movement poem "Meditations on the Rainbow" this podcast moves us through the colors of resistance and trasnformation.

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 or your paintbrush and listen.

The study-guide brings Sapphire's poetic work into conversation with her book PUSH and the recent film Precious.

Be sure to write "Meditate on the Rainbow Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation!

In Your Hands: Mothering Ourselves

Because it takes a whole month to prepare for the day of the dead. Because some of us have to create eclectic Sunday morning rituals to hear our own truth. Because I want you to have this for when you need it. This podcast is based on letters from my black feminist ancestors, and the study guide will lead you through a process of communicating with and remembering insight from your own ancestors, spirit-guides and sheroes. For more about the “In Your Hands” project check out www.motherourselves.wordpress.com.

Be sure to put "In Your Hands Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation!

Be Bold Be Red: Legacies of Response to Gendered Violence

In October 2007 women of color came together and transformed terror on Halloween, declaring October 31st Be Bold Be Red Day, a day for women of color and allies to speak out against violence against women. And 30 years ago women of color came together to respond to violence in the same critical and poetic spirit.

Towards the world the we all deserve, fully transformed from the misogyny and internalized racism we face in popular music to the frightening expendability of the lives and bodies of women of color this podcast places the brave voices of women telling the truth about gendered violence over the remixed sounds of Miles Davis by Apple Juice Kid. With this piece which includes critical work on the work of the Combahee River Collective, and Toni Morrison's Sula we take every sound back, starting with our own voices and the background that seeks to silence them.

Listen with your community, your class, your friends, your study group, your church, your crew, pass the link on or listen by yourself and see, hear and wear red.

Be sure to put "Be Bold Be Red" podcast in the subject line with your donation of $15 or more :)

A Revolutionary Act...: On the Legacy of Joseph Beam

In honor of this brilliant Black Gay literary genius ancestor and and the fact that both In the Life and Brother to Brother are back in print thanks to RedBone Press this podcast includes readings and reflections from Lisa Moore of RedBone Press, La Marr Jurelle, Darnell Moore, Justin Smith and a round the kitchen table conversation with some of Durham’s most inspiring Black queer visionary men: Ashon Crawley, Sendolo Diaminah, Thaddeaus Edwards and Justin Robinson. (Plus music, love and archival goodies from an ancestor obsessed devotee who you know much too well Informed by archival research in the Schomburg Black Gay and Lesbian Archive, this conversation will be particularly useful as you honor Black Gay History Herstory and discuss the transformative possibility of LOVE in queer community across gender.

Be sure to put "Joseph Beam Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line of your donation of $15 or more!

Anger is Useful!: On the Poetics of Rage

Who’s afraid of the Angry Black Woman? Well BE AFRAID because Angry Black Women are speaking our minds and transforming the world in the service of our vision. Oppression beware the well-directed rage of Black feminism!

Enter the ANGRY BLACK WOMAN edition of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Podcast Series! As always, we start with the brilliance of our ancestors…informed by Audre Lorde's essay "Uses of Anger," meditating on the poetic of rage in June Jordan’s angry letters to racist editors and including reflections from Nia Wilson, Mai’a Williams, Moya Bailey, Daria Bannerman and the young visionaries at New Horizon’s Alternative School…plus as always music that rocks (including a track from the genuis Jon Anonymous project by Durham’s own Shirlette Ammons!)

Be sure to write "Angry Black Woman Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation of $15 or more!

"Coming Home": The Legacy of the Salsa Soul Sisters

“because they were coming home.”-Carolyn Grey

On Saturday January 30th Harriet Alston and Carolyn Grey brought decades of memories and a Linda Tillery album that Harriet had spent days digitizing through the rare (and unplowed) North Carolina Snow to have a conversation with eager listeners at the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Potluck about their time in the Salsa Soul Sisters and the lessons they learned about building community. Use this podcast as a precedent to your own community building projects or to recontextualize the history of Black feminist, 3rd World Women's and lesbian feminist organizations in the 1970's.

Be sure to write "Salsa Soul Audio Documentary and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation of $15 or more!

On Cancer and Survival: In Honor of June Jordan, Audre Lorde and Andria Hall

Cancer is a major factor in the lived experience of Black Feminist herstory and legacies. How do we understand survival, the body, love and relationships as we survive and lose our loved ones to cancer? This podcast includes the voices of survivors of cancer, and those who have survived their loved ones. Investigating how life continues and how we can center our wellness, this podcast is memorial and salve, and a call of communication across every boundary, even our understandings of life and death.

Be sure to write "Cancer and Survival Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation of $15 or more.

"The Best Way to Do it is to Do it": The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara

In honor of Toni Cade Bambara’s 71st Birthday we present a podcast full of reflections, laughter, poetry, music and LOVE for the brilliant sister warrior mother writer, dancer, filmmaker, screenplay transformer, community organizer Toni Cade Bambara!

I created this podcast with much inspiration from Cheryll Y. Greene and with the priceless collaboration and words of Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Cara Page, Linda Janet Holmes, Kai Lumumba Barrow and Nikky Finney. Contextualize your day with the brilliant insights of these women and listen to music from Sarah Vaughn, King Pleasure, Erykah Badu, Amel Laurrieux, Cassandra Wilson, Abbey Lincoln and some of my favorite producers and learn and teach about the work of this crucial Black feminist warrior!

Be sure to write "Toni Cade Bambara Podcast and Study Guide" in the subject line with your donation of 15 or more :)

The Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind DVD

For your classroom, living room, workshops etc. get your own DVD of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Video Series (link for previews) for a donation of 20 bucks or more to the Eternal Summer Educational program. Remember to put a note on your transaction that you want the DVD and be sure that your address is current!!!

Become an Eternal Summerian by joining the Inspiration Station EasyPass Club! Monthly sustainers will get special juicy audio/video/poetic content sent directly to your inboxes every single month for ETERNITY!!!!!!!!

SPECIAL INCENTIVE!!!! Everyone who becomes a monthly sustainer in April will get an audio experiential piece about responding to police brutality in queer communities of color written and performed by Lex and sonically designed and transformed by the dashing Julia R. Wallace that is not available on the web!

Push the button to sign up to be a monthly sustainer (the big blue number is how much you'll be donating each month automatically)!

************Durham Locals!!! You can also support by bringing food, paper (in any form from toilet paper, to butcher paper, to paper plates) and art supplies or dv tapes... to the inspiration station any time. Or rides to the airport so Dr. Lex can keep hustling to bring insight and resources back to the Bull City (you know how we do!!) Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to set it up!!!!

Rejuvenating Revolutionary Retreats at the Inspiration Station:

: Living Room Ancestor entryway @ the Inspiration Station

Are you getting excited and lustful from all of this shameless bragging on the beautiful city of Durham, NC? Want to see for yourself and help support the Inspiration Station? Durham devotees...want to help with Lex's long-lived and blatant recruitment strategy to get the rest of our tribe of brilliant artists, thinkers, and organizers to move to the center of the universe? We GOT you! Introducing Artist/Intellectual/Organizer retreats @ the Inspiration Station.

This is what we call sustainable community transformation!!!! Tell your friends or avail yourself of an immersion in the magical energy of Durham, NC and the special light of the Inspiration Station...fortified by so many beautiful thoughts and brave moments. Help us create a sustainable use of the space over the summer or for the 10 days a month that Lex and Julia are off on the MobileHomeComing Tour. You'll get a set of Durham local edible goodies (from the Tierra Negra Farm and the Bread Uprising Bakery) a list of inspiring walks and journeys to take in Durham, the use of a beautiful wrap around front porch with a hammock and a table and chairs and beautiful honeysuckle and crepe myrtle trees....

AND even though you may think that the most fun thing about Durham is the chance to hang out with Lex...the truth is that Durham is full of brilliant visionary ambassadors who love to show off our cities transformative glow...so if you want you can even get assigned a buddy to show you the Durham ropes and share their lovely talents and experiences with you as part of the welcoming committee!

So email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com if you might want to spend a week (or the month of July) in the center of love, inspiration and transformation. We are hoping that folks can offer $100-200 a week for residencies...but everything you have to offer is valuable and the conversation is always open!

OKAY!!!! Congrats on reading this content-filled message. Take home: Summer is Eternal and Spring is NOW!

We love growing with you!!!!!

Infinite love,

Lex

BrokenBeautiful: Fall in Love All Over Again!

2009-09-08T14:31:00.001-04:00

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

BrokenBeautiful Blooming!: The Spring Update

2009-05-04T07:25:00.002-04:00

It's Spring!!! That bright, sexy season when we remember the full color of the world and everything becomes possible again! So what better way to celebrate the rebirth of the planet than to break your beautiful spirit out of its shell?

BrokenBeautiful Press (www.brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com) is ready for your reawakening with exciting new projects for you to check out, participate in and support.

On the move:

a queer black mobilehomecoming

BrokenBeautiful Press is partnering with Queer Renaissance to embark on a monumental journey in celebration of the bravery and genuis of the trailblazers of the black queer/lesbian/gender-non-conforming community. Think "black lesbian Eyes on the Prize" y'all! A year from today Alexis and Julia will be getting in an environmentally sustainable RV and hitting the road to learn, document and transmit the legacies of brave black queer warriors who have been transforming the meaning of life since the 1980's or earlier and hosting amazing intergenerational community education events all over the US. To find out more and to offer resources, advice or financial support go to: www.mobilehomecoming.wordpress.com

SPEAK!: Support Radical Mamis of Color!
BrokenBeautiful Press is proud to celebrate the birth of the most radical spoken word CD ever. Think This Bridge Called My Back in audio form! Speak Media Collective, a group of radical women of color transforming the world through new media, has launched a self-titled spoken word CD as a grassroots fundraiser to support the participation of young mothers of color in the Allied Media Conference. Help moms and kids of color travel to this national media gathering and get your mind blown at the same time. The CD includes a zine and a curriculum guide for using the CD in your community and classroom. To get your copy go to www.speakmediacollective.com

Community Education:
Combahee Survival: A Movement Revival:
In 1977 a crew of radical black socialist lesbian feminists wrote a document that changed the landscape of social justice forever. More than 30 years later young black feminists are tracking the survival of the analysis of interlocking oppressions and holistic transformation that the members of the Combahee River Collective stood for in the progressive community at large. The Combahee Survival Project is a dispersed community education project that shines light on and nurtures the seeds of a radical intersectional approach all over our social justice movement. Go to www.combaheesurvival.wordpress.com to see poetic activities that draw on the words of the original statement, examples from community organizers who are still wrestling with the issues the collective raised and worksheets to use in your community, and look out for the Survival/Revival activity of the week brought to you by BrokenBeautiful Press all summer long!

Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind
In Durham, North Carolina (aka vanguard city, center of the universe) a growing, diverse and beautiful group of folks have gathered in the name of black feminism. With delicious potlucks to discuss key essays by black feminists, fieldtrips to hear black feminist poetry, and more we are acting on our faith that the radical work of visionaries like Claudia Jones, Angela Davis, June Jordan can inform and transform our city and our lives. And like-minded devotees in Chicago, DC and other cities have joined in. Follow along, find out about upcoming events and download free reading material at www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com

Interact!!!!!

Habit Forming Love: The Video Project:
They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, so your girl Alexis decided to cultivate the habit of loving herself and her people (you!) fully, bravely, loudly and proudly. What better habit could there be? Experimenting with (and teaching herself) the art of internet video production and sharing she created videos of love for self, love in community and growing love for her sweetheart. Now it's your turn! Go to www.habitforminglove.wordpress.com
to browse Lex's videos and make your own!

In Your Hands: Letters from Ancestors
Alexis started the year with a life-changing, spirit-humbling process of receiving letters from black feminist ancestors who gave loving advice, welcome reminders and sometimes difficult challenges and lessons. Read letters from Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, Lydia May Gumbs (lex's grandma), Toni Cade Bambara and more at www.motherourselves.wordpress.com and add your own letters about your communication with your chosen and familial ancestors.

It's Spring! Anything is possible, even you and the life-changing love that makes your spirit tingle and grow.

Stay fly!
love always,
BrokenBeautiful Press
brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com

making moves

2007-03-23T09:40:00.000-04:00

BrokenBeautiful Press has moved! Visit our new site here. (brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com)
See you there!

The Gunny Wolf: African American Folktale Retold

2007-02-15T08:37:00.000-05:00

This version of the African American folktale The Gunny Wolf is retold by Griot MaMa Nia as part of a SpiritHouse (www.spirithouse-nc.org) family literacy program called Cookies and Milk. The story is designed for all ages and this booklet includes activities and games to help us all sing past fear together! You can recieve your very own copy through the mail by making a donation to SpiritHouse. Email us at brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com!

blues record/improvising peace: a journal of healing

2006-12-11T16:35:00.000-05:00

This two-sided interactive journal process of healing is as double-edged and complicated as the pain that we transform into beauty. Ideal for you, a friend in need, community healing gatherings, support groups, therapy sessions etc. Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to find out how you can get pre-assembled blue copies with a donation to UBUNTU-a women of color and survivor led coalition committed to ending violence.

I May Not Get There With You

2006-12-11T16:29:00.000-05:00

An interactive worksheet exploring progress, freedom, segregation, dreams, genocide, colonization, policing, space, gentrification etc. especially appropriate for MLK day (and every other day)! Dowload it here
and write us at brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to tell us how it went!

I Be Who I Be: Love Notes

2006-09-25T09:08:00.000-04:00

I Be Who I Be is an interactive journal of self-affirming love notes created in collaboration with UBUNTU Arts. After a successful debut at the WD Hill center's Community Day on September 23rd, (see impulsiveacts.blogspot.com for the workshop agenda), our second printing for the Phoenix Fest black heritage festival and the Durham LGBTQ Pride Festival has also completley dissappeared. If you'd like to use this tool in your community email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com and we'll hook it up! Or better yet...write a love note to yourself and share it with all of us!

emergency broadcast

2006-07-12T22:39:00.000-04:00

order "emergency broadcast": a workbook of interactive exersizes for young people
or "emergency": a critical coloring book about race, gender and freedom

email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with the great use that you'll be putting it to and download it here

(all power to the people! more power to the youth!)

tag the flag

2006-07-12T22:37:00.000-04:00

order the "stolen flag", "re-po for reparations" or "soul for sale" by posting a comment and making an offer
email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to see other full-page label paintings

stick it to the man

2006-07-12T22:34:00.000-04:00

Because we deserve to be wherever we are. This sticker is a message towards critical mass. Black girls taking over.

Because we can be cute while pointing out the constant violence of a racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, gender-normative world.

We are only at risk because this oppressive system thinks we're dangerous. So risk everything! Where you at?

Was this built with slave labor? Does this depend on sweatshop labor. Were these resources garnered during a colonial takeover? What isn't stolen?

If you want to shake up the status quo by sticking these labels in choice places all over your community dowload them here

the pressed for knowledge workshop!

2006-07-12T22:33:00.000-04:00

So far I've helped community groups, academic conferences, anarchists of color, student leaders and random strangers brought together for all kinds of reasons create about a dozen brilliant sponataneous publications. This workshop agenda is designed to facilitate groups to create spontaneous publications in one hour! Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com and I'll email you the full agenda. Ask about the other workshops in the "impulsive activism" series and check out impulsiveacts.blogspot.com for sample agendas.

the broken broadside

2006-07-12T22:30:00.000-04:00

Proceeds from the broadside go to the International Black Youth Summit (www.blacksummit.org). Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com and offer a donation and I'll get back at you soon!

found: an interactive love story

2006-07-12T22:29:00.000-04:00

Found is a letter-based interactive story about brown girls in love. Send me an email and I'll send you the game. Then you can post your responses to the blog! Yes. I love you too.

need: poetry as activism

2006-07-12T22:27:00.000-04:00

This is an interactive poetry publication inspired by Audre Lorde's resistance poem "Need: A Chorale for Black Woman Voices". Lorde wrote this poem after 12 black women were murdered within 4 months in Boston. Along with the publication you'll get a toolkit for a set of workshops that will empower you to create productive dialogue about important issues that your community is silent about.

Send an email to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com about your work and consider making a donation to UBUNTU (www.i am beacauseweare.wordpress.com) a woman of color, survivor led group committed to a world without gendered violence.

the soul sister anthology

2006-07-12T22:25:00.000-04:00

All proceeds from these sales will go to Black Organization of Soul Sisters. Send an email to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to make a donation and get a copy. Also find out how your group can publish an anthology as a fundraiser! Holler.

lovespill

2006-07-12T22:23:00.000-04:00

Five bucks plus shipping. Send me a comment that looks like a love letter or email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com!

impossible perfect and bruised

2006-07-12T22:21:00.000-04:00

This collection includes essays and poems framed as "angry love notes to a waking nation".
5 bucks plus shipping. Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com.

brownsweetbroken beautiful: in praise of black womanhood

2006-07-12T18:56:00.000-04:00

If you don't know that black women rule the world...act like you know.
5 bucks plus shipping. brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com