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

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 Pressis 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 earlierand 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.comto 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

combahee1original1.jpgLeaves turn gorgeous and leaving retains it’s glamour because it means my love letters to you are sharp with wanting.

For love of you, BrokenBeautiful Press is traveling across time and space with radical remembering, visioning and practice for Fall 2008 and forever.
We are thrilled to announce the launch of the Combahee Survival Project, a creative process about the revival, sustainability and survival of our radical movements inspired by the bad-ass vision of the Combahee River Collective Statement AND Lex’s exuberant participation in the Grassroots Media Tour which is sweeping the southeast with interactive poetry and collective zine making magic.

Details below….

Combahee Survival:
In 1977 a group of black, lesbian, socialist, feminist writers and thinkers created a groundbreaking statement of their beliefs that made a new intersectional political analysis thinkable. The work of the Combahee River Collective survives everywhere that organizers, artists and visionaries insist that “the major systems of oppression are interlocking.” Today, right here, a crew of young troublesome queer black feminists are invoking this statement in a poetic project designed to celebrate and instigate a survival/revival process for diverse movements of radical and progressive people everywhere.

So….BrokenBeautiful Press is proud to present the Combahee Survival: Revival Politics Project! (www.combaheesurvival.word

Announcing:
American Book Review, Volume 29 Number 4 with a focus on Women of Color Publishing

Top 10 Reasons to get a copy of American Book Review (just this once!)

1.  Audre Lorde’s face is on the cover of American Book Review.  Enough said.

2.
"This Instant and This Triumph" an introductory essay that puts the
current women of color publishing movement into historical context by
Alexis Pauline Gumbs

3.  Profiles of some of the amazing publishing initiatives that women of color are popping off RIGHT NOW!

4.
Ernest Hardy’s exciting new release from RedBone Press (BloodBeats Vol.
2 The Bootleg Joints) reviewed by the brilliant collar popping scholar
ALISHA GAINES!

5. Asha Bandele’s contemporary classic The Subtle
Art of Breathing reviewed by the inspiring womanist performance diva
EBONY GOLDEN!

6. INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence’s
crucial The Revolution Will Not Be Funded reviewed by the strategically
fly organizer PAULINA HERNANDEZ!

7. Girlchild Press’s new
anthology Just Like A Girl: A Manifesta reviewed by the most talented
and necessary fiction writer of our generation DANIELLE EVANS!

8. Hermana Resist’s collaborative ‘zine The MAIZ Chronicles reviewed by BROWNFEMIPOWER!

9.
UBUNTU/BrokenBeautiful Press’s interactive anthology Wrong is Not My
Name reviewed by the textually incisive KINOHI NISHIKAWA!

10.   A bunch of headlines that the guest editor DID NOT APPROVE, but finds amusing nonetheless.

Check it:
www.americanbookreview.org

Another world is not only possible, it’s already here, working and growing in our communities. Can you see it? Brokenbeautiful Press is proud to announce the launch of our new community video portal "What it Look Like" featuring the radical, subversive, beautiful and challenging work of community building made visible.

"What it look like?" is a homegrown question about where we are (going). We ask "what it look like?" to begin a conversation, assess a situation and open ourselves to possibilities. This new interactive space is about the BrokenBeautiful possibility of connecting our communities, remembering what we already know how to do, and firmly forgetting the corporate media’s shuck and jive.

Go to www.thisiswhatitlookslike.wordpress.com to view the first set of videos and email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to add your home-made videos, slideshows or photos of your community in action to the site.

Stay fly, wherever you are…
love,
     Lex
www.brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com

Here is the problem: most of us end up BROKE in the New Year because somehow the "holiday season" makes it cool to spend money we don’t have. Again.

So at BrokenBeautiful Press we want to remind you that love is something we make (not buy) and just in time for gifting season we have a bunch of new free downloadable publications about topics as diverse as sex, double-consciousness and watermelanin to give to the people you really love.  AND as always we have do-it-yourself fashion templates for the crafty elves among you.

AND if you’re trying to get your karma account settled before 2008 we also have of interactive booklets in exchange for donations to social justice organization.

But if you do it again…and end up broke in the new year…freedom is still free year ’round at brokenbeautiful press.

Stay fly,
     Lex
www.brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com

Some of us have turned the academic calendar into a biological clock…others of us are just nostalgic for fresh notebooks and new gear (to wear the SECOND week of classes).

Either way…BrokenBeautiful’s got your back.

1. To Be A Problem: Sign up for a free (pirated from Duke University) course about Outcast Subjectivity and Black Literary production by sending an email to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with the words “TO BE A PROBLEM” in the subject line. You can check out the syllabus at www.tobeaproblem.wordpress.com. Choose to participate at the Alpha level (read along and post comments to the cyber lectures I’ll post for each reading) or the Beta level (create your own blog where you post your own essays on each reading in terms of a project that you are engaged in–your own publications, organization, fashion line…whatever).

2. Back to School DIY Couture:
Check out our two new DIY couture lines created in honor of June Jordan and Audre Lorde at
http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/make-way/

3. Smallest Textbooks Ever:
Get your own copies of the newest brokenbeautiful press publications “Wishful Thinking” and “Useful” with a donation to the Teal Ribbon Fund to support survivors of sexual assault in North Carolina with extended recovery here: http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/make-love/

3. Summer Recap:
What? You missed out on the BrokenBeautiful Behavior at the US Social Forum in Atlanta, AND the Allied Media Conference in Detroit. Check out our version of “What I did on my summer vacation” right here:
http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/

Welcome back to cool.
love,
BrokenBeautiful Press

Go to BrokenBeautiful Press (brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com)
and check out
1.  Our first interactive anthology: Wrong is Not My Name: Tribute to Survival Via June Jordan available for free download or donation order here
                                 2.   Exciting summer events from the Allied Media Conference in Detroit to the United States Social Forum in Atlanta.  See details here
                                 3.   The first installment of our D.I.Y. Couture Fashion Line featuring the Wearable Audre Lorde and more!  Learn how to make your own here!
                          4.  Get ready for a summer full of things to protest by making a little notwar (love).  Check out the Intimacy of Protest here!

This is going to be the best summer ever (again).

love,
   brokenbeautiful press

hey fam,
     You can get free/freedom producing everything now  right here at BrokenBeautiful Press’s new web address: www.brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com.
Do that.  And holler at your girl.
love,
  Alexis

p.s. I don’t remember naming this blog "brokenbeautifulpressedup", but I mean the intimacy, struggle and anticipation it conveys.