Today, September 6, 2011 is National Read a Book Day. The holiday is designed to encourage us to take time from our busy lives and relax with a great book. This year we have selected Shana Burton’s Catt Chasin’(Urban Books) as our 2011 Read a Book Day Pick.

Why did we choose this book?

Catt Chasin’ the story of Jamal Ford. He has narrowed his love life down to a science through the creation of his 30-Day Dating Plan, a guide intended to weed out the drama queens, gold-diggers, and baby mamas from his ideal: a part goddess, part sex kitten, and part Stepford Wife mate. The shallow, fun-loving 33-year-old knows he’s one of Charlotte, North Carolina’s most eligible bachelors, and he won’t settle for anything less than the trophy wife of his dreams.Catherine “Catt” Cason has never let anything slow her down. The brilliant chemist takes being labeled “the cute fat girl” in stride as she fast-tracks her way to a top position with her cosmetic company, Telegenic. While she would enjoy the love of a good man, Catt refuses to risk heartbreak again just to have a warm body at her side. Besides, why settle for the love of an earthly man when she is the fiancée of Christ?

When Jamal is paired with Catt to launch a new product for work, it’s loathe at first sight. She thinks he’s arrogant and incompetent; he thinks she’s a sanctimonious kill-joy. However, what each believes they want may not be what God knows they need. In this game of love, rules don’t exist, and no heart is safe. The Lord is speaking, but will they be too caught up in their own agendas to listen?

Doesn’t the sound like fun?

We will be talking about the book all September and chatting with the author, Shana Burton, too.

Would you like to join us?

To join us is an easy three step process:

1. Join us all month long on Facebook by clicking here (http://on.fb.me/bookmonth).
2. If you do not own a copy, click here to purchase one (http://amzn.to/cattchase )
3. Share http://amzn.to/cattchase with your friends on Facebook or Twitter/

 

Once you’re done, please check in here. Our Goal is to get 50 readers reading Shana Burton Catt Chasin on September 6 and throughout the month. That’s not a Hard Goal. Right?!

Thanks for participating!

Thursday I finally turned in Someone Bad and Something Blue to my editor. I took Friday off to relax my brain and read. I hope you all will help me write Book 3 (will begin plotting next week.) However, this morning I learned that you could read a sneak peak of A Good Excuse to Be Bad. It releases next month, so I’m pinching myself every day. Would love for you to check out and tell me how you feel. Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Excuse-Be-Bad/dp/0758259506

 

Also, mirandaparker.com is a community site. I built it so that you could register share your stories, books, book clubs, whatever with me and others who like the stories I write and the things I like. So register, tell yourself something about me and let’s have a good excuse to get to know each other!!

 

Miranda P

We are pleased to announce that this Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 9pm EST Substitute Me author, Lori L. Tharps will be our guest for #blacklitchat Tweet Chat on Twitter!!!!!!!!!!

 

So grab your book, grab your PJs, grab your galpals and lets have an online book chat with her.  Also if you have questions about natural hair care, have them ready so she can answer.

Umm…who is Lori. L. Tharps?

Lori L. Tharps is an assistant professor of journalism at Temple University, an author, freelance journalist and mom. She was a staff reporter at Vibe magazine and then a correspondent for Entertainment Weekly. She has written for Ms., Savoy, Suede, Bitch, Odyssey Couleur and Essence magazines.  She’s the author of  two non-fiction books: Hair Story coauthored with Ayana Byrd, Kinky Gizpacho and her debut novel Substitute Me.

I’ve heard about Substitute Me, but don’t know what it’s about?

 

Substitute Me reads like ” a modern-day horror story… that will haunt you for days.”
Essence Magazine, August 2010

Where is the source of our identities? Our upbringing, occupation, partners? Kate, a driven public-relations exec and mom coming off maternity leave, tells Zora, while interviewing her for a nanny post, that she wants to hire a “substitute me.” Zora, an upper-middle-class African American, wants the job but worries about betraying the dreams of the women who came before her by becoming a domestic. She then finds her passion in cooking, and practices to become a personal chef by feeding the family as part of her duties. Brad, Kate’s egalitarian banker husband, feels uncomfortable making so much money in the pre-meltdown days. Kate misses her son but throws herself wholeheartedly into her work, putting in exceptionally long days. Brad accepts all these household changes, and finds himself spending more time with Zora than Kate. Friends, lovers, co-workers, and family—all armed with opinions and attitudes—play key roles in Tharps’ lively modern domestic drama about why we are who we are. . --Danise Hoover, BookList

"Lori Tharps's warm and engaging novel about the struggles of juggling marriage, motherhood and a meaningful career focuses on a story we're each living, but also exposes the secrets we won't tell. An enjoyable read."

-- Heidi Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

Book clubs: Substitute Me will give you so much to talk, laugh and argue about, you might want to schedule two meetings to discuss it. Days after finishing it, I'm still debating who the villain is. Lori Tharps has written a timely, engaging page-turner that every working mom in America should read!"

-- Carleen Brice, author of Children of the Waters

A fresh, fun, view of "the help" from a writer to watch.

-- Benilde Little, author of Good Hair

After you’re read the book, I’ll add your praise here. (wink, nod)

What is BlackLit Chat?

It's a stream of tweets about books by Black[including Pan-African, African-American, Brit, Caribbean, Canadian Black, etc.] authors in real time during a specified time. Our time  for this chat is Sunday, November 21, 2010 from 9 PM EST.

More about #BlackLitChat is here at my co-host Bernadette Davis’ Black Books Blog. 

 How does it Work? 3 Easy Steps

1. 1. Get a Twitter account, or login, or remember your Twitter Password.
2. 2. Join the chat by clicking this link. http://twebevent.com/blacklitchat
3. 3. Now login with your Twitter Password.

 

Soul Train Awards week in Atlanta kicked off right last night at Shanti Das and Marlon Nichols' ATL LIVE ON THE PARK showcase hosted by Kenny Burns. Surprise performances, sexy ambiance and a room of the music industry's who's who made the evening one of the best shows ever!

Dallas Austin, Kenard Gibbs, Mayor Kasim Reed, Kenny Burns, Frank Ski, Shanti Das & Ron Devoe

Attendees included Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, Soul Train Holdings CEO Kenard Gibbs, Doug E. Fresh, Frank Ski, Rodney Jerkins, Dallas Austin, Sister 2 Sister publisher Jamie Foster Brown, New Edition's Ron Devoe, Chaka Zulu, Catherine Brewton, Kawan Prather and many more!

The show's featured acts were R&B vet Donell Jones, newcomer from SoulTrain.com Rhonda Nicoleand Universal Motown/Darkchild Records girl group Purple Reign. However, guests were treated to impromptu performances by Brownstone's Nicci Gilbert and Ron Devoe (who took everyone back to "Poison"). But the highlight of the night was Doug E. Fresh, who did his own fly version of Cali Swagg District's "Teach Me How to Dougie" and sent the crowd into a frenzy. Classic!

Photos: James Pray for Supreme Team Photography

 Doug E. Fresh and Shanti Das

 

    Mayor Kasim Reed, Jamie Foster Brown & Kenard Gibbs

Rodney Jerkins & Marlon Nichols

 

Yelawolf & Dallas Austin

 

                                Kawan Prather and Catherine Brewton

 

            Ron Devoe, Kameelah Williams (702), Chaka Zulu                                

 

Donell Jones does his classic "You Know What's Up"

Doug E. Fresh teaches ATL LIVE how to really Dougie 
      Brownstone's Nicci Gilbert does a rendition of "If You Love Me"

 

       The crowd goes wild for all the surprise performances.        

 

           

 

 

This week Barnes & Noble released Pubit!,  a free direct-to-device self-publishing service for its Nook e-reader. Authors, who own the electronic rights to their books can take their books live in 24 hours for come cases.

A few things of note:

• For authors who don’t have a MAC, you can use Smashwords to configure.
• Your book will be converted to EPub open ebook Standard.
• Your book will be lendable, which means that Nook users can share your book with one another.
• B&N pays royalties on your book's retail price, instead of what an ebook distributors pay, which is usually net (retail less whatever discount B&N demands).
• If you price your book between $2.99-$9.99 use will receive  a 65% royalty of the list price (> Apple, > Amazon which pays of the sales price)
• You can publish direct to Kindle for free as well to DTP with a 70% royalty and your ebook will be available on Kindle devices and Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PC, Mac, Blackberry, and Android-based devices.

Full Pubit! information

• Read the publishing agreement here.
• The pricing agreement is here.
• The content policy is here .

In my opinion,  if I were seeking to epublish my book, I would:

• publish direct to Kindle. they pay monthly.
• publish to Smashwords only for Epub but not Amazon or B & N distribution
• Publish through Pub-It because your book will be categorized by genre not just ebooks like Smashwords, which is hard for a reader to sift through
• make sure you opt out of Nook for Smashwords when you have successfully converted to EPubit
• join DigiBookWorld, so you can learn the vocabulary and how to format DTP properly, because Pubit is new Thus, you may have to do some reformatting. Which means you need to use a an WYSIWYG ebook editor like Sigil.
• And if I just went over your head, do the last thing I said first.

The purpose of Christian Fiction is to share Good storytellers with you. Sometimes these stories aren’t wrapped in pretty packages. Oftentimes these books aren’t discussed in Christian fiction circles, but they should. So in honor of Banned Books Week I want to share a Good book that some of our churches have removed[or removed] from some Georgia schools.(I live in Georgia.) Moreover, I want to share with you why fiction matters and this book shouldn’t be banned.

Banned Book: Native Son

Synopsis from Time Magazine:

In Chicago of the 1930's, where Bigger Thomas has found work as a chauffeur, he murders a young white woman, the only child of the wealthy family who has just hired him. Though the killing is accidental, it becomes a kind of retroactive act of will. It leads Thomas to an inquiry into his own injuries and humiliations at the hands of a sometimes literally bloodthirsty white society.

Who banned this book: Appling County School(Baxley, GA)  2008

Reason: Language

Response Appling High School English Department Head, Mary Ann Ellis, speaks out against the books' removal.:

Our students are the ones who’ve truly been betrayed by the very board responsible for giving them the best education available. Somewhere down the road when the ministers bring three more books and three more and Shakespeare, what will happen then?  Our students will leave this county unprepared for Mercer, UGA, Harvard, GSU.  Not because of the ministers, mind you. No, they can thank their very own Appling County Board of Education.

 Read her Op-Ed in the Baxley News-Banner.

My response: I read Native son in high school. My high school isn’t far from Baxley, Georgia, so I understand the region, especially Christianity influences there. However, what I don’t understand is how  that church couldn’t find black spiritualism and Christian existentialism as theme threads in. Perhaps because the ministers never read the book [according to the complaint.]

Thus, this realization causes another challenge.

I’ve talked with many ministers through the years about the relevance of Christian fiction and the banning of Christian fiction from their churches. And like Appling High School’s banning decision they, too, have never read the novels.

These decisions to ban books—for whatever reason—cripples our society. More so for Christian fiction authors, whose books are banned in their own churches…

Your thoughts. Does your church support Christian fiction? Or any fiction for that matter?

The nation's largest competitive multicultural film fest will convene in NYC

The 14th Annual Urbanworld Film Festival, presented by BET Networks, is proud to announce Urbanworld Digital, an exciting addition to the festival that will be hosted by HBO® on September 15, 2010. This invite-only program will feature executives from Abrams Artists Agency, HBO, MTV Networks, NamcoBandai America, Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild of America, East, and SAGindie, who will share their expertise in gaming, social media, new media contracts, and production. A collaboration between Jigsaw Global and the Urbanworld Foundation, Urbanworld Digital will serve as a primer for film professionals who want to learn more about digital media production and make new contacts on the tech side of the entertainment industry.

"We're excited about our partnership with Jigsaw Global, which has allowed us to bring the digital aspect of the entertainment industry back to the festival in its own, unique programming track," says Stacy Spikes, founder of Urbanworld. "HBO is the perfect host for Urbanworld Digital, because HBO continues to innovate in the worlds of film, TV, and digital media."

The festival will continue September 16 - 19 at the AMC 34th St Theater in New York City. Unique programming features include BET Networks' Inaugural TV Script Writing Competition, in which aspiring TV writers will have a chance to win $5,000, and the BET Networks with "My Black is Beautiful" Present: The Tasha Smith Actors Workshop, a two-day instructional seminar offering students the chance to hone their acting skills.
In addition to festival ambassador Kerry Washington, celebs such as Nia Long, Jamie Hector, Omari Hardwick, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Evan Ross, Kid Capri and Clint Dyer will be in attendance to support their respective films.  Spotlight films and programs at Urbanworld this year include: 
* HBO's Boardwalk Empire, a 1920s-era drama set in Atlantic City at the dawn of Prohibition (series premiere) from Terence Winter, Emmy® Award-winning writer of The Sopranos® and Academy® Award-winning director Martin Scorsese

* BET's My Mic Sounds Nice, a documentary exploring the role of female rappers in hip-hop (directed by Ava DuVernay and featuring interviews by Missy Elliott, EVE, Trina, Rah Digga, MC Lyte, Yo Yo and more)

* One Night in Vegas, part of ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary series, this film details the evening of 1996 when Tupac Shakur was shot and Mike Tyson lost to Bruce Seldon (directed by Reggie Rock Bythewood; starring Mike Tyson)

* Kid Capri Presents: The Lionz Den, a short film about an underground rap battle in Harlem (directed by Kid Capri and Loaded Lux, starring Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, and Rakim)

* Sus, a based-on-a-true-story drama centering on the controversial British "sus" laws and their inherent racism (directed by Robert Heath; starring Ralph Brown, Clint Dyer)

* Africa Rising, a documentary portraying the grassroots movement to end female genital mutilation (directed by Paula Heredia)

For the complete slate of films or ticket information, visit www.urbanworld.org. For more information on Urbanworld Digital, visit http://ow.ly/2x1gy.