News

Available for Pre-Order! - Going Too Far: Essays About America's Nervous Breakdown

Ishmael Reed's next collection of essays, GOING TOO FAR: ESSAYS ABOUT AMERICA'S NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, is now available for pre-order. See here for more details.

SFJAZZ APPOINTS ISHMAEL REED FIRST SFJAZZ POET LAUREATE

(San Francisco, CA, February 28, 2012) – SFJAZZ, the leading nonprofit jazz organization on the West Coast, the presenter of the SFJAZZ Spring Season 2012 running now through June 22, and the San Francisco Jazz Festival, today announced the appointment of Ishmael Reed as the first SFJAZZ Poet Laureate. This appointment will serve to expand and promote the role of poetry and spoken word in jazz and to continue celebrating jazz as a living art form built on a constantly evolving tradition.

Ishmael Reed Receives the Spotlight Award from the Bay Area Business Roundtable

On Thursday January 26th, the Bay Area Business Roundtable presented “Spotlight Awards” to Ishmael Reed and Len Canty, the founder and Chairperson of the Black Economic Council.

Ishmael Reed Reads Poem "Scrub Jays" on SLATE

Follow the link below and Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Ishmael Reed read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2011/08/scrub_jays.html

KONCH MAGAZINE

Konch: a publication for the rest of us, by Ishmael Reed. Konch began as a print magazine in 1990 and went online in 1998. Konch continues to publish those voices that are ignored by the American media, which abandoned their goal of diversifying their ranks by the year 2000- a goal set by the late Robert Maynard. Unlike the mainstream writers who spend two hour lunches hobnobbing with those whom they cover, the contributors to Konch are volunteers.

http://www.ishmaelreedpub.com

Ishmael Reed OpEd in the New York Times

From November 8, 2011

Oakland's mayor Jean Quan and the Occupy movements...

Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/opinion/trouble-beside-the-bay.html

Ishmael Reed on Mark Twain and The N-Word

This week, Publishers Weekly reported that a coming edition of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” will omit racially-sensitive language, like the n-word, which it will replace with the word slave. We asked award-winning novelist, poet and critic Ishmael Reed to offer his take on the story. Note: Some of the language in this essay is just the kind of thing that some folks are trying to edit out of Mark Twain’s books.

Ishmael Reed on PRECIOUS in the New York Times

Judging from the mail I’ve received, the conversations I’ve had and all that I’ve read, the responses to “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” fall largely along racial lines...

Full article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/opinion/05reed.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1...

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