Tyrone conquers Beantown

The New Year is here, and Tyrone is definitely feeling a strong gust of wind to his back. DT was featured in the January issue of Ebony Magazine--the one with Will & Jaden Smith on the cover (check out page 32). AOL Black Voices published an excerpt and interview with us. The critic Kam Williams named us #2 in his top-ten list of best books of 2006, while we made the Women & Children First Bookstore in Chicago named bestseller list reported to the chicago tribune, beating Obama. We've done pretty well getting coverage in print media and radio, but now more and more invitations are starting to trickle in for corporate, academic and activist groups for The Natalies to appear for speaking engagements and panels. And we still have book tour events in Minneapolis, Cleveland, Palm Beach, Atlanta, Chicago and Indianapolis and D.C. planned for 2007.
That wind gust is not particularly helpful for Nat. H's 2007 calendar filled with school field trips and PTA meetings--not to mention a dissertation to complete by May, or Nat M. whose freelance writing and college teaching plate is filled to the brim. But clearly these are really wonderful problems for a first-time authors to have and we feel happy to have them.
We went to Boston Dec. 16 at the request of our friend Greg who is a former newsroom colleague quoted in DT Ch. 4 and also went to high school with Nat. H's husband in New Orleans. At the bookstore, Jamaicaway Books in Jamaica Plains, we learned the owner's daughter was a recent HU grad, proving once again, that the mighty mighty Bison are everywhere (insert maniacal laugh here). It seemed our role in Boston was just to set the ball rolling and we were really happy to sit back and listen to the sparks fly. Our reading from DT inspired a bout between a hipster mom and a Civil Rights Generation man, going head-to-head over the value of hip-hop. We hope this means the book will spark similar conversations, debates, and ultimately more understanding for others.
The biggest AHA! moment for Boston came after the reading. The Natalies and several journalist friends were lingering in the store afterward. Now just to preface, journalists are constitutionally a whiny bunch. But as we told truly awful horror stories and tales of being young black professionals, the so-called Gatekeepers, working in The Media we realized that we might just have the workings of another project. More on that later.
Thanks for Greg for hosting us and Keith for the hospitality at that great Italian restaurant in Boston. We were surrounded by so many friends we didn't feel any of the famed chills coming from the CACs living in the home of Crispus Attucks and the Tea Party.
Allison: clearly Boston is not NEARLY as bad as you say...right?