#GALLEYSNATCHER - BEA- TUESDAY NIGHT

My trip to BEA has been all I could think about for at least a month now, maybe longer. So the day comes today and I am joyfully bouncing around my house with anticipation. I imagine myself hugging Kareem Abdul Jabbar at the Disney Publishing dinner. I also fantasize that Walter Mosley finds me so captivating that he doesn't want to speak to anyone else in the room when I go to his event and that he corners me at a table and we talk for what seems like hours. Well, that is until I have to fly across town to the Disney party where Kareem hugs me. In my head everyone is overwhelmed with the genius work we are accomplishing at Little Shop of Stories and Sunny and I are the toast of the publishing world, she and I have officially left a lasting impression on everyone and the President of Harper Collins charters a jet to send us back to Atlanta, where a driver with our names scribbled on an Ipad awaits us at the airport. In my fantasy Sunny has millions of dollars in checks in her luggage that people have donated to On The Same Page, our city wide reading initiative. This is the idea in the mind of a girl who grew up loving books and now gets the pleasure of working in the book world as her actual real job.

 

Instead we land and head merrily over to check in to our beautiful room and fastly get ready for the Random House mixer we fear may be coming to an end. We jump on the elevator, go down from our 28th floor view, exit the elevator and casual slink into the mixer. Like all other books nerds we spend some time talking only to each other until  a marketing person from a Washington D.C. bookstore comes over and engages us in conversation as we sip on our wine. Then I see her, a woman walks by with a tag on her dress that says #GALLEYSNATCHER. I whip around and grab her by the arm. "Hello, I've been trying to ready you tag, I see it says Galleysnatcher and I'm the Galley Club Coordinator at Little Shop of Stories", I say with the first bit of confidence I've felt all night. Upon further conversation I discover, Donna is the Vice President and Executive Director of Marketing The Crown Publishing Group. Galleysnatcher is her pet project and when she's here's what we're doing at Little Shop she's as excited to meet me as I am to meet her. The Little Shop Galley Club allows kids to read the advance readers sent to us by publishers in exchange for a 5-7 sentence review of the book. Our Galley Club members also interview authors who appear for in-store signings. Donna goes on to tell me she can get our kids reviews in front of 90,000 viewers. She hands me her card and I walk back over to Sunny feeling really good about my first half hour at BEA. My reality is better than my fantasy. My reality may not be hugging my literary idols, although I plan on accomplishing some of that on this trip too, but my real life motivates young people to do exceptional things. My real life is spinning around to people like Donna so the quiet little galley club member who's writing I love gets seen all over the country. In that moment my real life felt heroic, and I had a totally new vision of why BEA was going to be so exciting for me. The moment I realized it was not about what I could get, but what I could give, boy did my plans change. 

Almost 30

So if you have the type of personality that likes Real Husbands of Hollywood and The Office this show is for you. The great thing about it is, it's a web show. It's not going to take up too much of your time and you can watch it at your leisure. You don't have to comb for it OnDemand, watch old episodes on Netflix or pay for HuluPlus only to discover they don't have it. You can watch it on any internet device whenever you like. This show was not produced by any of my friends, I don't know these people. My business partner Alvin sent it to me in an email and I just fell in love with it. My honest take on it was in episode 1 the writing was better than the acting but I liked the way it was shot. By episode 2 everything jelled and it is probably the best Black web show I've watched. Enjoy!

Kevin Bryant

As most of you know nothing makes me happier than bragging about the awesome nature of my fabulous circle of friends. I've never been a crab, I rejoice in my friends successes and push for the redemption of the fallen ones. So once a month I think I'm just going to "spotlight" one of my dearly beloved. First one up to bat International Dance Music Star Kevin Bryant

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Go get it!

It's time we pulled ourselves up by our boot straps and stopped all this complaining. It's too hot, I'm tired of no good men/women, everyone's hating on me, blah blah. Your attitude determines your altitude and right now I'm flying too high to digest anymore of  anyone's junk. 

This week I cut off a guy I really liked, said what I had to say via text, and deleted his response without reading it. Why, you ask, because I really was done so what difference does what he said make. It was only going to upset me or rope me back in, either way it was worthless jibber jabber after his actions had already shown me how he really felt. And honey I'm feeling too good about myself right now to let anyone else's issues have an effect on how I feel about me. It's my time! I moved on to the guy who was genuinely invested in me and my happiness because that is what I deserve. 

I'm enjoying my job at Little Shop of Stories, growing my Learning Groove business, working on a TV show with my good friend Henderson Maddox for his online network Signal23TV, developing a film with a Grammy nominated buddy of mine, doing well in school, working on my BS in Child Studies, living it up this summer with my healthy, happy, child. I'm getting a chance to go to my church FaithWalk ministries and laughing a lot with my friends and family. My family has started a weekly prayer conference call and it's been going strong for over a year now and only getting stronger. I'm going hard for my blessings!

So stop complaining, thank God for it being as well as it is, recognize that your time is now and GO GET IT!

World Book Night is a celebration of reading and books which will see tens of thousands of people share books with others in their communities across America to spread the joy and love of reading on April 23. I delivered my books to the third grade class of Benteen Elementary. Why third grade you ask? Initially it was based on information I discovered saying that state correctional state planners looked at reading scores of second or third grade students for projecting the state's prison population. But later more legitimate research showed this was an urban myth. Still The myth probably has survived and circulated for more than a decade because it reflects the more fundamental truth that there is a powerful connection between school failure and crime. Several early childhood studies have shown that disadvantaged children who enter strong preschool programs are far less likely to get mixed up in crime when they get older. So here's me doing my part, I was given the opportunity to be a Giver for world book night and I'm happy to say that a group of third graders went home today with The Enders Game.

citation: Bill Graves http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2010/03/prisons_dont_use_reading_score.html

Still?

I'm amazing, and if you're too shallow to see that I pity you. I pity the conversations you'll have with your glamazon once her beauty fades and she has NOTHING to talk about. There you'll sit discussing Church gossip because that's all she'll have.

Across the world, city or state I'll be having brunch with the District Attorney's wife while he and my husband watch the game. She'll ask me in awe about my days working for Tyler Perry, or what Whitney Houston was really like or how it felt to be the Company Manager of the Atlanta Ballet. She'll beg me to get one of her favorite books signed by one of my many author friends. Then we'll discuss how rewarding it is to work with children, she will sit in awe and her mouth will fall open as I casually say with a smile how surviving cancer multiple times gave me a new perspective on life. Then will lead into what could have possibly led me to apply to Clown College. Part of her will think I must be spinning tales of fancy, all of this could not be the life experience of one person except she will already have been prefaced by her husband on the authenticity of my who, what, when and where.

When we leave my husband will smile at me in the car about how much they loved me and that whatever his ask of the DA was, the answer is yes. Then he'll tell me, "you're amazing".

At the very same time a 55 year old version of you will sit in front of the TV and hope that Glamazon would turn down the volume on her Church gossip because you know she can't change the subject, her looks are gone and the Church gossip is all she has.

Remember me then, I'm amazing. If you're too shallow to see it now you'll have to swallow it with her dry meatloaf then.

Where is the Woo?

I'm making a living doing things that I love, able to pursue my passion of film-making on the side and am loving being a Mommie to my 5 year old bouncy boy. So what is missing from this picture, you know what.......... a honey bunny.

So, I'm a smart, funny, ambitious, sexy woman you say, what is the problem? I can answer that for you, the lack of Woo.

This is how my dates usually go; he (place any he here) calls me, ask me where I want to go, text me when he's outside, takes me to the place I suggested, works overtime to try to gear the conversation in a sexual direction without being blatant, takes me home, attempts to kiss me, then text me when he gets home. Where's the woo in that?

Here's what woo looks like; he chooses where we go, he comes to my door when he arrives, he opens the car door for me on all entrances and exits, the date itself doesn't have to be over the top just something that clearly required some thought and planning. That would tell me that he was interested enough to make an effort. This outing would have some space for us to chat and get to know each other and the conversation would cover art, current events, our upbringing and family. When we arrived back to my home he would walk me to the door where I would gladly give him a kiss if all has gone well and then he calls me, not text, when he gets home for a final goodnight.

I hear a lot of guys complain that women don't cook and don't carry out other traditionally feminine acts but it goes both ways. If you want me to come over and cook, iron a shirt for you, impress your boss with my charm I have no problem with that but I need the woo in exchange. In today's world women work and often bring equal and/or more pay to the table to cover expenses yet men still want all the traditional women task to be met by the very woman he no longer feels the desire to woo. Look, I have guy friends like actor Lem Collins, engineer Raphael Siebenmann and a host of others for whom this is not a problem, their wives have virtually no complaints, but if you noticed I said their wives have no complaints, some women decided to spend their lives with them because they are Masters of the Woo.