penmanship publishing group

Guerilla Marketing - We Go Hard

2011-01-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

It was a Monday night. The room was dark and bodies posted like shadows were wavering the grounds at Bar 13. I cannot remember the exact moment the Afro-ed lady walked up to me, but what I do know, is that my life was never to be the same. "I hear you'd make a good intern.",she exclaimed with a great amount of certainty in her voice, "My name is Mahogany L. Browne. Michael Cirelli told me all about you. Meet me Tuesday at the Starbucks on 59th street. All of the details will follow. Come alone." A cloud of dust replaced her body and all of a sudden she was gone.

Tuesday night, I entered the Starbucks a nineteen year-old wreck of nerves. The young man at the counter silently motioned his index finger to the back of the store. "We've been expecting you", he whispered. When I opened the swinging doors, Mahogany was standing there, and in her hands were two books. "In my right hand, I hold an empty sheet of paper. In my left hand, I hold a copy of my latest book, "Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed out in 140 Characters or Less". One will make you an intern. You will promote Penmanship Books authors via Twitter and Facebook, learn survival skills in midst of the guerrilla marketing jungle, and best of all, receive free books. The other will do nothing. It will be as if this never happened. Choose wisely."

I am sitting at a desk somewhere in the West Village. My laptop is opened to www.penmanshipbooks.com. I am holding a copy of "Dear Twitter" in my right and a press release in my left. I receive a text from Mahogany at 12:54 PM. "Welcome to the family."

WET PAVEMENT -- By Kiara Towns

2010-03-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

New York City, with all of its garbage, noise, people, stench, and concrete has somehow become the envy of the world. This is the Mecca and womb for artistic souls and intellectuals alike. New York City is the place where people come to leave their mark on the world. And although I love this asphalt asylum of genius and misfortune, New York is the wrong place to leave your footprint. The pavement just doesn’t have time to entertain your audition to be eternal on earth.

New York City is a gridiron skeleton with a concrete foundation. Yellow brick roads lead you home; gray pavement leads you to the future. Exactly where are they trying to “make it” to? Many of those people who come to my fair city are not necessarily taking “the road less traveled,” because in fact the streets of New York are standing room only. It makes a lot of sense that people would come here to make their Journey. After all, pavement can be traveled on no matter what the weather conditions, unlike dirt roads where you can get stuck in the mud. Or ice, a shallow veil of water that has no concern for what’s above the surface, will swallow you whole if you misstep.

Only something man-made, only the concrete shoulders of God can bear the weight of a people looking to make an impact, whether it is on their lives or that of someone else. Just don’t expect the pavement to give you a space for your footsteps. Don’t try to look back and see the trail of exactly how you reached the end of the road. And if you see wet cement, don’t step over the yellow tape and plant your feet in freshly poured concrete. Too many of us focus on finding a spot to leave our mark forever and get stuck while everyone else is moving on. Footprints are overrated, people shouldn't follow each other, just their hearts and they’ll be where they’re supposed to be in the end.

Author's Blog: TRACY SOREN -- 9 to 5 Anthem

2010-02-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

We the American working population hate the fact that eight hours a day is wasted on chasing the dream of someone that isn’t us. And we may not hate ours job, but we hate jobs in general that don’t have to do with fighting our own causes.

We the American working population hate the nine-to-five day-in, day-out, while we’d rather be supporting ourselves by being paid to perfect the pastimes that we have harbored based solely on the fact that it makes us smile if it sounds dope.

-Aesop Rock, on “9-5ers Anthem”

There’s something about the word “company” that makes my chest feel like pounds of cased sausage are being wrapped around it. Throughout this yo-yo job process I have seen variations of this statement, “We are looking for a freshly graduated to mold into our company”. Who would find this appealing? I imagine slaughter houses when I hear this. I imagine everybody in the nation always wearing dress socks. It’s a barbed wire fence with the words “we want you here forever” painted across it.

Loved ones seem to think I’m just afraid of making the wrong employment choice and I know I may be overreacting or at least generalizing but the idea of such a company makes me want McDonalds. It causes me to wave my arms during rush hour in Manhattan and say, “Are we all still here?!” I would much rather be surrounded by company than be within this form of “company”.

Since I graduated a year ago, I’ve been working odd jobs and temping to make my money. The flexible schedule allows me to pursue my poetic endeavors without having a bare wallet. It doesn’t lend for much security and I don’t know how long it’ll last but I’m doing my best.

Before I did this, somewhat still, I’ve went on job interviews for the full blown 9 to 5. Throughout each process I had some sort of existential crisis. There are only so many times a person can ask his or herself, “what I am supposed to be doing?” before crawling up in a ball and watching re-runs of the Bad Girls Club.

My Mother always says, “Tracy, you have to get A JOB before you can get THE JOB”. But what if the “A JOB” makes you stop breathing because you’ve known since that age of six that a cubicle was never something meant for you. Then, you discover writing and you realize this is the damn yellow brick road but not necessarily the golden brick road to financial security. For a structured person this can be very difficult.

Maybe I am just looking in the wrong places or maybe I have had this odd jobs/temping thing right all along.

What I know for sure is that writing, spreading poetry and working for things I believe in makes me smile cause it sounds dope.

In any case, I have a section in my closet for professional clothing that can be confused for funeral attire. I don’t know if this is a coincidence.

-Tracy Soren

Tracy Soren, a poet and writer from Queens, New York, discovered spoken word in college and ranks it with her study abroad in Australia and Jewish cuisine as continually bettering her life. She has performed and competed at various universities, venues, conferences and events ranging from youth to activist, academic to social.

Competively, she was a 2009 semi-finalist for the Nuyorican Poets Café and a repeating member of the SUNY New Paltz Slam team, which, in her graduating year, ranked first in their region and ninth in the nation. In 2009, she was the school’s Grand Slam Champion and she currently co-coaches the team.

Tracy is also a member of the Intangible Collective, a touring group of nationally-recognized artists that aims to connect with and empower artists, audiences and communities through multiple mediums of creative expression via live performance, publications, and educational workshops. They are in the process of founding the fourth nationally-recognized slam venue in New York City and are releasing a three-part Anthology by Penmanship Books that Tracy is organizing and editing. She will be featured in the first release entitled “Static and Other Lungless Things”.

She is honored to be awarded her first book with the Cora Craig Author Award for Young Women by Penmanship Books set to release in early 2010.

Destroy Rebuild & Other Reconstructions Book Review

2009-09-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

Review By
C. O. Aptowicz (NYC, NY) -

In her latest small book (4" x 4"), New York City poetry Mahogany Browne proves her skill at mixing together seemingly disparate elements -- the poetic and the conversational, the public and the private, the heart-breaking and the hilarious, the enduring and the fleeting. Written during an election year, the book in unafraid to reference politics in numerous ways -- both overt & subtle. In "Sweet Potato Pie," Browne swears she sees Obama "boarding the A-train in Brooklyn" with his "swagger and caesar haircut." Later, she addresses poems to Michelle Obama, to Hilary Clinton and to a voter who said "I'd rather vote for a McCain than a Terrorist Lover." Not afraid to speak her mind, Browne further addresses poems to cab drivers who won't stop to pick her up, to the girl on MTV's "The Real World" who said "I don't care if you are the ghettoist person in the blackest part of Blackety Black Black Blackville," and to her ex who lingers and burns -- in part because they share a child.

But make no mistake, these aren't dismissable rants -- Browne's poems are thoughtful, engaged and honest. She writes tenderly about her daughter, her grandmother and the children she teaches. She shares both her greatest hopes and her greatest fears about what her past, present and future. She is a smart, informed writer living and working in New York City, and this pocket-sized collection is a celebration of that, and then some.

PENMANSHIP BOOKS

2006-01-12T19:27:00.000-08:00

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