A Cover Reveal Just In Time For Halloween #wanderthisworld #erotichorror #weneeddiverseromance #eroticromance

Cover Reveal: New World (Book Two of the Iamos Trilogy) by @lyssachiavari @snowywingspub

Cover Reveal: New World (Book Two of the Iamos Trilogy) by @lyssachiavari @snowywingspub

Today I’m helping reveal the cover for New World, Book Two of the Iamos Trilogy by Lyssa Chiavari! The cover was designed by Najla Qamber Designs, and features custom photos by Mosaic Stock Photography. The book releases in early 2018 from Snowy Wings Publishing. Check out the cover and learn more about the book below!

Title: New World (Book Two of the Iamos Trilogy) Author: Lyssa Chiavari Release…

View On WordPress

Love this!

Character: Severus Snape 

Series: Harry Potter

Cosplayer: Mahogany Cosplay

Photographer: MWL Photography

Represent! #4 - “Believe You” (2021)

written by Nadira Jamerson art by Brittney Williams & Andrew Dalhouse

Stop paying full price for bestselling books! Book Rebel brings you the best #free bestselling #books! #amreading https://hdtk.co/vslrZ_-*-_https://hdtk.co/vslrZ_-*-_https://headtalker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BookRebelBanner2-800x600.jpg

So today is Day 6 of the #authorlifemonth challenge 😊 I'll be doing two parts, so here's Part II It's supposed to highlight fanart/edit. I've found that with #NA vs #YA readers are less vocal when they read and like something. So people who've loved our #NA #romance #SamePage don't necessarily shout it out as opposed to #TheMarkOfNoba I've decided to make cool homemade fanart😇 The two ppl who inspired their looks were Travis Garland, a bomb ass singer I met and loved 😆 and Chime Edwards a hair vlogger I have hair envy over! So that's what inspired the art👍 #naturalista #naija #nigerian #interracial #bwwm #diversebooks #bookstagram #diverse #diversityjedi #diverseromance #booknerdigans #portugueseboys #blackgirlmagic #providence #messyromance

Women in the pics: (clockwise) Daniele Suzuki-Japanese-Brazilian, Dascha Polanco-Dominican American, Gloria "Goyo" Martinez of Chocquibtown -Afro-Colombian and Joanna Hausmann- Venezuelan. Proof that there is no such thing as "Latina"features. Mini rant: Have been reading a lot a books that center on or have Latina characters but almost always they are the stereotype of what #Latinas look like. Tan skin, corkscrew curly hair, "exotic". First off, people being described as exotic is disgusting. Writers should really consider using it unless they're talking about a rug or a plant. And second, all Latinas do not fit the jlo stereotype mold. We come Black, we come Asian, we come white(and yes you can be a white Latina. Ppl think that by being Latina you're suddenly not white) and we come indigenous. So please tell me why no one wants to challenge the idea? I've read just 3 books total in my lifetime that centered on an Afrolatina and I want to read more. Writer friends, please do better!

Day 14: #authorlifemonth today's post is awesome! It's favorite one of your covers *cues fabulous entrance* So this one isn't out yet but my sis and I are working on it right now titled #itscomplicated Funny thing about this one is I went in with low expectations cuz I got idone for 10 bucks on fiverr😂😂😂 Turns out to be my absolute favorite out of all our other romance wip's. My sister and I are super lit irl so comedy finds its way in all of our work but I think this one will be a lol romantic comedy. Plus it's pink!!! I love pink!!! #bookstagram #booknerdigans #beautifulbookcovers #coverreveal #ambw #interracialromance #weneeddiverseromance #romanticcomedy #gltomas #InterracialLove #coverlove #ContemporaryRomance #vlogger #indielove #authorsofinstagram #indieauthor

Omg so Christina liked my #wce post. I am pretty much die now😂😂😂

Micro-aggressions, Unpacking privilege, and The Knee Jerk Response

Micro-aggressions happen all the time. Everyday. Even by people you think are your allies. For example: Black woman says:  I am so upset about the violence against the Black community. White LGBTQIA woman responds: What about the LGBTQIA community? What about violence against us? This is a micro-aggression. This is an invalidation of the Black Woman’s statement even though the White woman is right about violence in the LGBTQIA community. However, by co-opting the conversation, by making it about her own marginalization at that immediate moment, she has asserted her white privilege and any chance for a conversation ends abruptly. To be a good ally, we must learn to listen and support each other when people who are hurting are talking. Your time to talk will come soon enough, but don’t take it at the expense of others. Don’t let your privilege co-opt a conversation on race. I will give you a more personal example. I grew up during the race riots between the Korean American and Black community in NYC. My parents owned a store and we lived in the apartment above it. It was a scary time. At school I got into an argument with a Black classmate. She said it was incredibly hard being Black and having to deal with racism. In my young, resentful and admittedly self-centered mind, I didn’t like what she said. So I responded – “Well Korean Americans get hate and racism from both the Black and White communities.” That was a blatant micro-aggression. I invalidated her by pushing my marginalization over hers. And I was completely wrong. But at that time, I was unaware of my privilege. In my mind, my marginalization – being Asian – was just as bad as being Black. I was so wrong. Now I know that I have a privilege and if I I could go back in time, I would apologize to her. But I can’t and so the only thing I can do is keep learning and try my best to do better. I am Asian American, straight, cis-gender, educated, middle class. And even though I am a woman of color with invisible disabilities, I am also deeply aware of my privilege, because I am a woman of color who is not Black or Brown. I am also a woman with disabilities that are not visible. While these marginalizations make my life extremely difficult, I still have privilege and I must constantly remind myself to never forget that. It is not easy, and it is not supposed to be. But you check your privilege because it is the right thing to do. To be a good ally. Recently, I have noticed a troubling trend among white allies who, perhaps unknowingly, talk over and invalidate WOC by playing their own individual marginalization card. And in general, I’ve noted that it always comes on the heels of Black Women talking about race and intersectionality. This troubles me deeply because it causes resentment. It also bothers me when other WOC (especially other Asian women) aren’t as supportive of Black Women as they should be. I saw this happen in an online group, a good friend of mine (who is Black) tried to speak on race and found her whole discussion derailed in a heavy pile on by white marginalized feminists who co-opted the conversation. It was so frustrating that I posted the Huffington post video on White Feminism with this statement, “I think this video should be mandatory viewing for everyone especially because sometimes I think white feminists who are also LGBTQIA+ or disabled forget that intersectionality applies to WOC also, and that no matter what your marginalization is you have never experienced not being white. And if that statement makes you mad, you need to think about why.“

What I received back was a whole lot of angry Knee Jerk reactions. And what I mean by that is the “How dare she try to tell me that my marginalization is not as important as hers!” “How dare she try to police diversity!” “How dare she not check her privilege!” “How dare how dare how dare…” I call this a Knee Jerk reaction because these are not all bad people. These are people who are invested in the diversity movement themselves. So they are not the enemy. And yet they responded with a knee jerk reaction to being called out on having white privilege. But instead of getting so angry, accusing me of being a bully, demanding that I be banned and reported (for what, asserting my opinion?), and trying to silence me, they should have done exactly what I asked in that last sentence. They needed to think about why it made them so uncomfortable. They needed to reflect on their own privilege. What they did instead, was focus on their own marginalization as if it somehow negates their white privilege. The problem is that nothing negates white privilege. The poorest, most marginalized white person in the country will still not have the racist issues that the Black community faces. They will not be poisoned knowingly by their government. They will not live in fear that the police will kill their young children and never be punished. They do not have to worry about having the highest incarceration numbers in the land, simply because of the color of their skin. They do not have to worry about the school to prison pipeline because of inadequate resources in public schools. But because these issues do not actually affect white feminist’s personal lives, it is easy to focus solely on their own individual problems. After the responses so vividly proved my point, I left the group because I cannot stay where people believe that silencing the voices of POC instead of promoting open discourse is ever acceptable. Of course, this is not the first time I have been silenced and made to feel unwelcome by white feminists. Truth is this is commonplace for WOC. But it hurts more when it is done by people who say they are our allies.

I know that I will receive hate mail and harassment, but on this I feel too strongly to stay quiet. Because I stand in solidarity with the Black community. And we all need to speak out when wrong is wrong. The thing is, if a white person’s response to someone talking about White Privilege is to say “I’m marginalized too!” then they don’t get it. Because that is, essentially, how privilege works. It wants to take over the conversation and invalidate other people’s struggles. And if your response to that is “why is race more important?” I want to point you to one of my new favorite blogs -Reading While White. They address this very issue as follows:

This is a great explanation because it doesn’t say race is the most important issue, what it does is make clear is that race is the most all encompassing. That it crosses into all identities, all marginalizations. Intersectionality means that POC also exist in the LGBTQIA and disabilities communities. It affects all races, not just white people. But white privilege, even within those communities, wants to dominate. Unpacking your privilege is a hard thing. It is not easy. Nobody wants to think of themselves as being in the wrong, they’d rather think of themselves as being wronged. So you stay secure in your self-righteous indignation of “How dare yous” instead of thinking about how systemic racism and your own privilege has seeped so firmly into all aspects of your life that you can’t even see it. In order to be a good ally and make a difference in the fight for ALL OF US, we must recognize our own privileges and make a public stand to fight for what is right. But we cannot do that if our white allies don’t recognize what white privilege is and how deeply entrenched it is in our world. So I challenge white allies to really do some serious and probably very uncomfortable  self-reflection. When POC ask you to check your privilege, do you get mad and immediately demand that they check theirs? When POC talk about their experiences do you roll your eyes and snidely comment about how it’s not always about race? When someone says something racist, do you just stand there looking awkward and ignore it? When the status quo is racist, do you just accept it? When people talk about taking action, do you just nod your head in agreement and do nothing? When POC speak on oppression, do you respond with your own tale of oppression? 

In order to be a good ally, it is important to know when to speak up and when to shut up and just listen. And if you aren’t sure what to do, all you have to do is ask. How can I be a good ally to you? How can I support you? 

In conclusion, I will leave you with Daniel Jose Older’s The 5 Stages of Confronting Your Own Privilege. Here’s hoping that we can all get past number 1.