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Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Bruce George and Dr. Louis Reyes Rivera are at it again. Still riding the business and social success of The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates, Mr. George and Dr. Rivera again believe the meat of greatness, depth, and overcoming comes by way of the people, even sometimes the terminally labeled and disenfranchised.
Submissions are now being accepted for the forth-coming best-selling revelation of the people, Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies.
Here's an opportunity for the entire planet to hear your truth, our truth, about both our desperation and our aspiration, straight up from the streets. Street Smarts is an anthology of real life stories of how folk who have come from the bottom have developed their own ways and means to survive.
Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies is a literary first that focuses on how urban working class people enhance their earning power despite often being underemployed. How do lower paid workers make ends meet? How do the unemployed survive once they've used up their unemployment benefits? What happens to them once they disappear from official statistics? What tactics have they developed? Is there another economic system at work that is totally outside of mainstream standards? What does the underclass do to feed the family within a hostile environment? Are the strategies they devise parts of yet another working standard?
To what extent is there an underground economy that is not exactly illegal, yet for which there is no yardstick by which to measure its effectiveness? Given the current economic downturns and consistent losses of jobs, are the strategies and options that have long ago developed among the working poor still viable? What are they? Are they legal, extralegal or illegal? What common threads hold the underclass together? Do they bear their own ethics? How applicable are they?
The answers to these questions serve as the parameters for Street Smarts. The target audience includes the hundreds of thousands who, like never before, are faced with new challenges – unemployment, loss of homes, debts, etc., with homelessness and public shelters their potential options.
Click here for Street Smarts Submissions Guidelines http://www.bbsvaluetour.com/i/u/10027100/f/StreetSmartGuidelines.pdf
BRUCE GEORGE
BBS Value Tour featured Author/Speaker -To book call 1.800.584.3651, ext. 1 or email booktalent@bbsvaluetour.com
Bruce is a visionary, executive producer, writer, poet and activist. He was born and raised in New York City. He has written poetry/prose & articles for over 37 years. His work has been published in major magazines, anthologies, and literary publications. He has written testimonials from the likes of Essence Magazine, Emerge Magazine, Class Magazine, Harlem River Press etc.
Bruce has won multiple poetry & talent contests. He has won several awards such as a "Peabody Award" for "Russell Simmons Presents, Def Poetry (HBO)", a "Miky Award" for "Russell Simmons Presents, Def Poetry Jam (HBO)", an "Upscale Showcase Award", a "Trail Blazer Award" etc. for his outstanding vision, production, writing and performance. READ MORE
Louis Reyes Rivera
Known as the Janitor of History, poet/essayist Louis Reyes Rivera has been studying his craft since 1960 and teaching it since 1969. The recipient of over 20 awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award (1995), a Special Congressional Recognition Award (1988), and the CCNY 125th Anniversary Medal (1973), Rivera has assisted in the publication of well over 200 books, including John Oliver Killens' Great Black Russian (Wayne State U., 1989), Adal Maldonado's Portraits of the Puerto Rican Experience (IPRUS, 1984), and Bum Rush The Page: A Def Poetry Jam (Crown Publishers, 2001).
Considered by many as a necessary bridge between the African and Latino American communities, he is a professor of Pan-African, African-American, Caribbean and Puerto Rican literature and history whose essays and poems have appeared in numerous publications, including Areyto, Boletin, The City Sun, African Voices, and in five award-winning collections: In Defense of Mumia; ALOUD: Live from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Of Sons And Lovers, and his own Scattered Scripture.
Since 1996, Rivera continues to host a bi-monthly 1st & 3rd Sundays Jazzoetry & Open Mic @ Sistas' Place (where he also conducts his writing workshop), in Brooklyn, and has appeared in Jazz clubs and festivals with The Sun Ra All-Stars Project, Ahmed Abdullah's Diaspora, and his own band, The Jazzoets. He has recently appeared on C-SPAN, as part of the REPARATIONS NOW! rally held in Washington, D.C., this past August 17th. Currently, Louis Reyes Rivera can be heard every Thursday, at 2pm, on radio station WBAI (99.5 FM), hosting his own weekly show, PERSPECTIVE.
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