Hope’s Promise Publishing
Evangeline M. Mitchell, Founder
P.O. Box 631234
Houston, Texas 77263-1234
www.hopespromisepublishing.com
info@hopespromisepublishing.com
713-867-5923

THE BLACK COLLEGE STUDENT EXPERIENCE: AN ANTHOLOGY

Hope’s Promise Publishing is currently seeking contributions to be included in The Black College Student Experience: An Anthology. We are looking for diverse, real-life stories from a variety of Black college students and graduates across the nation.

We would like for you to write about something you personally experienced or have first-hand knowledge about during your college years. Nothing is off-limits. You can write about any aspect(s) of the college experience you wish to address from academics to dating to AIDS/sexually transmitted diseases to choosing friends to Greek life to coping with racism on campus to preparation for graduate/professional school to organizational involvement to choosing a major to following your dreams. Your submission should be followed by advice, a moral or a something important that you learned from that particular experience for those who just might not get the point.

We want young readers to consider all of the things out there that could happen and understand the importance of all of the choices they make during those critical years and the possible consequences. The goal is to help college students to make the most of their college experience and to not make the same mistakes that many who have gone before them have. Our goal is to emphasize the power and importance of making positive decisions that will build them up, as opposed to tearing them down.

In your non-fiction story, feel free to change names, dates, or speak in third person if you wish in order to protect the identities of those who don’t want to be exposed. Just make sure the events described in the story actually happened and can be of help to future and current college students. Also, be certain to provide a title for your story and a short biography of yourself as the writer.

With this project, clothed in a collection of short and interesting stories/essays, we want to provide an informal, fun, easy-to-read, yet critical guide for African American young people getting ready to embark on their college careers so that they can have an entertaining resource where they can learn from others’ experiences without feeling that they are being preached to or talked at. Hopefully, they will be entertained and at the same time learn from others and have been exposed to different experiences that will help them to think carefully and seriously about their actions and the impact they can have on their futures.

For this project, the main guidelines are to write clearly, in plain language and in an engaging way. Write about something that is important to you that you wish you would have known upon entering college. Write in a narrative or essay format. You do not have to be a “writer” to enter a submission but to simply be able to communicate effectively in writing. What is most important is to tell the truth with the heart of helping our young people and keeping their attention.

There are no page limitations. One to four page submissions are ideal. However, an extremely long submission will likely be edited down. There will be minor copyediting for clarification, spelling, grammar and punctuation concerns and the final product will be sent to you for your approval prior to publication.

If your submission is chosen for inclusion, in consideration for your contribution you will receive a complimentary copy of the book, a letter of thanks and a certificate of recognition.

You are asked to e-mail or mail your contribution, along with the required permission form, which will grant the publisher the right to use your submission for this publication and future editions of this same publication. However, you will maintain full copyright interests in your contribution and are free to publish it elsewhere as you choose as it is your property and you have not given up any rights to it by submitting it for publication. You are simply granting permission for us to include your work in this publication.

The absolute deadline for submissions is December 1, 2004.

*Note that the book is not focused on experiences of students attending Black colleges, but the experiences of Black college students no matter what type of college or university they attended and the racial/ethnic makeup of those institutions. This is only a tentative working title and is subject to change. Our goal is to produce a book that would serve as an excellent resource to graduating high school students who will soon start their college careers. The editor has not been able to find anything like it on the market and believes it will fill in a greatly-needed void.


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SAMPLE SUBMISSION - EXCERPT

When It Seems Too Good to Be True, It Is:
Older Men, Young College Women
By Anatasia Elon Jackson

When I started my college experience, I wasn’t particularly interested in college boys my age. I just felt that they were too immature and I was looking for something deeper. There was an older man in his mid to late twenties who took an immediate interest in me and was extremely persistent leaving messages, notes on my car, showing up in places he knew I would be. I was overwhelmed. He was a beautiful Black man and amazingly intellectual and seemed to have it all together. I was so impressed by the fact that he was so patient and did not try to pressure me into anything. We talked and talked and I felt this person truly loved me and appreciated for me. . . . . There were so many contradictions. Things didn’t seem to add up but I was so young and naďve that I couldn’t quite put two and two together. I felt that things weren’t right but was too shy to speak up for myself and was just enamored that someone like him would be interested in me. He was in complete control of the relationship. I didn’t have the experience or mental capacity to understand fully how he took advantage of me or how to walk away from something that was poisoning my heart and could potentially wreck my future. . . . I soon learned that he wasn’t really patient but he had several other women and even two children that I did not know about and that he failed to reveal. I wondered why I never saw him on campus in the same ways that I did regular college students, why he hadn’t earned his degree after so many years and why semesters would go by and he would seemingly disappear and reappear out of nowhere. It turns out that he was never even enrolled in school. He walked around the campus looking for young college girls to take advantage of. I admit that I loaned him money on several occasions and accepted gifts from him that he had stolen back. It took a while for me to realize that the tennis bracelet and other jewelry he had given me just mysteriously disappeared. I sensed that he took them back when I wasn’t looking but I figured that I was just forgetful and had lost them. . . For four years I thought I was in love and realized that I was only one of many women that he had deceived. When I finally asked him if we could have a “real” relationship as opposed to our down-low relationship and that I was tired of the two o’clock in the morning phone calls, he refused without explanation. . . . A surprise visit to his apartment revealed a frustrated pregnant girlfriend arguing with another pregnant girlfriend. I came by to tell him that I too thought I was having his child. This wasn’t Jerry Springer. This was my life and my college career. I had the chance to become the first doctor in my family and I was ruining it. This man had hurt me and led me on and jeopardized my medical school aspirations. . . . . I thought I had found “true” love. It was all too good to be true. . . . . He walked around the campus with a backpack but never had a major, was never enrolled. I never saw him walking to or from a class, just "hanging out" with a backpack - and always seemed to be talking to freshmen women, hanging around the lobbies of the freshmen women's dorms. He was just a loser who liked young college women. . . .I thought that I was smart and found someone who was intellectually stimulating and wanted the best in life and saw me as a sophisticated woman. I was told and finally realized that for him once you are over age 19, you are too old and he didn’t want to have anything to do with you. I confronted him about it and he admitted that older women were too much work. He preferred young college “girls.” . . . Nine years later, I’ve learned that he is still living in our college town, unmarried, with many children out of wedlock, is a custodian and grounds keeper for the university and has yet to earn any college degree. People did try to warn me but I didn’t listen. If only I had been warned. If I had only listened to the cautions of concerned people who cared about my well-being. But I thought I knew everything and now realize that I knew little to nothing. My life has been forever changed by this mistake. I thought it was true love. The truth is I was looking for love and didn't understand what love was. My life has never been the same.

Moral of the Story: Be careful when dating. The people you date can potentially hurt or help your future. If you think you are in a relationship that doesn’t seem quite right, then ask people about the person, do your research, ask him/her questions, speak up for yourself. Don’t settle for less than what you want and deserve, and try to make sure that the person who you think is a fellow college student is actually enrolled in college!

Anastasia Elon Jackson is a graduate of Texas Southern University, Houston, Texas where she majored in Biology and Chemistry. She went on to earn a Master’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Houston. She is currently a medical student at the Baylor College of Medicine and plans on becoming a pediatrician. She is also a single parent of a beautiful daughter, Asia, the product of her first “college love.”