“Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities” (NYU Press, April 2010), co-edited by Darnell Hunt, director of UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and the center’s assistant director, Ana-Christina Ramón, delves into the long and rich history of African Americans in Los Angeles and presents a snapshot of contemporary issues affecting the community.

“African Americans have played important and pivotal roles in Los Angeles’ history,” Hunt says. “As our book demonstrates, African Americans have had a powerful impact on the development of the city — from being part of the first settlers in 1781, through the period of the region’s tremendous growth, to the present day.”

“Black Los Angeles is and has always been a space of profound contradictions,” Hunt writes in the book. “Just as Los Angeles has come to symbolize the complexities of the early twenty-first–century city, so too has Black Los Angeles come to embody the complex realities of race in so-called ‘colorblind’ times.”

“Black Los Angeles” is the culmination of eight years of research the center conducted on African American communities in the region.

Hunt and Ramón were motivated to edit the book because they noticed a dearth of research that connected the dots between the past, present and future of black life in the Los Angeles. They met with scholars and community members to discuss what topics the book should include and then enlisted 23 experts to contribute chapters for the book.

See more at UCLA Newsroom.

Location: Georgia International Convention Center

Log on to http://www.abbexpo.com or http://www.godsaysican.com for more info – info under news link on godsaysican website.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100512/ap_en_ce/us_books_q_a_damon_wayans
By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle, Ap Entertainment Writer – Wed May 12, 11:47 am ET

NEW YORK – Damon Wayans now has the unique distinction of having both Homey D. Clown and a novel to his credits.

The comedian who long ago emerged on the sketch comedy show “In Living Color” and who is perhaps the most recognized face of the Wayans clan, has penned “Red Hats” (Simon & Schuster). The novel’s main character is Alma, a bitter widow who finds new life after being taken in by a Red Hat Society group.

Wayans dedicated his book to his mother, Elvira, who took up with the Red Hats, a worldwide social organization for women. In the book, Wayans calls them “`Sex and the City’ for old biddies.”

The 49-year-old comedian, whose career has spanned 1984’s “Beverly Hills Cop” to the early 2000s sitcom “My Wife and Kids,” recently chatted about how he came to join the ranks of novelists.

Tue May 11, 3:04 pm ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Former supermodel Tyra Banks has signed a deal for a series of fantasy novels about the world of modeling, her publishers said on Tuesday.

EsoWon Books, 4331 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90008, 323-290-1048