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Ms. Afrika Abney previously posted announcements regarding services that she provided as a professional visual artist and art consultant.
THE DISCOVERY SUMMIT & SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS CEREMONY
THE DISCOVERY SUMMIT & SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS CEREMONY
Join Esther Productions, Inc and Black Student Fund for the Discovering Me Summit and Awards Ceremony includes special appearance by The Honorable Anita Josey-Herring, chief judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, plus mini workshops, led by dynamic clinicians, wellness experts and healing artists including jonetta rose barras, Dr. Misty Freeman and Dr. Tracie Robinson, that are designed to educate, inspire and empower fatherless girls and women who are grappling with the adverse consequences of father absence.
The event also celebrates teen girls who entered the Discovering Me Without You Personal Essay Scholarship Contest which was presented by Esther Productions, Inc and the Black Student Fund. The top winners of that competition will be announced on December 9, 2023. The deadline for the contest was October 31st.
THE HONORABLE ANITA JOSEY-HERRING, chief judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia, was appointed to the bench in November 1997 by President William Clinton. She was selected as chief judge on July 21, 2020 and was sworn in on Oct. 16, 2020. She has had a very distinguished career. As an Associate Judge, she served in the Family, Civil and Criminal Divisions of the court. In 2000, Judge Josey-Herring was appointed by the Chief Judge to serve as the Deputy Presiding Judge of the Family Court and later served as the Presiding Judge of the Family Court from 2006 through 2008. During her service in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Chief Judge Josey-Herring has led numerous initiatives to improve the quality of justice and service to litigants and attorneys alike. She led the highly regarded Family Treatment Court Initiative that provides drug treatment and social services to mothers charged with neglecting their children due to substance abuse. Additionally, Chief Judge Josey-Herring presided over the Family Treatment Court calendar from its inception and collaborated with District agencies to deliver services to parents and children in the neglect system. She also presided over the Juvenile Drug Court prior to the establishment of the Family Treatment Court. Chief Judge Josey-Herring alsoplayed a significant role in the development and implementation of the D.C. Family Court and implemented several programs, in her role as Deputy Presiding and later Presiding Judge of Family Court, to improve the quality of justice provided to District families. Chief Judge Josey-Herring has also served on numerous committees. She has received a host of awards in recognition of her service to citizens of the District of Columbia.
Ms. Jonetta Barras is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author. She has more than 20 years experience reporting and commenting on national social, political, and cultural trends, including as an opinion writer with The Washington Post, Washington Examiner and Washington City Paper.
Ms. Barras founded Esther Productions Inc. in 2004 after the publication of her Black Board bestseller Whatever Happened to Daddy's Little Girl: The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women (Ballantine 2000, hardcover—2001, paperback). She has spoken at more than two-dozen national and international conferences and symposia, and many consider her the foremost authority on the affects of father absence among girls and women.
Dr. Tracie Robinson, Ph. D, RP, CHT is a holistic artist healer and certified dance/movement therapist with more than 30 years of experience. She uses structure and/or authentic dance and movement to facilitate synergistic change. Her goal is to expose people to their predispositions by integrating movement, gestures, rhythms, breath, verbal and non-verbal communication with a less defended expression of the body. This also includes facilitating the revelation of repressed feelings, structured movement interventions, exploring alternative methods of resolving internal and interpersonal conflicts and supporting psychological growth in areas of self-empowerment, self-esteem and positive body image.
"Dr. Misty Freeman applies her expertise in mental health, learning, and behavior, to help children and youth succeed academically, socially, behaviorally, and emotionally. "
Esther Productions, Inc. is dedicated to using a variety of vehicles—traditional and nontraditional—to develop communities throughout the United States and Europe. It was created in 2004 by Jonetta Rose Barras, award-winning journalist and author of Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl? - estherproductionsinc.com
"The Black Student Fund (BSF) provides essential advocacy, academic and retention support to academically motivated African American and other underserved students to facilitate their access, admission and successful matriculation and graduation from member schools. BSF partners with member schools to provide financial assistance, as well as instruction, evaluations, feedback and monitoring necessary to facilitate the creation and maintenance of a supportive and responsive environment." - https://blackstudentfund.org/
Contact: Esther Productions, Inc at estherproductionsinc@gmail.com
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/discovering-me-summit-and-awards-ceremony-tickets-761538300557
https://www.estherproductionsinc.com/events-1/the-discovery-summit-scholarship-awards-ceremony
Registration closed as of February 15, 2024
Feb 20, 2024, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
workshop via Zoom
KALEIDOSCOPE WOMEN’S WRITING COLLECTIVE is a monthly writing club for women 18 and older. This is a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-racial group of women who share their in-progress writings.
Benefits for being a member of this collective:
"You meet a fantastic group of women who are at various stages in their development as writers;
you will receive the encouragement you need to start or finish a creative project through the regular gatherings; and
you will meet professional writers (guest instructors) who can impart words of wisdom and guidance as you pursue your creative dreams."
If you are interested in being a member, please register at https://www.estherproductionsinc.com/events-1/kaleidoscope-womens-writing-collective-accepting-new-members-1
Me, Myself and Our Story: Creative Writing Institute for Young Ladies Aged 15 through 19 is a free course led by professional and published writers. The city and its population will serve as the prime classroom. Participants during this first semester of the Institute will discover the poetry around them and the poet in them.
This six-week ART OF POETRY WRITING course is for individuals who want to learn the basics of formal poetry writing as well as those seeking to master their style and strengthen their voice.
The lead instructor is award-winning poet and author jonetta rose barras. She has published two collections of poetry and appears in numerous journals and anthologies.
The first session took place on February 10, 2024 via Zoom.
The second session scheduled for February 24, 2024.
https://www.estherproductionsinc.com/events-1/seating-added-african-americans-and-childrens-literature-a-symposium-and-exhibition
African Americans and Children's Literature: A Symposium and Exhibition Mar 02, 2024, 8:30 AM – 6:30 PM EST
125 Michigan Ave NE, Washington, DC 20017, USA
COME LEARN THE STORY AND LEGACY OF WASHINGTON, DC’S AFRICAN AMERICAN AUTHORS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE—Past and Present, including May Miller Sullivan, Sterling Brown, Maxine Clair, Gwendolyn Brooks, Daphne Muse, Lucille Clifton, Eloise Greenfield, Jason Reynolds, Kwame Alexander, Jennifer Lawson, Courtland Cox, Adjoa Burrowes, E. Ethelbert Miller, Carolivia Herron, Aisha Rice, Tricia Elam Walker, jonetta rose barras, Sheila Crider, David Miller, Michelle Meadows, Leah Henderson , Michelle Green, Lakia Wilson and others.
SEEING OURSELVES IN THE RIVER, IN THE MIRROR, IN THE WORLD: DC'S AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY HISTORY ON TOUR
Apr 20, 2024, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Washington, 3310 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA
Esther Productions Inc., in partnership with The Black Student Fund and The Institute for African American Writing presents two authors Ms. Joy Jones and Mr. E.Ethelbert Miller on April 20th. Info: aachildrenslit2023@gmail.com.
" Joy Jones has taught creative writing and public speaking to middle school students and coached poetry slam teams. Her children’s book Tambourine Moon (Simon & Schuster) was chosen in 2000 as a Kid’s Pick of the Lists by the American Booksellers Association, selected as one of the best books for children by the black caucus of the ALA, and seen on Fox TV’s hit show The Bernie Mac Show. She is also the author of Private Lessons:A Book of Meditations for Teachers (Andrews McMeel), Fearless Public Speaking (SparkNotes), Jayla Jumps In (Albert Whitman & Company, 2020 and Black Caucus of the American Library Association BCALA, 2020 Best of the Best Booklist), Between Black Women: Listening with the Third Ear (African American Images), and a contributor to the anthology Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds: The Teachers of WritersCorps in Poetry and Prose.
She has won awards for her writing from the D. C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, and the Colonial Players Promising Playwrights Competition, plus awards from both the D. C. Department of Recreation & Parks and the D. C. Commission on National & Community Service for outstanding community service.
Joy Jones’ provocative op-ed on marriage trends for The Washington Post, “Marriage is for White People”, went viral. She is the director of the arts organization, The Spoken Word, and the founder of the Double Dutch team, DC Retro Jumpers, which has led exhibitions and classes throughout metropolitan Washington and abroad.”
Ethelbert Miller is a memoirist, award-winning poet and 2022 Grammy nominee for the Best Spoken Word Poetry Album--Black Men Are Precious. Mr. Miller is the author of two memoirs and several collections of poetry. He also is the editor of three anthologies of poetry. He is the editor of Poet Lore magazine and the host of the radio show "On the Margin," which airs Thursday mornings on WPFW-FM. He is the former director of Howard University's African American Resource Center, and has taught at several universities and colleges including American University, Emory & Henry College, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
"AFRICAN AMERICANS AND CHILDREN'S LITERATURE ON TOUR, presented by Esther Productions Inc. in partnership with The Black Student Fund and The Institute for African American Writing, is a humanities project that captures DC's rich literary history and the role played by Black writers in building canon and fortifying community. Supported, in part, by a grant from HumanitiesDC, the project includes a historical exhibition and conversations with some of the city's most acclaimed African American authors."
"Carolivia Herron is a retired professor of comparative literature who directs the
EpicCentering the National Mall creative writing program for at risk youth. She is best
known as the author of the children’s book Nappy Hair. She is a speaker with the Pen
Faulkner Writers in Schools program, an African American Jew, and an active member
of Tifereth Israel of Washington, DC."
About the event:
Jun 08, 2024, 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM EDT
Washington, 3660 Alabama Ave SE, Washington, DC 20020, USA
Join Esther Productions Inc., The Spoken Word and Francis Gregory Neighborhood Library as we co-sponsor the 4th Annual Teach Truth Day of Action, a Zinn Education Project, coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.
Come stand with Esther Productions Inc. The Spoken Word and the Francis Gregory against banning books and preventing the teaching of history.
Come hear Author Carolivia Herron read and discuss her book "Nappy Hair," which is banned in New York. Learn more about banned books and the anti-history movement advanced by certain states and organizations in the United States.
Bring your favorite banned book to share with others. Tell us why you believe Teaching Truth is important.
Take the pledge to teach truth and to protect our history.
Other banned books will be given away as door prizes, including several copies of Herron's "Nappy Hair."
MIDNIGHTROSE: A Reading Series of Poetry and Prose
Nov 09, 2024, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM EST
Washington, 4450 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016, USA
MIDNIGHTROSE: A Reading Series of Poetry and Prose continues featuring three exciting poets and short story writers whose words and presentations will inspire and regal. Presented by Esther Productions Inc. , the Institute for African American Writing and The Black Student Fund in partnership with The Tenley-Friendship Library, this second program in the Series features Kenneth Carroll, Elizabeth Bruce and Sasa Aakil.
Mr. Kenneth Carroll is a native Washingtonian whose poetry and prose has appeared in Icarus, In Search of Color Everywhere, Bum Rush The Page, Potomac Review, Worcester Review, Obsidian, the Washington Post, Words & Images Journal, Indiana Review, American Poetry: The Next Generation, Beyond the Frontier, Gargoyle, Spirit & Flame, and Penguin Academics Anthology of African American Poetry. His short stories appear in Stress City, (Paycock Press), Children of the Dream, (Simon & Schuster Pocketbooks), Gargoyle Magazine #44, Words and Images Journal of Southern Maine, Full Moon Over K Street, Shooting Star Magazine, The Black Body (7 Stories Press), and the anthology “It’s All Love” Double Day, edited by Marita Golden. He is the 2021 winner of the Blood Orange Review for short fiction.His book of poetry is entitled So What: for the White Dude Who Said This Ain’t Poetry, Bunny & The Crocodile Press. He has had three of his plays produced, The Mask, Walking to Be Free, and Make My Funk The P-Funk, which Ishmael Reed published in Konch. He is former director of DC WritersCorps and the African American Writers Guild and taught at Duke Ellington School for the Arts, Washington Writers Center and Montgomery County Community College. He is a former Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry and was a writer for BET’s Story Porch program featuring Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. He was featured in the Smithsonian Museum of African American Culture exhibit “All the Stories Are True.” He is the proud father of a daughter and two sons.
Ms. Elizabeth Bruce’s Universally Adored & Other One Dollar Stories was recently released by Vine Leaves Press. Her debut novel, And Silent Left the Place, won Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s Fiction Prize, with ForeWord Magazine and Texas Institute of Letters’ distinctions. She’has published stories in journals and anthologies in the USA and 13 countries.
A veteran teaching artist and arts producer with CentroNía and other schools, her educational book, Theatrical Journey Playbook: Introducing Science to Early Learners through Guided Pretend Play, won or placed in four indie contests. A DC-based native Texan, Elizabeth has received numerous fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, HumanitiesDC, and the McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation, and studied with Richard Bausch, the late Lee K. Abbott, Janet Peery, John McNally, and Liam Callanan. A Co-Founder of DC’s Sanctuary Theatre, Elizabeth co-hosts Creativists in Dialogue: A Podcast Embracing the Creative Life and its “Theatre in Community” and “Innovators, Artists & Solutions” series.
Ms. Sasa Aakil is a Multimedia Artist, Writer living and working in Rockville, Maryland. She is a potter, painter, poet, print maker, and bassist and served as the 2021 Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate. Sasa has been featured in the Bethesda Magazine for her work as Youth Poet Laureate. She has also been featured in the Washington Post, as well as on WTOP for her work on the A Man Was Lynched Yesterday Project in 2020. She has shown sculptural and two-dimensional work at the American Poetry Museum and Black Rock Art Center. Sasa is the founder of If All the Trees Were Pens Open Mic and recently published her first chapbook, the culmination of all my despair and the music that saves me. She received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Howard University in 2024.
For those interested in learning more about this literary event, please feel free to reach out via email at midnightrosereadingseries@gmail.com.
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