February Readings from Sugaree Rising by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Freedom Voices
6:00 p.m.
Laurel Bookstore
4100 MacArthur Boulevard
Oakland
Friday, February 15, 2013,
7:30 p.m.
The Book Zoo
14 Glen Avenue
Oakland
Thursday, February 21, 2013,
6:00 p.m.
Books, Inc.
1344 Park Street
Alameda
Release Party for Sugaree Rising - Thursday, December 6, 6 p.m
Freedom Voices
Freedom Voices invites you to join J. Douglas Allen-Taylor at the release party for Sugaree Rising. Thursday, December 6, 6 p.m., at the Joyce
Gordon Gallery, 404 14th Street, in downtown Oakland. Enjoy this special opportunity to meet the author, get your book signed and meet with other writers and media. Easy access from 12th Street Bart Station 1/2 block from the intersection of 14th at Broadway.
Sugaree Rising released December 1, 2012
J. Douglas Allen-TaylorFreedom Voices is pleased to anounce the release of Sugaree Rising.
"Sugaree Rising is a remarkable first novel, intelligent, sensitive, thoughtful, perceptive. It is the story of a small, tightly knit, interrelated group of South Carolina Blacks who established their own community after the Civil War. They bring with them the traditional beliefs of their slave ancestors, the old ways and the old gods. In the South Carolina of the 1930 their descendants still honor the traditions of their African forefathers, living their days in essentially parallel universes, the everyday and the spiritual, both real, both shifting back and forth like a kaleidoscope. It is an extraordianarily exhilarating way of perceiving the world."
— Shirley Ann Grau
Winner of the 1965 Pulitzer Prize For Fiction
Panel Discussion: Homeless People’s Bill of Rights, October 13, 2-4 pm, Richmond Art Center
Freedom Voices
Gallery walk through tour led by Hobos to Street People curator, Art Hazelwood.
Panel Discussion: October 13, 2-4 pm Homeless People’s Bill of Rights
Welcome: City of Richmond Mayor, Gayle McLaughlin.
Panelists: Paul Boden, Western Regional Advocacy Project, Boona Cheema, Building Opportunities of Self Sufficiency, Jennifer Friedenbach, Coalition on Homelessness, Yvonne Nair, Saron Strand.
Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Hobos to Street People Exhibit: September 15 – November 9, 2012
Hours: Wed - Sat 11am - 5pm
The Birth of a Poet: William Everson Centennial - Sept. 21, 7-9 Berkeley City College
Freedom Voices
Celebrate William Everson/Brother Antoninus: a major figure of the San Francisco Literary Renaissance, precursor to the Beats, shamanistic poet of the California landscape, renowned hand-press printer, prophet of erotic earth-based spirituality, and herald of the environmental revolution.
Sept. 21, 2012; 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Berkeley City College Auditorium
2050 Center Street
(near Downtown Berkeley BART station)
Presentations: Matthew Fox
& Steven Herrmann
Poetry: Lorna Dee Cervantes,
Janet DeBar, David Fetcho, Rafael
Jesús González, Mary Norbert
Korte & Jim Powell
Music: Gerardo Omar Marín
MC: Clifton Ross
Free and open to the public, donations welcomed.
The Centennial of Poet William Everson / Brother Antoninus, Press Release about Everson Events
Freedom Voices
Northern California Readings and performaces will honor the shaman/poet of the California landscape, prophet of erotic spirituality, and herald of the environmental revolution
William Everson/Brother Antoninus (1912 – 1994) was a major figure of the San Francisco Literary Renaissance, shamanistic poet of the California landscape, renowned hand-press printer, prophet of erotic earth-based spirituality, and herald of the environmental revolution.
William Everson: The Light the Shadow Casts
Clifton RossSelected Everson Poems and Five Interviews by Clifton Ross
In this collection of interviews with one of the central poets of the San Francisco Literary Renaissance (which preceded the Beat movement) William Everson/Brother Antoninus ponders the mystical dimensions of poetry. The interviews span the final fifteen years of his life and contain his final thoughts on the prophetic, the shamanistic and the aesthetic dimensions of his craft, as well as his own life, characterized by the Portuguese proverb that “God writes straight with crooked lines.” The interviews, accompanied by selected poems, were conducted, edited and introduced by Clifton Ross and were first published two years after the poets death by Stride Publications, UK, republished by Freedom Voices to honor the centennial of the poet’s birth. $14.95
Hobos to Street People
Art HazelwoodArtists’ Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present
New exhibition date:
September 15 – November 9, 2012
Richmond
Art Center
2540 Barrett
Avenue
Richmond,
CA 94804
Hours: Wed - Sat 11am - 5pm
Hobos to Street People offers a comparison of the culture and politics of homelessness as seen through artwork since the Great Depression. The book is based on the touring exhibition of the same name that first opened in early 2009-the time of the greatest economic downturn since the 1929 Stock Market Crash. As the numbers of people living in poverty continues to swell, this book looks to the past for lessons for today. A wide range of artists have brought attention to the issue, including historical figures such as Rockwell Kent, Fritz Eichenberg, Jacob Burck, Dorothea Lange and contemporary artists Kiki Smith, Sandow Birk, Eric Drooker and many more. The text, written by artist and curator Art Hazelwood, places the artwork within the history of social and political responses from the New Deal, through McCarthyism, to the rise of modern homelessness in the 1980s. Sections of the book focus on different aspects of homelessness including day to day life, displacement, rural poverty and political struggle. Emphasis is also given to the means by which artists have been able to get their message out whether through publications, government programs of the New Deal, street posters, exhibitions, or alliances with activist groups.
A portion of the proceeds from the sales of the books will be donated to homeless advocacy groups. Donors can direct the donation using the comment box above. (enter: WRAP, COH or Spirit)
The book is based on the traveling exhibition of the same name.The exhibition is on tour until 2012 and began at the California Historical Society in San Francisco in February of 2009. California Exhibition Resources Alliance (CERA) is the touring company. The next exhibition date for the tour is below.
June 21 - August 12, 2012
Loveland Museum/Gallery
503 N. Lincoln Ave.
Loveland, CO 80537
(970) 962-2410
The exhibition images can be seen online at Western Regional Advocacy Project.
Reviews of 'Hobos':
The Never Ending Tale: Images of Despair and Hope from the Great Depression to the Great Recession
by: Paul Von Blum on November 29th, 2011
Tikkun Daily
Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present
by: Harvey Smith
Hobos to Street People: Artists Uncover Hidden History of Poverty
by: Margot Pepper, on September 1, 2011
Street Spirit
Homelessness in Art from the New Deal to the Present
by: DeWitt Cheng on September 1, 2011
Street Spirit
Freedom Voices Announces New Novel: Sugaree Rising by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Freedom Voices
For More Information
February 1, 2012--San Francisco, CA Freedom Voices announces this week the acquisition of publishing rights for Sugaree Rising, Bay Area author, journalist, and political columnist J. Douglas Allen-Taylor's first novel.
A publication date has not yet been set, but is expected sometime in late 2012.
Set in the South Carolina coastal area Lowcountry in the late Depression years, Sugaree Rising is the story of community resistance to a massive community relocation forced by a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)-style dam building and rural electrification project. The novel also details the struggles of a unique group of Lowcountry African-American people-commonly known as "the Gullah"-to maintain a religion and culture largely based in their ancestral African homeland.
Allen-Taylor's novel is loosely based upon the Santee Cooper Project, the 1930's era initiative that carved out two major lakes in the heart of South Carolina, brought electrification to scores of rural communities, but in the process dislocated more than 900 families, most of them African-American.
In Memory of Piri Thomas
Freedom Voices
Piri Thomas was born in New York City in 1928 and died in his home in El Cerrito Califronia on October 17, 2011. He was 83 and died surrounded by his children and his wife Suzanne Dod Thomas. Piri was Freedom Voices eldest poet and a mentor to many of us. He had a passionate, personal, and spiritual presence which healed and educated. He remained committed to doing readings and workshops in prisons, in the Tenderloin and in many, many communities until his health gave out a few years ago.If you wish to post a tribute to Piri pleease use the comment form below.Memorial services arrangements are pending and we will announce them here.
As an international best-selling author, with Down These Mean Streets, still in print well after 40 years, Piri influenced millions. In 2006, we were honored when he chose Freedom Voices to bring out a new edition of his wonderful collection of short stories, Stories From El Barrio with five new stories.
The oldest of seven children,he grew up in Spanish Harlem, where he became involved with gangs and drugs. After seven years in prison he returned to his old neighborhood as a youth worker. His first book, Down These Mean Streets, now considered a classic, was followed by Savior Savior Hold My Hand and Seven Long Times. He is the author of a play, The Golden Streets, and numerous articles, many of which have appeared in the New York Times Magazine. He has been the subject of three award-winning documentary films, the latest of which is Every Child Is Born a Poet. He also created two CDs of poetry with music, which feature first rate salsa musicians from NY and the San Francisco Bay Area.
We will miss him--but we will still feel his "flows". The energy he gave to the world is still circulating and in our hearts we can see and feel his mischevous grin. He was a man who had suffered hard times and good times--but he loved and enjoyed life and shared that joy with us.
We love you Piri!
