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NYC Screening of Agent Orange Documentary: “The Tale of An Phuc House”
June 17, 2013
The Tale of An Phuc House, a powerful documentary about Vietnamese Agent Orange victims, has been nominated for Best Documentary at the New York City International Film Festival (June 13-20).
“The Tale of An Phuc House is a powerful glimpse into the every
day lives of twenty disabled children – third generation victims of the Agent Orange warfare that occurred during the Vietnam War (1963-1973). An inspirational video tale about pride, dignity and love; a story of a man who dedicates his life to the well-being of his adopted family; a story of twenty exceptional young adults, whose disabilities brought them together under one roof; a story about ordinary people living extraordinary lives despite their unfortunate physical conditions.”–thetaleofanphuchouse.comThe documentary will be screened at the Producer’s Club Theater at 6 p.m. on Monday, June 17. Produced by Canada’s Babel Entertainment in association with Vietnam’s Crea-TV, and directed by Ivan Tankushev, it competes with four other documentaries for the coveted title.
Tags: Agent Orange, books, documentary, film, fred wilcox, New York City International Film Festival, scorched earth, seven stories press, The Tale of An Phuc House, Vietnam War, waiting for an army to die
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Mother’s Day the Natural Way
May 24, 2013
CBS Sunday Morning aired a segment on Mother’s Day about writer and mother of authentic midwifery, Ina May Gaskin. In the 70s, Gaskin and five friends founded The Farm Midwifery Center in Tennessee, a refuge for women unhappy with the thought of birthing in a hospital setting. There, Gaskin has helped birth over 1,200 babies.The segment calls Gaskin “the unlikely leader of the midwife movement,” and said that she “created change from the woods of Tennessee” and “impacted women globally.”
Midwifery is a centuries-old practice of guiding a woman though pregnancy, labor, birth, and the post-partum period. Thought midwifery doesn’t necessarily mean birth without medication or hospitals, Gaskin cites the problems with hospital births as “too many drugs, too many c-sections, too many inductions.” Humans have the capacity for natural birth the same as any other mammal.
“Don’t criticize nature,” she says in the segment, “stand in awe of it.”
In addition to her work as a midwife, Gaskin is also a the author of several books including Birth Matters: A Midwife’s Manifesta (Seven Stories Press, 2011).
Tags: birth matters, ina may gaskin, midwifery, The Farm Midwifery Center
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Julie Gabriel Shares Tips for Radiant Skin
May 13, 2013
Lots of water and a healthy amount of probiotics are two tips offered by Julie Gabriel in a recent article entitled “5 Ways to Detox Your Face.”
Holistic nutritionist Julie Gabriel is the author of Holistic Beauty from the Inside Out: Your Complete Guide to Natural Health, Nutrition, and Skincare, a wonderful guide to taking care of your body that brings all four corners of the natural beauty paradigm together: natural skincare, holistic nutrition, stress-relief, and healthy lifestyle.
Gabriel states that the skin can be helped along in the detox process by fiber intake such as eating oatmeal or muesli for breakfast, or switching to whole meal bread. Some of Gabriel’s suggestions, like a weekly home spa ritual including a facial steam infused with lavender, nettle, chamomile, and rosemary, are nourishing for the soul as well as the skin. Others, like replacing your chemically based, paraben-containing, expensive cosmetic products with organic essential oils, should also be healthy for your wallet.
Tags: health and beauty, health/nutrition, holistic beauty from the inside out, julie gabriel, nutrition, skincare, women's health
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Lee Stringer Writes About Being Poor in America on Alternet
April 26, 2013
Seven Stories author Lee Stringer described a life of poverty in America in an article for Alternet’s Hard Times, USA series. The article, entitled “How Being Poor in America Shaped Every Part of My Life and Forced Me to Live on the Streets,” details his childhood, his parents struggles to make ends meet, and the circumstances that led Stringer to live on the streets of New York City for a dozen years.
Stringer tells of living in a rooming house with his mother and brother; of his mother having to rely on public assistance; and of how he, deemed economically and culturally disadvantaged by his school, was “summarily consigned to the slow classes and systematically steered towards developing [him]self into a capable factory worker.”
Through his experiences with poverty, Stringer notes a series of ironies–how pride, which he was taught in church was a sin, was actually a virtue for the poor; how charity, which he was taught was a virtue, was tinged with shame for the recipient; how when a poor person self-advocates, they are a beggar, but when they are advocated for, the person who does so is lauded for their humanity; and, ultimately, how only when he was no longer poor did people begin to care what he had to say about being poor.
Tags: alternet, grand central winter, hard times usa, lee stringer, poverty, sleepaway school
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Ralph Nader Writes About Democratic Defeatism in The Nation
April 17, 2013
On March 25th, The Nation ran an article by Seven Stories author Ralph Nader entitled “Why Are Democrats So Defeatist?” In the article, Nader does what few liberals are willing to do and takes a look at President Obama and the Democratic Party through a critical lens.
Among Nader’s criticisms are that Obama, in 2008, promised a minimum wage increase to $9.50 by 2011, fell silent on the topic after winning the election, and has recently amended the proposal to an increase to $9 by 2015–a far cry from his original plans. Nader also writes that Obama and the Democrats focus more on raising funds and not alienating business interests than opposing a Republican Party and its “votes to protect massive tax breaks for the wealthiest, end the universal Medicare guarantee, jeopardize Social Security, oppose measures that would protect seniors from abusive financial practices, attack women’s health and safety, weaken consumer protections, undermine the Pell Grant program for low-income students, favor corporations shipping jobs overseas at the expense of American workers, slash the food stamp program, weaken protections to ensure that every voter’s vote counts, and allow big oil companies and speculators to drive up gas prices along with a raft of brazen anti-environmental bills that would have despoiled our air, water and soil.” Nader believes that the Democratic Party lacks self-analysis, and, instead of talking vaguely about the middle class, needs to focus more on the needs of the poorer classes that are its “natural constituency.”
Many more of Ralph Nader’s opinions can be found in the forthcoming Told You So: The Big Book of Weekly Columns, which will be available from Seven Stories in May.
Tags: "Why Are Democrats so Defeatist?", president obama, ralph nader, the nation, told you so
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Seven Stories Sends Books Between Bars
April 11, 2013
Seven Stories Press recently received a letter from a man named Anthony Oliver who is incarcerated in a prison in Pennsylvania. Mr. Oliver had requested a copy of Howard Zinn’s Terrorism and War. Though Mr. Oliver had not yet read the copy we sent when he wrote back, he had previously read Seven Stories’ Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948, and offered these thoughts in his letter:
Wars, a recession, and the dissatisfaction with government are signs that those entrusted to run government are out of touch with those who elected them to run it, and brings to mind the old adage “power corrupts…” I also remember a most quotable line from a favorite movie I first saw as a teenager–Star Wars. Princess Leia, when she was captured, had stared defiantly at her subduers, and, unflinching, proclaimed, “The more you tighten your grip, the more [systems] just slip through your fingers.” I believe this quite apropos in the case of the UN vote on 29 November, 2012, recognizing Palestine as a state.
Tags: howard zinn, israel/palestine: how to end the war of 1948, prisons, tanya reinhart, terrorism and war
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Chavisa Woods Book Launch!
April 3, 2013
Chavisa Woods and an ensemble of friends and fans celebrated the launch of her book, The Albino Album, on Sunday, February 24th in New York City. The book has been called “a 21st century fairytale: potent, grim, fierce, redemptive” by Lucy Jane Bledsoe, and a “strange, troubling vision of domestic life in the rural U.S.” by Go Magazine.
The event was held at Dixon Place and hosted a mix of LGBTQ spoken word poets and authors. Following the reading, there was a pagan ritual to bless the book and Chavisa with good fortune and prosperity. The ceremony included members of the audience donning animal masks, the lighting of candles, and the invoking of gods to bless Chavisa and her book.
Following are photos and video by Art Kaye:
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Congrats to Andri Magnason, his fantasy novel LoveStar was awarded a special citation of excellence at the Philip K. Dick awards
April 3, 2013
The Philip K. Dick Award, for science fiction books originally published in paperback instead of hardcover, was awarded last Friday at the annual Norwescon conference and Andri Snær Maganson‘s LoveStar was given a special citation of excellence.LoveStar was originally published in Iceland, and was named “Novel of the Year” by Icelandic booksellers and received the DV Literary Award and a nomination for the Icelandic Literary Prize.
“Lovestar is a dystopia for the information age. But unlike most dystopias, the LoveStar world is also shocking in its beauty.”—Ploughshares Literary Magazine
“Orwell, Vonnegut, and Douglas Adams are felt on every page, though Magnason is never derivative. His satire and insightful social commentary sweeten the pot and the sheer wackiness of Magnason’s oversized imagination is invigorating.”—Publishers Weekly
“Strange and refreshing—a lushly imagined future that reminded me of Vonnegut and Brautigan.”—Ed Park, author of Personal Days
Tags: Andri Magnason, Andri Snær Maganson, Ed Park, LoveStar, Philip K. Dick award, Ploughshares Literary Magazine
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Happy Birthday, Nelson Algren
March 28, 2013
Our longtime readers will remember that Seven Stories Press derived its name from the seven authors whose works were the foundation of our catalog from the outset. We love each and every one of our authors, but we hold a special place in our heart for the late Nelson Algren, the brilliant author of The Man With the Golden Arm, The Devil’s Stocking, and much more, whose death in 1981 left a hollow place in American literature. He was born on March 28th, 1909, and today would have been his 104th birthday.Born Nelson Algren Abraham in Detroit, Algren wrote his first story, “So Help Me,” in 1933, and won his first award–an O. Henry prize for his short story “The Brother’s House”–two years later, in 1935. The same year, he also published his first book, Somebody in Boots, which he later disowned, saying that it was politically naive. Algren is certainly best known for The Man With the Golden Arm, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1950 and was adapted into a film starring Frank Sinatra in 1955 (which Algren abhorred).
Tags: chicago tribune, chicago's nelson algren, ernest hemingway, frank sinatra, kurt vonnegut, nelson algren, peter plate, the devil's stocking, the man with the golden arm
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Sarah Erdreich on The Fairness Doctrine
March 20, 2013
Sarah Erdreich, author of the upcoming book Generation Roe: Inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement, was Patrick O’Heffernan’s guest on this Monday’s episode of The Fairness Doctrine. In his daily one-hour online and on-air radio show. Patrick explores news, politics and culture from all sides of the spectrum in civil conversations that focus on ideas, not “gotcha’s.” Monday’s program featured Erdreich explaining the next essential steps in the fight for abortion rights.Click here to listen to the full program on Blog Talk Radio!
Tags: abortion, Activism, current events, feminism, generation roe, interview, nonfiction, politics, politics/government, pro choice, q&a, radio, sarah erdreich
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