AlionaGibson.com
Books
NAPPY
Growing Up Black and Female in America
This coming-of-age memoir takes a vivid and humorous view of one young woman's struggle within herself and with the complex and sometimes conflicting worlds around her.The book chronicles how the vibrant and beleaguered Aliona Gibson, growing up in the 1980s, came to terms with the politics of identity and learned to appreciate her beauty and her strength. The stories contained here address with striking candor the issues of self-image and identity in America. Using her personal experiences, Gibson examines how American standards of beauty affect women of color and their struggles for self-acceptance.
FOR BLACK WRITERS....
A Personal Account of How to Write, Publish & Market Your First Book
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Do you have a great book idea?
Would you like to become an an author?
Have you always wanted to write a book but didn't know where to start?
If you answered yes to any one of these questions, For Black Writers...is the book for you. This book is a first-person account of how the author went from having nothing more than letters to the editor published to landing a hardcover book deal. This book gives details of how to write, publish and market your book from someone who has "been there, done that." Ms. Gibson generously shares with readers the steps she took - even the exact query letter and synopsis she sent to publishers - towards publishing her first book, Nappy: Growing Up Black and Female in America.
Coming Soon!
BITTERSWEET
Two Years in the New South Africa(Coming Soon)
On February 4, 1999, a mere five years after the first democratic election in South Africa, author Aliona L. Gibson landed at Johannesburg International Airport to begin service as a United States Peace Corps volunteer. Not exactly her first choice of places to serve in Africa, (actually, not even on her list of desired places at all), she is placed in a modern-day time capsule and transported back to the days of Jim Crow. Legal segregation (apartheid) is now a thing of the past but the legacy and remnants of the worlds most brutal and oppressive system of government still lingers in the country and among its people. For the post-Civil Rights generation it was an era for which they have only read about in history books, seen in movies and heard oral histories.
Join Aliona as she recounts living in a rural environment, hitchhiking, braving the streets of Johannesburg, getting hooked on "kwaito" (South African hip-hop), struggling through learning the local language while trying to convince people that she was not from neighboring Zimbabwe or Ghana and is privy to the love/hate relationship South Africans seem to have with African-Americans and is forced to deal with racially motivated, confrontational situations. She learns about the historical links between African-Americans and Black South Africans, and that our connections go back way before most people are aware of.
Peace Corps service is completely voluntary, you can leave whenever you choose (and some did, even before the end of training), read about the bonds formed with her host family, neighbors, community members and the children, all of whom were a driving force in her effort to stick it out for the duration of her two years. She came face to face with a childhood phobia that forced her to face her fears.
READ: an excerpt from Bittersweet (from the MoAD website).
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