RED! columnist, Karyn Alexander, has authored a new book which has just been published: MAD AT GOD: Coming Full Circle from Anger into Solid Faith.  We are very pleased to announce it here.

Karyn will have her first book signing for the new book on Saturday, July 10, at 2:00 p.m. at Border’s Bookstore in the Crestview Hills Town Center in beautiful Crestview, Kentucky (northern KY).

Mark that date. I urge you not to miss this chance to meet Karyn and get this extraordinary new memoir.

It’s Karyn’s second book and depicts the continuing saga of her tumultuous relationship with God initially explored in her first book, Familiar Spirits.   In that book, she recounts the consequences and horror that dominated her youth when familiar spirits, or, as we should know them, demons, unsuspectingly invaded her life as a child, in addition to a couple of siblings and friends.

Karyn is a survivor, and Familiar Spirits rings not with a bleak tone comprised of gratuitous or graphic scenes, but with a triumphant sense of recognizing that she could gain a new life when God entered it at a pivotal point. There are bleak moments, though they emerge in the natural way she battled against them.

The writing in both books is in no way chicken-soupish. There’s no fluff. This life is real. You can question or object. Still, you can’t fathom what reportedly, in Karyn’s life, were ghoulish days and nights of struggle. You can’t imagine one person has been ravaged in these ways.

As with Familiar Spirits, the new memoir Mad at God takes the reader to a new level of Karyn’s battles; it’s a look into how these spirits hated to let go and how she finally came to grips with who God is and the way he exerts his love, even in times of one’s extreme doubt.

In the coming weeks, we’ll feature more news about the book, discuss the ways in which Karyn’s delivery from demon possession changed her life and thinking, and how she’s using her gifts to help others. For one thing, she’s writing passionately and acquiring new readers all the time. She wants to reach.

Karyn’s life is miraculous for many reasons. One is that she does helps others in life-changing ways as executive director of Winfield House in Augusta, Kentucky. In her work, numerous formerly incarcerated individuals, as well as homeless and alienated individuals and youth, have been assisted and guided by her blessed wisdom and humanity.

Read her columns in RED!  They make perfect companion pieces to her two books, which are must-reads.

I urge you to watch the brand new, 10-part, cable TV show, True Crime with Aphrodite Jones.  Must-see TV.

It’s the most substantive and compelling true crime-oriented TV show in recent years.  Here’s the trailer. 

This week the third show is airing at 10:00 p.m. (est) on the Investigation Discovery (ID) channel. 

As a longtime friend of Aphrodite, I know her non-fiction work well. I was fortunate to spend some time with her in Cincinnati, Ohio as she heavily researched her best-selling 1998 book, Della’s Web. It was a joy to watch her work and to talk with her about her research methods. A former professor, she’s a natural teacher, too, a natural communicator. Her gifts are many. She has been writing since she was a young girl, and her new show is an extension of her storytelling skills. Her audience simply grows.

Aphrodite has written eight best-selling, true-crime books to date, inarguably catapulting her into the arena of one of the most absorbing and authoritative writers of crime in the country. Among the books is her most investigation into the problematic 2005 criminal trial for alleged child sexual abuse; “Michael Jackson Conspiracy” is a fascinating look at the likelihood of dubious charges and case against the pop music’s late, great singer and entertainer. 

Yes. Watch my friend’s new intense show. ID is giving it deserving attention on its website. 

The first two shows included her investigation of the Scott Peterson case and O.J. Simpson’s extraordinary fall from grace and events leading up to his current incarceration in a Nevada prison. Most impressive with the O.J. show were the interviews with Simpson’s former agent Mike Gilbert (incredibly new information) and members of the Goldman family.

Aphrodite has made a transition successfully into this medium as a result of persistent hard work and determination. She is equally determined to help others along the way. Although it’s been quite a few years since I’ve seen her, I always observed the caring way that Aphrodite treated interviewees, victims of crime, and numerous others who might have unexpectedly entered the world of her stories.

I had no idea that I’d be able to help her with early considerations for the story that became Della’s Web. It was unexpected, and yet I observed a writer whose work in the darkness of crime never obstructed her from offering compassion and generosity to others.

I’m happy for the positive buzz her new show is getting, and for her continuing rise in real television journalism. As sound-byte-frigid as most TV journalism is, True Crime with Aphrodite Jones, in spite of commercials, defies that frigidity. Her show is not the norm; it’s original and fresh.

The show goes deep to capture intimate moments in some stories she’s covered in book form and in many new stories (O.J. Simpson and the Zodiac Killer) she’s explored. Aphrodite is interested in the unexplored human quotient inside of tragic situations. She’s not in to drudging up new spheres of gossip. She’s not interested in re-hashing old print.

Cheers to you, Aphrodite. We’ll keep watching - and reading.

My longtime, very dear friend, Bob Shacochis, is a truth-teller, and an immaculate one.

For the many years I’ve known him, I’ve read nearly every word he’s written. And for many years, he’s been one of our country’s greatest novelists, short story writers, and journalists. He’s broken ground in all three genres. Bob always raises high the bar. He keeps it high. He’s been working nearly nine years on a new novel.

As we hear reports from Haiti, it should not be lost on anyone that Bob Shacochis has been an American journalist once embedded deeply in Haiti. He wrote a seminal and award-winning book on Haiti, The Immaculate Invasion.  Get it.  Now.  You want to know more about Haiti before the earthquake?  Sure, there are histories.  Sure, novelist Madison Smartt Bell has written a wonderful trilogy of books on Haiti, and he’s worth reading.

Haitian-American novelist - and one of my favorite writers - Edwidge Danticat has written profoundly about her country in stories, novels, and creative nonfiction.  Read her.

But, I tend to always go to my friend Bob.  I knew that soon enough he’d weigh in on the quake and it’s aftermath.  Here’s a piece he wrote for The Daily Beast.  Real perspective.  For instance, we see former president Clinton now, awash in what Caribbean light there is in Haiti.  However, Bob was in Haiti when the country essentially crumbled in 1994.  His take on Clinton’s 1994 - 1996 game plan, in conjunction with our U.S. Special Forces, casts a new light on the current situation. 

I think that Bob thinks there’s certainly hope for Haiti (he loves the Haitian people way too much to be overly skeptical); however, I also believe he’s watching the humanitarian groundswell very closely. President Clinton’s interests and activities are not far off Bob’s radar.  

He’s written extensively on Haiti for Harper’s Magazine, especially.  Find those back issues with his pieces: they’re possibly the best reporting on and from the country that we have in the last 15 - 20 years.  Again, sure, Haiti’s covered journalistically.  There are probably 2,000 - 3,000 journalists there now, given those arriving from around the world. Yet, you want some of the best.  Right, I’ve learned a lot from my friend, and I’m encouraging you to learn, too.

The literary radio program from Santa Monica, California, Bookworm, interviewed him years ago.  I also encourage you to listen to Bob talk about writing, about his art.

Haiti media coverage, and the apocalyptic fanfare that accompanies it, will be extensive and ongoing for years. Bob Shacochis is one of our (real) veteran journalists and literary artists whose past and future coverage you do not want to miss. No fanfare. Just the truth. That’s the word.

It may be 2010, but the year 2006 was an important year for a group of artists and poets.

These 38 artists and 44 poets in 2006 contributed work to a vibrant and provocative poetry anthology, For a Better World. In fact, the anthology became an annual work beginning in 2004, celebrating themes of peace and justice, inclusion and tolerance, understanding, hope, change, faith, and transformation.

Each year since 2004, the poetry-art anthology - the brilliant creation of publisher and artist Saad Ghosn - has become an open invitation to artists and poets particular in southern Ohio to capitalize on this avenue for their work. The results have been breathtakingly passionate and experimental. The content always surprises in the way it elevates new voices, while showcasing some of the region’s veteran artists and writers.

Now, poems and drawings from the 2006 anthology are on display at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center. The exhibition runs from January 16 - February 27. It is called, “For a Better World 2006: Artists and Poets Reflecting on Peace and Justice. The Arts Center, established in 2003, deserves tremendous praise for finding a new way to illuminate these works.

The gallery hours are Monday through Friday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

I will be moderating a panel discussion on Saturday, February 27, from 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. The panel, entitled “Art as a Vehicle for Change,” will consist of writer and literary advocate Mary Pierce Brosner (founder of Women Writing for (a) Change); writer and editor Gregory Flannery (Streevibes); and visual artist Jimi Jones. These powerful writers and artists are friends and longtime co-advocates of empowering people to understand the impact of written and spoken words and the urgency of art.

The Kennedy Heights Art Center, in collaboration with Saad Ghosn, proves yet again that their community-building mission knows no limits in ingenuity and in their greater calling to champion the best art in this region.

Steve Kissing came to me four years ago with a poem. I gave him a short critique. I loved the poem, although I had no idea he had a penchant for poetry. That was a twist. “I’ve been dabbling,” he said.

Steve had just published a new extraordinary memoir, Running from the Devil: A Memoir of a Boy Possessed, which captures a period of time during his youth in which he suspected he might be possessed. It turned out that Steve was simply the recipient of an uproarious adolescence and wildly provocative imagination. The memoir is brilliant and one of the must-reads on anyone’s list of autobiographical reading.

With Running…, Steve even wound up on The Diane Rehm Show, out of Washington D.C., a national radio show, huge audience, glued listeners, an automatic, plug-in to, say, a couple hundred thousand listeners. What occurred: a spike in book sales. A kind of blessing. The book was already selling.

In fact, outside of Mary Karr’s and Tobias Wolff’s works, Steve Kissing’s only memoir should be near the top. Otherwise, his imagination never stops. Is it a surprise he’s Creative Director of Barefoot Proximity, in Cincinnati, a superbly successful marketing/graphics/branding firm? Is it a surprise he’s a columnist for Cincinnati Magazine?

No surprise. Steve is not just one of my favorite writers; he’s a writer that matters. Sure, he’s one of the funniest friends I know and has one of the most generous spirits. Yet his range of writing continues to thrill and to exert itself.

His first book of poems, a chapbook, is Survival of the Fittest: Poems about Camping and Hiking. A slim book, it is still a must read. It’s Steve’s initiation into the world of poetry book publishing. It’s available through www.amazon.com and www.BigTablePublishing.com.

The poems - 26 in the collection - range from mediations on the episodic craziness of “Family Camping” to prose poems to skillful handling of forms such as couplets (”Love is Natural” and “Escapees”) and a totally original take on raccoons, the skitterish bandits: “…these junk food junkies/Return to their dens and slip into a food and drink/Coma, just as we are emerging from our own….”

Perfectly rendered. Nothing escapes this nature-lover’s eye. His eye for particulars is keen. He knows the smells of the woods and the ineptness of litter bugs.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, Steve will give a reading of some of the poems at Joseph Beth Booksellers on Thursday, January 21 at 7:00 p.m. Pencil in that date. He is a superb reader; it will be more than entertaining.

His bio even touches on what we can expect in the future: “His favorite place to camp is Yellowstone and his favorite place to hike is in his own mind.”

I’m awaiting more results in book form from Steve’s mind-trips.

I appreciated hearing from my friend and colleague, Bill Miley, who illuminated several key observations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are very important to point out, as Bill responds to my recent blog of December 1.

Bill writes cogently, and I’d like to share his insights, which are indeed worthy to note. Bill writes:

“In 2005, the Israeli government made an unprecedented move to unilaterally withdraw citizens from Gaza. The plan, under Ariel Sharon’s Kadima party, was called “disengagement.” Thousands of Israeli citizens were forcibly displaced from their homes and businesses.

“The result was that in 2006 the Palestinians elected Hamas - a terrorist organization and proxy of Iran as the legal government in Gaza. Subsequently, the agricultural businesses that grow fruit and vegetables for export to the rest of Israel and internationally that were formally owned by Israelis have been allowed to decay. Instead, Hamas has been smuggling rockets into Gaza to be fired into Israel.

“Rocket fire was nearly continuous even after the so-called ‘ceasefire’. Almost none of that was reported in the U.S. press. Finally, after several warnings from Israel, the Israeli government took action and started the Operation Cast Lead to stop the rocket fire. Even so, the IDF took extraordinary measures to keep Palestinians from getting hurt. They sent thousands of text messages directly to Palestinians to warn them of impending action against missile sites, most of which were hidden in civilian neighborhoods and schools. Even so, Israel has been vilified in the press for its actions in Gaza.

“Take a look at the following video by Arab-American Brigitte Gabriel on her view of Israel and Islam:

“Other resources that I recommend to get the Israeli perspective:

“1) Caroline Glick - her book, Shackled Warrior. It is an insightful look into the Middle East situation. She is my favorite commentator on the subject;

“2) Walid Shoebat - another former Muslim who supports Israel and speaks out against radical Islam;

“3) Noni Darwish - an Egyptian Arab who warns against the Sharia Law;

“4) Bat Yeor - a Jewish woman originally from Egypt, hence her pseudonym “daughter of the river.” Her book “Eurabia” - The Euro-Arab Axis.

“Lest you think that I am not sympathetic with the Palestinians, I believe that they have been victimized by their own leadership, rather than Israel. Hamas has not bettered the lives of the Gazans since coming to power. There are ministries directly to the Arab Palestinians such as ‘Hope for Ishmael’ - which I support.

“Not everything Israel does is right. But, the Bible commands us to pray for Israel. Israel is all the stands between us and the rising tide of militant Islam. As believers, we need to be aware of what the truth is and what is at stake for our own country.

“Finally, one more good video to watch. Netanyahu’s speech before the United Nations.”

I am proud of my friend and RED!’s senior technical advisor, William Lambers.

Bill exudes a charisma and proactive vision that have helped identify RED!’s recent achievements as a major publication.

He is also his own man in the world of writing, publishing, and outreach. His prolific work bangs the drum of a number of cultural and political issues, namely those involving world peace, nuclear disarmament, and fighting global hunger.

Bill Lambers is on the frontline.

He’s published a new book, The Roadmap to End Global Hunger, which is a must-read for not only his illustrating the bold, under-the-radar approaches the U.S. government is taking toward combating world hunger, but for the unsubtle and articulate way Bill addresses one of the current worst epidemics in world history.

Read this notice about the new book.  Also, here’s a new op-ed piece that showcases Bill’s other concern for peace and justice. His humanitarian push is gaining much ground. His readership grows weekly.

While you’re checking out his other books or his website, know that all of Bill’s works are incredibly reasonably priced. He wants you to read.

But, about global hunger: the stats are blindingly chilling. The stories should make you furious enough to get involved, even in a marginal way. Little by little.

RED! supports Bill’s efforts - and those of the U.N. World Food Programme - to fight the fight against world poverty. In so many cases where hunger exists, especially in third world countries, families that depend on a father’s or husband’s presence are left deprived often because the adult male in the home is incarcerated. This is certainly a reality and usually not talked about in the media.

We salute you, Bill. Let’s keep spreading the word. We’ve just started.

The world has lost a true warrior and kindred spirit of hope, dignity, and transformation.

Robin ‘Doc’ Herman passed away Wednesday evening in a Dayton, Ohio hospice after a battle with cancer. One should know, right off, that his spirit of peacefulness still contained a resevoir of fight against such a disease. But, Doc is at peace now. One of our spiritual lights has burned out, although Doc’s undying, well-lit imprint will remain in our hearts and minds.

His constancy, his advocacy, his teaching, and his wisdom will always be cherished.

Doc was a friend and a colleague, a distinguished professor in the criminology department at Wright State University; he was an avid innovator and a person that, word for word, reflects the best of RED!’s mission when it expresses that we also profile innovators that help facilitate transformation in the lives of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals.

Doc was on the front line of working with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. He taught for many years in Dayton Correctional Institution (D.C.I.).  Doc recently - and ironically - was on the front line with his late friend, Dennis Bussell, whose memorial service he even officiated this summer, as beautifully recalled by Dennis’ widow Terah, in a lovely narrative she wrote about Doc’s passing last night.

Bless you, Terah.  Your words were the first written and published upon Doc’s passing, and he would not want it any other way.

Yes, Doc was an innovator. I had the great pleasure of watching his brilliant mind and speaking in action, especially in The Psychology of Incarceration (P.O.I.) course, which he taught with RED! columnist Khalil Osiris at Franklin Pre-Release Center in Columbus, Ohio. Doc was part of our teaching team.

We had one really profoud evening in April 2007 when Doc, Dennis, Khalil, Julie George, and four others presented to the P.O.I. class of 36 students at Franklin Pre-Release. It was a monumental evening of sharing, receiving, and being - being available to receive the wisdom and insight especially from Doc, who eloquently shared the reasons why he believed these incarcerated women were on the verge of new healthy lives and relationships, a new world outside of prison.

Doc had an instinctual, storytelling way of speaking, an aesthetic that was rooted deeply in Native American lore and healing. In fact, his words did heal. (I remember Doc telling my own students once about a man named Lonnie whom he mentored; he’d helped Lonny embrace his transformation. It was a special story, and I sensed that Doc’s words to Lonnie, over months, were full of healing.)

I’ll never forget Khalil saying to my students once, “Doc never once missed teaching a class session at Wright State - in all his many, many years of teaching at the univesity. He was the most dedicated teacher I ever met.”

Doc was an optimist. He and Khalil visited my Cincinnati Authors course in the summer of 2007 and articulated to a new generation of students how formerly incarcerated individuals are changing the world in a pro-active, positive, and untold way. Humble, as always, in their delivery, they recounted success stories, and I know my students were enlightened. My students talked to me for days afterward, reminding me that they’d never heard of such amazing life changes. 

I said, “That’s because Doc and Khalil live out the message they bring - they are about positive and permanent change, and they’ll believe, teach, and help bring it about until they die.”

Doc and Khalil, along with Tony Villa, Sr., wrote The Psychology of Incarceration book and curriculum. As a result, P.O.I. is now used in prisons, jails, educational institutions, and community programs as one of a cutting-edge approach to address transformation and recidivism. Doc also helped write publications for Hambleyeca House.

Arlene Mendenhall, of the Miami Valley Council for Native Americans, wrote Doc’s friends: “I am so sorry to pass along to you the information that our friend and Council member, Robin Herman, walked on at 9:45 p.m. last night. Thank you to all who have inquired about him and kept in touch. and to those who visited with him often during his last days. He was much loved and we will all miss him….”

It was, again, an immense pleasure to listen to Sister Helen Prejean share her insights into the ongoing moral dilemma of the death penalty. This is the second time in three years that I’ve sat transfixed by S. Helen’s tremendous knowledge of social justice issues and by her compassion.

Sister Helen’s visit to Cincinnati on Sept. 21 and 22 has been sponsored by Xavier University and its Peace and Justice Programs, Students for Life, and by Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE).  It was standing-room-only last night at the university’s Cintas Center conference room; approximately 300 visitors packed the room.

It’s also the second time in three years I thought to myself, when encountering a guest speaker, “I haven’t looked at my watch one time. This is an amazing presentation, a gift of a communicator.”  I teach communication studies - and literature and writing. I scrutinize speakers all the time. I really pay attention to good writing. Helen Prejean, a great writer, is also one of the wisest and most gifted speakers on any circuit. She opposes the death penalty. She cherishes life. She abhors a government’s decision to torture, and she talked Monday night about the death penalty as a kind of torture.  There is real compatibility.

S. Helen treated us to the discoveries and inner strength she grappled with while eventually ministering to death row inmate Patrick Sonnier, in Louisiana, in the 1980s. Sonnier was sentenced to die in 1978 for the Nov. 5, 1977 rape and murder of Loretta Bourque, 18-years old, and David LeBlanc,, 17.

Her charisma is not manufactured for effect. It is real. It’s not a grassroots-type “here-I-am-take-notice” charisma. It’s God-ordained, and you feel it the minute she walks into a room. She first and foremost loves to know who you, the visitor, are. She asks, “What are you doing?”

“I’m so glad to be here,” she told RED!’s web editor. S. Helen’s confidence is only rooted of God’s grace that she speaks about; it rises out of her love for Jesus and not, as Oswald Chambers speaks about, the “idea” of Jesus.  No, her commitment to Christ is deep-rooted, and the more so, the less preachy she comes off.  In fact, for all her activism and anti-death penalty discourse, she is never preachy. Her passion just “is”.  It simply “means”, and she’ll let you figure it out from there.

She also struggles: her upcoming new memoir, River of Fire, explores her spiritual journey, and the journey has never been a cakewalk.  I’ll write a bit more about Helen’s journey in a new blog, because RED! web editor, Christine Grote, is interviewing Sister this afternoon.  I’ll join them and learn more.

If you’ve never listened to Helen Prejean speak, here’s a clip.  If you’ve never read her writing, you are missing one of our most brilliant writers of memoir. Dead Man Walking is and deserves to be an American classic, a book that has surely influenced other great memoirists like Mary Karr and Tobias Wolff.  Because of its accessible depth and pacing alone, I’m sure these writers have paid attention to Dead Man Walking’s music: haunting, indelible, wrenching in a way you want the music of best prose.

Write, Sister. Squirrel away that time.

I’m waiting for the memoir, River of Fire. I will be first in line.

In January, I had the pleasure of working alongside ten women inmates in an Ohio prison as, one last time, they carefully passed around, studied, discussed, and stacked the chapters and individual writing of their forthcoming book.

Wait a minute. Did you catch that?

How about that topic sentence again, revised: I had a fascinating time collaborating with ten inmates at Franklin Pre-Release Center on the final eager editing of their forthcoming book, which elaborates on how they have experienced transformation during their incarceration. Their writing cuts deep. It’s writing I would share with any of my writing students.

It may be May already, but I remember the long table around which 14 or 15 neat stacks of chapters were passed from woman to woman. Two of the 12 authors had been excused to participate in choir rehearsal. The women, grouped in pairs, identified any last-minute changes needing attention. There were moments of silence. They are serious editors. There was an occasional exclamation, “Ah, that’s an amazing story.”

In the book, the women write about forgiveness (of things weighing down the past), reconciliation, empowerment, faith, tolerance, abuse, acceptance, lost love, self-love, love for others, motherhood, sisterhood, and life-outside-in-the-past vs. life-inside-now. Their writing speculates on the positive impact they are going to make on others when they are released.

It is a seminal book. It is bold, original and unique. I’d go so far as to say that it may very well be the most important anthology ever written by women who recently were or are currently incarcerated at one prison. (A few of the writers have since been released on parole.)

Exactly when was the last time you heard of twelve inmates gathered around a table pre-occupied with ordering chapters, sifting through possible last edits, and arriving at a collegial consensus about the Table of Contents? When, exactly? I thought so.

RED! associate editor and The Psychology of Incarceration co-facilitator at FPRC, Khalil Osiris, presided over the editorial meeting.

I read most of the manuscript again that evening. I’d read many of the essays and reflections in spring, 2007, when I helped the P.O.I. teaching team assess the writing and journal entries that the first P.O.I. class at FPRC undertook.

I sat next to Dawn, reading pages she finished verifying. The choir-like depth of voices within these narratives compelled me to read them again as if they were entirely new. The honesty. The depth. The courage. The sense of story. Of how to really convey story, without the benefit of having taken a writing workshop.

The book is titled, THE TWELVE. The title refers to the authentic power behind 12 “Needs Domains” that inmates explore and grasp in the P.O.I. coursework. A person will deal intimately in writing and talking with these Needs Domains while undergoing true transformation in spite of incarceration.

Also, twelve women residents at FPRC – graduates of P.O.I. – gathered writing for and edited the volume. The anthology will be published this summer as a companion book in The Psychology of Incarceration curriculum, and as a tribute to the engaging writing that has profoundly touched other inmates and staff at FPRC and even a number of (male) inmates at Richland Correctional Institution. “Irish” Johnny Harvey, an inmate, mentor and pro-active peer leader extraordinaire at Richland has written the Introduction to the anthology. The women insisted that Irish Johnny’s brilliant words grace the beginning of their anthology. Truly, RED! Webzine hopes to feature Johnny Harvey’s essays and reflections in the near future; you’ll see one of the most gifted writers in any prison anywhere.

THE TWELVE’s publication date is soon. I will update you on the progress toward the book’s publication. Because I know the urgent writing the anthology contains, and because I know writing heals, I’m going to be one to promote it to the max.