Peeps, I was ready, willing, and able to go to The Book House of Stuyvesant and Arts Letters & Numbers in Albany, NY two weeks ago and The Bronx Book Fair this coming May. But unfortunately all three events were postponed. And it sucks. Why? Not because I’m not able to sell books and share…
“Thank You!” Between the video and acknowledgments section of The Blues Cry For A Revolution there’s always more room to give props. Why? There are countless family, frat, and friends who poured into me. Whether it was opening y’all homes for me during my return to the states or freeing up an ear or…
‘Cause black people dying ain’t the only newsworthy issue.
Award-winning Poet and Writer, Rashaun J. Allen’s The Blues Cry For A Revolution is a poetry collection that navigates systemic oppression black victims, watchers, and resisters face in the United States. The versatile collection serves not only as a voice for those who have suffered and a mirror to those who ignore reality, but also…
“Sitting at home / trying to figure out what to do with all of these emotions / cause I’m alone going through the motions,” are the opening bars to Self Care a nine-song, 34-minute hip-hop / rap album Josué “JQ” Quiñones recently released. From when I met JQ at my LB’s birthday bash and up…
When Miss Harriet Pierce asked me, “Would you like to do a presentation on your genealogy research in March?” I had no idea how my research would develop. I had only been a week or two settled in Barbados and eager to make use of three things: my great-grandma Irene Trumpet nee DePeiza’s marriage and…
“Why you never bought a house?” I said to Granddad one day on a college school break. He didn’t get offended. Nor did he shift his posture, remote in hand, sitting up watching jeopardy to turn to me on the other end of his full-size bed. Instead, he chuckled. Charles E. Hunnicutt, my maternal granddad…
Mary C. Galley, my 2nd Great-grandma was born one day in January 1865 in Wilmington, North Carolina. She was only months old when the 13th amendment abolished slavery. She wouldn’t have known if she was a black girl born enslaved unless her namesake mother Mary Pearce told her point blank, “You were born free.” Like…
A few weeks after working with Zazeannah Walker for the US Fulbright Scholar seeks Barbadian family Loop article–it was in the pipeline and hadn’t created a buzz yet–I hit a genealogy milestone. I decided to ZR to Mount Standfast and essentially walk around and take pictures of the area where I was aware my Great-Grandma Irene lived.…
Reading Drown has completed my trifecta of all of Junot Diaz’s published books. His Dominican perspective, flawed characters and descriptive images written in short strokes of the pen are as prevalent in Drown, his 1st published book as his other two. But in Drown, I found myself consistently asking, how much of these stories…
Rashaunjallen 