Wednesday marks the first day of our first book tour at Penny Candy Books. We have an exciting week planned to promote A Gift from Greensboro with author Quraysh Ali Lansana.
Wednesday, Oct 12, 10:30 a.m. -- Reading at the Black Male Emergent Readers program at the Hull Street branch of the Richmond Public Library
Thursday, Oct 13, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. -- PCB has a booth at the Virginia Children's Book Festival at Longwood University in Farmville, VA
Friday, Oct 14, 9:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. -- Booth at the Virginia Children's Book Festival
Friday, Oct 14, 3:30 p.m. -- "Civil Rights in Children's Literature" panel (Mr. Lansana is a panelist), Moton Museum, Farmville, VA
Saturday, Oct 15, 11:00 a.m. -- Reading at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, Greensboro, NC
Saturday, Oct 15, 5:00 p.m. -- Reading at So & So Books, downtown Raleigh, NC
It's going to be a whirlwind of a trip, with the emotional high point being the reading at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro. This is the actual Woolworth's Department store where the "Greensboro Four"--David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and Joseph McNeil--held their sit-ins in 1960. This is the setting for A Gift from Greensboro, and so it's a real thrill and honor to be able to stage a reading there, in the same room where the sit-ins took place.
It's been a long road to get Penny Candy Books to this point, and yet it feels like the real journey is just beginning. We'd like to thank, in no particular order: Shanna Compton of Bloof Books, our brilliant book designer; Britt and Jeff at Print Ninja, for all things printing; Doug Sorocco and Emily Campbell, our attorneys at Dunlap Codding; Emily Pomeroy, for her invaluable legal assistance in the early days of PCB; Mark Jung and Judy Ogren, our distributors at Itasca Books; Sache Primeaux-Shaw and Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, our first two members of our Advisory Council, for agreeing to give us their wisdom; Melodie Garneau, our landlord at Paramount OKC; Clay Collum, our accountant at Robison Gary Johnson; Amanda O'Connor, for the book industry tutorials; Zach Powers, for a fabulous video; Emily and Aaron for their patience and understanding; Gus and Emmett for their excellent focus group work; Pikey and Calvin for the snuggles; Lee and Jana Reynolds and Rita Orgera for their support and help; Timothy Bradford at Short Order Poems for the encouragement; Amy Young at SixTwelve for the encouragement; and We Need Diverse Books and Lee & Low for the inspiration to found a press focused on diversity.
Of course we'd like to thank our incredible authors and illustrators--Quraysh Ali Lansana, Skip Hill, Tracey Zeeck, David Bizzaro, Tiffany McKnight, and Margaux Othats--for entrusting us with their work and for the inspiration. We'd like to thank the authors and illustrators we'll be working with in 2017--we have lots of big announcements coming soon! And we'd like to thank people like you who want to buy our books!
