9/08/2009

BrokenBeautiful: Fall in Love All Over Again!

moment of arrival

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!

the mobilehome we want!!!!

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!

Picture 1Eternal 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!

4495_1148688561670_1361255849_389085_216113_nThis 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!

soft_launch_juliaQueer 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!

ffsmoiseCombahee 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!)

ida_wellsaudrenikky-finney2

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!

speaking @ csa

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.

gemini jam

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!

furious flower with lucille

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

Alisa shows us what's up! Julia teaches livestream!

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.

lex working it out1lex workin it out2strategize

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!

queerky cookoutqueerky cookout 2

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

5/04/2009

BrokenBeautiful Blooming!: The Spring Update

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

3/23/2007

making moves

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

2/15/2007

The Gunny Wolf: African American Folktale Retold





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!

12/11/2006

blues record/improvising peace: a journal of healing


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


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!

9/25/2006

I Be Who I Be: Love Notes





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!

7/12/2006

emergency broadcast



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



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



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!



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



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



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



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



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



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

impossible perfect and bruised



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



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