Open Hand Publishing, LLC is proud and excited to announce that Face to Face with Katrina Survivors: A First Responder’s Tribute by Lemuel A. Moyé, MD, PhD has been named:

• Winner of the 2007 Ben Franklin Award for Best Multicultural Book of the Year
• Winner of the Foreword Magazine Gold Medal for Best Book of the Year on Family & Relationships
• Winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for Best New Writing on Culture
• Winner of the 2007 Skipping Stones Honor Award for Multicultural and International Awareness

December 2006, Open Hand Publishing, LLC of Greensboro, NC released this gripping book on an issue that concerns every U.S. citizen. Face to Face with Katrina Survivors: A First Responder’s Tribute is composed of a series of enthralling personal accounts of Katrina evacuees. Lemuel A. Moyé, M.D., Ph.D. examined and spoke with survivors at the Houston Astrodome complex immediately upon their arrival by bus from a devastated New Orleans, Louisiana. In personal terms, the book reveals to America and the world what decades of neglect and greed culminating with Hurricane Katrina and the breaching of the levees brought to impoverished people on the Gulf Coast. Above all, it is a testament to the marvelous spirit in the hearts of these poor and largely black people of the southern United States. The book also presents the generous spirit of the people of Houston, Texas in welcoming these survivors.

Dr. Moyé, a professor of Biostatistics at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, and a medical doctor, interacted with the survivors who had clung to hope and nurtured each other in the wake of an incredibly callous and brutal government “rescue” response. He was moved to write this book by the contrast between what corporate media had led him to believe and the actuality of his experience. While the media depicted the poor stranded in New Orleans as “animalistic and barbaric”, he encountered the reality of the evacuees’ humanity, their dignity and their nobility face to face. As an African-American man, Dr. Moyé felt ennobled by this experience.

In addition to the four national awards which have thus far recognized the value of this book, by conferring a top prize on it, many distinguished members of our society have endorsed the book as well. Among their number are: Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives; Edward Fort, PhD, Chancellor Emeritus of North Carolina A&T State University; Albert W. Morris, Jr., MD, President of the National Medical Association and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, (D-Texas).

Open Hand Publishing, LLC believes that this book is a unique contribution to the important literature being written about the Katrina experience, for it focuses on the moral values and the human value of the poorest of the poor. Happily, a number of independent judges from all branches of the book industry seem to agree.

(The riveting text is buttressed by 16 pages of poignant photographs.)

Read an excerpt from the book

Read the preface

Read the publisher's note

Hurricane Katrina Revisited: Twenty-first Century Lynching and Land-stealing

Follow an intern's path in helping to produce this book.

New Orleans Public Housing Residents Issue Urgent Call for Electrical Support.

Supportive letter for Face to Face from a former FEMA recipient from California--- just back from his third tour as a volunteer homebuilder with Rebuilding Together in New Orleans.

Enthusiastic letter from Sugarland, TX reader!

The North Carolina Black Repertory Company Hosts Widely Anticipated Summer 2007 National Black Theatre Festival --- But Without Its Fallen Leader

The North Carolina Black Repertory Company will once again host the highly acclaimed biennial National Black Theatre Festival this summer. It will begin with a spectacular gala and play on Monday evening July 30th and continue through Saturday August 4th. Tragically, the founder and leader of both the NC Black Rep and the National Black Theatre Festival, Larry Leon Hamlin, actor, director, producer and writer, the larger than life personage who was the very heart and soul of these important cultural institutions, passed away in early June in Winston-Salem. He was 58 years old. Open Hand Publishing is quite proud that we published the one book during Mr. Hamlin's lifetime that chronicles the great achievements of this singular personality. We are equally proud that the book was written by an active participant in the repertory company and festival and contains an introduction by Mr. Hamlin, "Mr. Marvtastic" himself.

To read more, click here.

February 2006: Our State - North Carolina Magazine book review / notice

About the Publishers

"Open Hand Publishers Sandra and Richard Koritz continue to lead a small but dedicated ad hoc group that holds a vigil in downtown Greensboro every Monday to protest the United States wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. They have been leading these one hour Monday demonstrations since October of 2001.

The couple took on more responsibilities over the spring and summer of 2007: They helped initiate and are helping to lead a community organization, Parents and Citizens for Truth in Military Recruitment, dedicated to stopping military recruiters from signing local public high school youth into the US military based upon fraud, deception, and lies. As Bush’s wars have become more and more unpopular, military recruiters have resorted to increasingly desperate measures to meet their quotas, even according to a 2006 GAO Report.

Earlier in the year, Sandra Koritz had been elected president of a large local Greensboro chapter of AARP.

Meanwhile, Richard Koritz, a retired letter carrier, was elected to the North Carolina Association of Letter Carriers Executive Board at its June Convention and re-elected as a delegate from the State Letter Carriers Union to the N.C. AFL-CIO Convention. He also serves the Greensboro NALC branch as its representative on the Greensboro-based AFL-CIO Central Labor Council.

Finally, on July 31st, Richard was appointed to serve on the North Carolina Human Relations Commission by North Carolina Governor Mike Easley.

A busy couple indeed!"

News
and
Features:

Ninotchka Rosca, co-author of Jose Maria Sison: At Home in the World--Portrait of a Revolutionary, has started a blog-page. Click this link to see what she has to say: www.ninotchkarosca.blogspot.com

Dr. Lemuel Moye, author of Face to Face with Katrina Survivors: A First Responder's Tribute, is making appearances for Lectures, Symposia, and Book signings. See the list below to find where he has recently appeared and where he'll appear next:

• November 11, 2006: After the Storm: Art, Politics and Culture and Katrina: The Maryland Institute College of Art - Baltimore, Maryland
• December 5, 2006: Character in Science: Reacting to Katrina: MD Anderson Cancer Center - Houston, Texas
• December 10, 2006: The Protective Power of Love Brighton Church - Stafford, Texas
• April 27, 2007: Prediction Asynchony in the Eye of the Storm Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia
• May 11, 2007: Service in the Storm Texas Southern University, Houston, Texas

E. Ethelbert Miller, author of where are the love poems for dictators?, recently won the Poets & Writers 2007 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers award, which recognizes authors who have given generously to other writers or to the broader literary community. The award will be presented at the Poets & Writers annual dinner in New York City. This past year he was also honored by Metro Arts in Washington, D.C. Chosen along with Walt Whitman's "The Wound Dresser", Miller's poem, "We Embrace", has been selected to grace the Q Street Entrance to DuPont Circle's Metro station as a tribute to those who have cared for people living with HIV and AIDS. His poem will encircle a bench atop the station.

The Founder of Open Hand Publishing has started a new web page, please visit it to see what she been doing lately! www.pannajohnson.com

We now accept credit cards for orders. You can use either a Visa or MasterCard for phone orders. Free shipping on orders of $60 or more!!!

Check out our new Special for Educators page, and see what exclusive opportunities we provide for teachers and professors.