If you are wondering where this great cover came from, all credit goes to Goñi Montes, an up-and-coming, cutting edge Borican graphic artist that’s making waves in the art world.

Myself, Guest Editor Nancy Mercado and art director Lorraine Miller Nuzzo faced a dilemma: finding a cover that would best capture the spirit of the Latino community. We wanted something that truly represented the “look” of the community (men and women of different races) who call themselves Latino. In researching and reviewing artists’ works, everywhere we looked, nothing seemed to encapsulate the theme of “¿WHAT’S IN A NOMBRE?” Enter Goñi Montes. We actually stumbled upon his portfolio on the web and saw his piece, “Helix.” This youthful, colorful and eye-catching artwork grabbed our attention and we realized we were on to something big. The result is a great cover that has received compliments from around the country, so kudos to Goñi for allowing us to reprint his work!

Below is some information about Goñi and I encourage you to contact him directly if you have an arts project in mind.  — G. David

BORN AND RAISED IN PONCE, PUERTO RICO, Goñi Montes did not discover art until his junior year in college. Up until that point he had very little drawing and absolutely no painting experience whatsoever. Shortly after studying fine arts and receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, he began his career at the Puerto Rico Sea Grantas as a scientific illustrator. After acquiring his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Atlanta, he switched to editorial and advertising illustration, occasionally teaching classes at SCAD. Montes has certainly come a long way in a very short period of time to become one of the most sought after digital artists in recent years.

While Montes is building up a reputation as a digital artist, he also works with traditional media. Artists as diverse as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Lord Frederic Leighton, Alphonse Mucha, Norman Rockwell and J.C. Leyendecker, have influenced Montes’ work. He also admits to having a heavy infatuation with old Korean prints.

Some reviewers have noted that “Montes portrays sceneries with impact. Very into the desaturated color palette, very French, yet Japanese too.” Montes is very open about his work and occasionally shares his process on his blog (www.goniart.com/blog), from sketches to final inking.

His work has been featured in professional and student shows for both Society of Illustrators Los Angeles and New York. His recent client list includes Tor Books, Oz Magazine, and Work Style Magazine.

Montes currently lives and freelances in Decatur, a nice little artistic oasis in the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. His website is at www.goniart.com.

COVER: “Helix,” Copyright © 2012, digital media

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Celebrating the achievements of African American librarians and their contributions to librarianship, Andrew P. Jackson (Sekou Molefi Baako), Executive Director of the Langston Hughes Community Library & Cultural Center in New York City has compiled with librarians Julius C. Jefferson, Jr.of Information Research Specialist in the Congressional Research Service (CRS) at the Library of Congress, and Akilah S. Nosakhere, Director of Library Services for New Mexico State University, have recently published a groundbreaking collection of essays, The 21st Century Black Librarian in America.

Published by The Scarecrow Press, The 21st Century Black Librarian in America is a tribute to activist librarian, founder of the Black Caucus of the ALA and Past-President of ALA (1984) Dr. E.J. Josey (1924-2009). The book is a collection of 50 essays by library educators, library graduate students, retired librarians, public library trustees, veteran librarians, library directors and new librarians.

They cover such topics as poorly equipped school libraries and the need to preserve the school library, a call to action to all librarians to make the shift to new and innovative models in public education, the advancement in information technology and library operations, special libraries, recruitment and the Indiana State Library program, racism in the history of library and information science, the need for continued activism by Black librarians and challenges that have plagued librarianship for decades. This collection covers a multiplicity of concerns for the 21st Century Black librarian and embodies compassion and respect for the provision of information. The essays are personable, inspiring, and thought provoking for all library professionals, regardless of race, class, or gender.

The 21st Century Black Librarian in America is a call to arms, in that there is a dire need in the black community to understand the importance of literacy and technology, and that more African-Americans should enter the profession of librarianship

Jackson, who serves as a board member of the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc., has been an avid supporter of phati’tude programming, with much of it developed and co-sponsored by the Langston Hughes Library. He has served as a Library Consultant/Advisor to Roosevelt Public Library and Wyandanch Public Library, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at CUNY’s York College Department of History and Philosophy-Cultural Diversity Program and Queens College-Graduate School of Library Information Studies. His essay, “In The Tradition: The Legacy of Cultural Messengers fropm Langston Hughes to Tupac Shakur” appeared in phati’tude Literary Magazine’s, “CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY THROUGH LITERATURE, From the Harlem Renaissance to Today” (Vol. 2, No. 4, Winter 2010). Jackson is the co-editor of The African American Almanac (2007, with Brigham Narins) and the author of Queens Notes: Facts About the Forgotten Borough of Queens, New York (2010).

The 21st Century Black Librarian in America: Issues and Challenges
Edited by Andrew P. Jackson, Julius C. Jefferson, Jr. and Akilah S. Nosakhere.
ISBN: 978-0-8108-8245-4
ISBN: 978-8108-8246-1 e-book
Published by The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

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Author and Librarian Carol Smallwood has published a series of books in the past few years in quick succession. A Pushcart-nominee, Smallwood is in Best New Writing 2010. She edited Writing and Publishing: The Librarian’s Handbook (American Library Association, 2010); co-edited (Molly Peacock, foreword) Women on Poetry: Tips on Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (forthcoming, McFarland); Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing (Key Publishing House, 2012); Compartments: Poems on Nature, Femininity and Other Realms (Anaphora Literary Press, 2011; How to Thrive as a Solo Librarian (Scarecrow, 2012).

Smallwood’s articles have appeared in such magazines as The Writer’s Chronicle, American Libraries, Michigan Feminist Studies. She has been a columnist for The Detroit News, and her book reviews have appeared in such publications as: Book/Mark: A Quarterly Small Press Review. Below is a book review for Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing. Check out a book review on Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing

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phati’tude contributor Tony Medina, a two-time winner of the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People for DeShawn Days (2001) and I and I, Bob Marley (2009),  has published his seventh collection of poetry, An Onion of Wars (Third World Press). This latest collection is a satirical and surprising commentary on contemporary issues facing young and old alike. His mastery of language, imagery, conversation, and voice permeates each and every selection within this 100-plus page volume. The Caribbean writer and novelist Jan Carew shares the following: “The poetry . . . is complex. It strips the street to its simplest common denominator of survival and tears off layer upon layer of stark realism.” An Onion of Wars is available for sale on Amazon.com.

Medina has spent much of his adult life living in Harlem. He is the author/editor of sixteen books for adults and young readers. His anthology, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (co-edited with Louis Reyes Rivera), was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year (2001). His poetry, fiction, and essays appear in more than ninety anthologies and publications, and he is the author and editor of two previous Third World Press titles, Committed to Breathing (2003) and Role Call (2002).

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Nothing But Red is an anthology of literary and visual artists, brings attention to the issue of violence against women worldwide. It also raises money for Equality Now, an international human rights organization that strives to help women of all faiths, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds, with the support of dedicated volunteers who share a desire to promote equality.

Published in 2008, the anthology remains in the spotlight. One contributor, poet-teacher-writer-activist and phati’tude contributor and a contributor to this anthology, Andrena Zawinski, continues to promote Nothing But Red, because she believes that this groundbreaking anthology serves a worthy cause.

The back story behind Nothing But Red is this: In April 2007, seventeen-year-old Dua Khalil was pulled into a crowd of young men—some of them family members. They proceeded to stone and beat her to death, a supposed “honour” killing for being in the company of a man of a different faith.

The police stood by and did nothing, and several members of the crowd filmed the incident with camera phones. You can find the video on both CNN’s website and YouTube.

One month later, popular writer and filmmaker, Joss Whedon, posted his complete despair and outrage on a fan-run news blog, Whedonesque.com. Among his words was a call to action, the publication of the anthology, Nothing But Red which was published on the one-year anniversary of Aswad’s death.

Contributors in this anthology the gamut: men, women, feminists, activists or just everyday people who are publishing for the first time. They write passionately from personal experience, whether they are the abused or know someone who has suffered at the hands of an abuser. This 313-page collection in multiple formats at LuLu. For more information, check out Nothing But Red website.

Zawinski, born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, lives on the city island of Alameda, CA and teaches writing in Oakland, CA She has authored several collections of poetry including Something About (2009, Blue Light Press, San Francisco), Traveling in Reflected Light (1995, Pig Iron Press, Youngstown as a Kenneth Patchen Prize), Greatest Hits 1991-2001 (2002, Pudding House), and Taking the Road Where It Leads (2008, Poets Corner Press ).
Something About won the 2010 Josephine Miles PEN Oakland award winner for literary excellence.

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Richard Vargas, a phati’tude contributor, is the publisher and editor of The Más Tequila Review (TMTR) an independently owned small press poetry review. TMTR publishes a wide variety of contemporary poetry by well-known poets, and “poets who should be.” Published twice a year, TMTR considers poetry of any length, style, or form. Vargas writes, “I edit and publish all by my little itty bitty self. Right now, the plan is to publish two print issues a year. I want the best poetry I can find. No restrictions on content or form. No regional preference. I am actively soliciting poetry from poets all across the country.”

The latest issue, #4, features the following poets: Michelle Brooks, Leonard Cirino, Daniel Nguyen, Terence Winch, Sheila Black, Richard Vargas, Michael C Ford, Devreaux Baker, Gretchen Marquette, Stewart Warren, Dennis Gulling, Justin Rogers, Robert Penick, Nick DePascal, Gerald Locklin, Rich Boucher, Wayne Lee, Levi Romero, Merimée Moffitt, Charles Harper Webb, Charles Rammelkamp, Lauren Camp, Melinda Palacio, Bob Johnston, Bill Nevins, Gary Brower, nila northSun, Christine Heppermann, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Edward Alexander, Sharanya Manivannan, Jenith Charpentier, Lewis Mundt, Ron Koertge, Lowell Jaeger, Jim Ferris, Victor Infante, Dee Cohen, John Bennett, Carmen Calatayud, and t. kilgore splake.

Vargas grew up in Los Angeles and has lived in Albuquerque for several years. He has had two books published: American Jesus and McLife. Garrison Keillor featured him on The Writer’s Almanac not once, but twice. He graduated from UNM Creative Writing program with an MFA, and is currently on the board of the Local Poets Guild, and part-time events coordinator for Alamosa Books.

As Vargas states in his editorial note: “The poems keep coming from all over. The unfamiliar names are starting to outnumber the familiar ones, and that’s a good thing. I take it as a sign the word is getting out about Más Tequila and what it stands for. “It’s all about the poem” is the unwritten creed, and it really is as simple as that. All else is plain B.S.” TMTR is available on Amazon.com and only costs $7.00. Check it out today!

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We are pleased to announce the publication of ¿WHAT’S IN A NOMBRE? Writing Latin@ Identity in America. This 310-page issue, which was guest edited by Nancy Mercado, features a cavalcade of over 117 Latino poets, writers and artists from across the U.S. This groundbreaking issue is not only a great teaching tool, but is an excellent addition in anyone’s library collection.

Featuring poets Pedro Lopez Adorno, Maria Aponte, Nestor Barreto, Oscar Bermeo, Susana Cabanas, Sandra Maria Esteves, Jaime “Shaggy Flores, Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, Marianela Medrano, Oscar Mireles, Amina Munoz-Ali, Wilie Perdomo, Etnairis Rivera, Floyd Salas, Emanuel Xavier and more. Interviews of Esmeralda Santiago, Oscar Hijuelos, Nelly Rosario, Gary Soto, and Junot Diaz. Tributes to Piri Thomas and Louis Reyes Rivera. Short stories by Rosebud Ben-Oni, Angie Cruz, Judith Mercado, Thelma T. Reyna and John Rodriguez. Artwork and photographs by Wanda Benvenutti, George Malave, Kukuli Velarde and more. Includes bilingual works in English and Spanish.

Check out our preview and purchase ¿WHAT’S IN A NOMBRE? Writing Latin@ Identity in America on Amazon.com and other online outlets, for $20.

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phati’tude Literary Magazine is going on hiatus after the publication of its Latino issue and will resume publishing in Spring 2013 with our Women’s issue, which will be edited by Jen Johnson, our Managing Editor.

We plan on using this time off to fully concentrate on our fundraising efforts, to promote and market phati’tude Literary Magazine to increase sales, and make our existing issues available on Kindle, iPad and on e-Books. We will continue to update phati’tude’s website and hold some phati’tude events in the interim.

This much needed hiatus is a good thing. Since our relaunch in 2010, we have published 1,934 pages and featured over 400 poets, writers and artists. We’ve created an internet presence on social media outlets such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter,  and recently Tumblr and Issuu. We’ve established an internship program with students not only in New York City, but from also across the country, and have developed a dedicated and hard-working editorial staff. And as you look at some of the highlights listed below, we’ve done some great work, but we need money and other resources so we can become better and even more successful.

So to clarify, this hiatus is being done in the name of growth. It’s not indefinite, and we will be back. On behalf of the board of directors of the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. our nonprofit organization, and the editorial staff of phati’tude Literary Magazine, I thank you for your continued support and look forward to hearing from all of you great poets, writers and artists in January 2013!

HERE ARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PAST TWO YEARS.

Michelle Aragon presenting a copy of phati'tude's Spring 2010 issue at the Bowery Poetry Re-Launch Party.

The Re-Launch. Besides figuring out how to reorganize and create the websites, we also had to figure out how to apply the production standards that I had established during the mid-1990s to using the millennium’s latest technology (print-on-demand) and develop social media skills to promote the magazine. We also had to rebrand phati’tude and redesign the magazine. The result was our re-launch issue, “Multiculturalism: In Search of a New Perspective”  for Spring 2010. We followed with our Summer 2010 issue, “The Lavender Issue, LGBT Literature Today”  guest edited by Timothy Liu, and held a relaunch party at The Bowery Poetry Club on July 9, 2010, which was a great success!

The First African American Literary Festival. We decided to do our first ethnic special, “Celebrating Black History Through Literature: From the Harlem Renaissance to Today,” which was edited by Jennifer Bacon and guest edited by Louis Reyes Rivera. This led to the creation of an annual festival at the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center in Queens, New York, during Black History month, which we hope to do again in 2013.

Rachel Hadas, Jon Sands & Louis Reyes Rivera talk poetry at "Real Poetry, Real Talk" at the Bowery Poetry Club.

Real Poetry, Real Talk. While working on “Spring Has Returned: A Season of Renewal”  and “Summer Sixties Special,” we developed a new poetry series, “Real Poetry, Real Talk”  which featured distinguished poets Louis Reyes Rivera and Rachel Hadas, who read their poetry, discussed their work and participated in a Q&A. The series was created as a place for performance and learning, where the reading of “real poetry” is followed by “real talk” designed to celebrate the written word, offering inspiration in a nurturing, open environment to students, teachers and lovers of poetry. “Real Poetry, Real Talk” premiered on May 12, 2011 at the Bowery Poetry Club.

Tenth Anniversary. “Awakenings: Bridging the Cultural Divide, Remembering September 11th“  is an issue that has been in the making since 2001. Ten years ago, we compiled an issue commemorating September 11 in 2001, which was never published due to lack of funds.  We decided to pull it out, dust it off and publish some of the existing works from the original compilation alongside newer works that provide a fresh perspective on what has happened since September 11th. This issue, which was managed by editorial interns Amanda Ostrove and Eric Barbera, consists of writers from around the globe that highlights the works of Arab American, Arab, Jewish, Israeli, African and Afghan American writers.

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ALISON KENNY, ANTALYA || TODAY’S ZAMAN || MARCH 2012

This slim book, written by Daniel de Souza while serving a prison sentence for attempting to smuggle drugs into Turkey, makes a great read for anyone interested in finding out more about Turkish society and what makes the people tick.

Although inevitably set against the backdrop of the grim realities of prison life, the author avoids dwelling too much on the hardships of being incarcerated in a Turkish jail — the brutality, cold, rats, unhygienic conditions, overcrowding and all the other grim realities of life inside. Instead, each section neatly encapsulates the story of one or two inmates. While some of the characters, based on those de Souza met in jail, may not be the everyday sort of Turks expats bump into during the course of their stay here, the majority nevertheless exhibit many of the interesting and heartwarming characteristics of the “typical” Turk.

The characters de Souza wrote of during his forced stay range from celebrities through to seriously hardened criminals, political prisoners to common criminals, and from children to petty thieves banged up for stealing a couple of oranges. The author was imprisoned in 1975 and spent two years of a life sentence in prisons in İstanbul, İzmir and Antakya. The background of violence is heightened by the undercurrent of the political events happening on the outside, especially the military coup of 1980, which imposed tighter restrictions and an atmosphere of fear throughout the country. According to de Souza, the prison guards’ authority was usurped by soldiers, leading to conflict not only between the prisoners and their jailors but also between the prison workers and the military.

The message of the book — that it is futile to take away a person’s liberty and then expect them to reform their behavior — is beautifully highlighted on the first page in a comment by a Pakistani prisoner. On being given a present in the form of a white pigeon by a couple of young soldiers, much to their surprise he immediately releases the bird, explaining gently, “It’s wrong to lock anybody in a cage, even a bird.” That the suffering endured by all the inmates is counterproductive becomes clear by the number of those who, when released, reoffend and are returned to prison within months. >>READ MORE

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Yes. There has been a delay, but it’s coming. ¿WHAT’S IN A NOMBRE? Writing Latin@ Identity in America will publish and be available for sale on March 30th on Amazon.com. It’s a 300 page issue filled with interviews, essays, poetry, artwork and translations, that’s worth the wait!

Nancy Mercado, guest editor of this issue, did an excellent job pulling this issue together. Besides interviews with Esmeralda Santiago, Oscar Hijuelos, Gary Soto, Junot Díaz, and Nelly Rosario; and we have tons of essays by Lyn Di Iorio, Meg Petersen, José Angel Figueroa, Adriana Páramo, Andrea O’Reilly Herrera and Gizella Menses; with articles by Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, Myrna Nieves, Mayra Santos-Febres, Edwin Torres and Sonia Rivera.

The cover is by Goni Nontes, a Puerto Rican-born artist currently living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. We decided to do something a little different: a digital/manga-type cover that presents U.S. Latinos in different shapes, sizes and colors.

Stay tune for updates and upcoming readings and events!

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