— Deadline to apply is January 31, 2014 —
Nationwide (BlackNews.com) — Essence Communications Inc.hosts summer interns through the Time Inc. Summer Internship Program. The program is a 9-week paid learning experience where students will receive on-the-job training that will enhance their education and prepare them for a future career in the media industry.
Applicants must have an interest in media and issues related to African-American women to intern at ESSENCE magazine. They are looking for students who are diligent, self-motivated and extremely detail-oriented to take on various opportunities throughout departments in both the Publishing and Editorial divisions.
Interns will receive a bi-weekly stipend, will be assigned to one department but will be exposed to other areas of the company, and are expected to find their own housing. It is suggested that they contact their school’s career center for information on temporary housing in the New York City area. They can contact New York City area colleges and universities to ask about renting a dormitory room for the summer.
The deadline to apply is January 31, 2014, and only one application per person will be considered.
For more details and/or to apply for the Essence Summer Internship, visit:
www.findinternships.com/2013/10/essence-communications-internship.html
To search hundreds of other 2014 internships, visit:
www.FindInternships.com

Beginning Thanksgiving weekend, the Wilderness at the Smokies resort combines the magic of the holiday season with the warm summertime fun of its indoor waterpark for a festive yuletide experience that can’t be found anywhere else.
Special holiday happenings at Wilderness at the Smokies begin on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 28, and include favorites that resort guests have come to look forward to every Christmas season and new treats for family fun in Santa’s Workshop that everyone will enjoy.  This year’s holiday features include:

•    Swimming with Santa – Each Saturday evening, kids of all ages staying at the resort can enjoy a late evening swim with Santa. This unique experience offers a holiday experience unlike anything else, and Santa’s helpers will be on hand to take photos to capture the memories.
•    NEW in 2013: Saturday nights also feature a special storytelling session in Santa’s Workshop after Mr. Claus has left to go splash and swim in the indoor waterpark. Some of Santa’s elves specializing in telling holiday tales will entertain both young and old with their interactive adventures in storyland.
•    Yuletide carolers will serenade guests upon their arrival to Wilderness at the Smokies every Friday and Saturday, as well as on other select days in the holiday season beginning on Thanksgiving Day.
•    Mrs. Claus got ahold of Santa’s Workshop and did a complete redesign for this year’s holiday season, including an all-new Seuss-like décor in bright green and red. This Wilderness wonderland will offer a great place for resort guests to take holiday photos.
•    Santa’s Weekend Wilderness Workshop features all new craft activities for children and a new cookie decorating station that will tempt everyone’s taste buds. Kids will love creating their own special plate to leave treats for Santa on Christmas Eve, and another new activity will let children design their own snowman box to keep or give as a gift to someone on their Christmas list.  Snowman ornaments and festive photo frames are some of the other fun holiday crafts to be made in Santa’s Workshop this year, and several activities are being offered that will appeal to tweens and older kids.
•    Wilderness at the Smokies is also a perfect place for children to write their special letters to Santa. The resort staff will make sure that all the special messages get to Old St. Nick so wishes can be made known.
•    NEW in 2013: A delicious holiday feast is planned at the Thirsty Miner restaurant, complete with a new yuletide menu that will make Grandma proud to start a new tradition. The feast includes favorites like turkey, ham, baked, mashed and sweet potatoes, corn pudding, an assortment of fresh vegetables, and two kinds of dressing, and special menu items including pot roast, popcorn shrimp, spaghetti, ravioli. A special kid’s corner will offer food choices children will enjoy, and apple, pumpkin and pecan pies will round out a delicious meal.

And that’s just the extra holiday fun and activities planned for Wilderness at the Smokies; the resort’s indoor waterpark and the Adventure Forest family activity area both are open every day of the year and offer unique family fun throughout the holidays that are unique to Wilderness at the Smokies. Even if the weather turns winterlike outside during November and December, Wilderness at the Smokies makes holiday vacations weatherproof in its Wild Waterdome indoor waterpark, where it’s always a mid-summer temperature of 84 degrees. Attractions in the waterpark include several thrilling water slides, a giant wave pool, the Smokies Surf Rider, a special toddler area and a play structure with a 750-gallon bucket dump.
In Adventure Forest, guests can enjoy lots of dry fun including mini-bowling, a climbing wall, laser tag, black light mini-golf, a mega arcade and much more.
Warm holiday happiness and the warmth of summer fun at the Wilderness at the Smokies indoor waterpark will combine to make special holiday memories for the resort’s visitors, and a special New Year’s Eve celebration in the indoor waterpark is also planned for a one-of-a-kind way to ring in the New Year.
Wilderness at the Smokies offers gift cards for the 2014 season to that person on your gift card list who is hard to buy for or who already has everything. Gift cards in any denomination are available by calling toll-free 877-325-WILD (9453) or visiting the resort website at www.WildernessAtTheSmokies.com.

By Esther Callens

One of this century’s most powerful narratives that recount one man’s struggle for freedom has been re-published. Twelve Years a Slave is the factual memoir of its author – Solomon Northup. Giving readers an up-close, yet mere glimpse of the injustices that Solomon Northup endured, Twelve Years a Slave painted a vivid portrayal that was pivotal in the discussions that led to the Civil War.  This was an amazing act for a Black man in the mid 1800s.
Solomon Northup was born a free man in Saratoga, New York in 1808. He was an experienced carpenter and talented violinist. In 1841, he was approached by two gentlemen offering him a lucrative job as a musician in a circus – if he were available immediately.  Northup accepted the gentlemen’s offer and began traveling with them.  Things quickly changed for Northup as he found himself drugged and chained.  This led to the realization that he had been kidnapped by the presumed gentlemen and sold into slavery.
Northup suffered a lifetime in those 12 years, as he was belittled and beaten by numerous owners.
Through a series of events spearheaded by the help of a kind gentleman, Solomon was reunited with his wife and three children in the winter of 1953. He went on to write his memoirs and to become a keynote figure in the abolition movement.
Twelve Years a Slave is and will always be a biography of great significance. It is unique in the sense that Northrup was a freeman before being enslaved, thereby presenting a profound narrative of both aspects. It is not surprising that Northup’s story has been made into a major motion picture that continues to garner numerous awards. Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup with introduction by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, PhD, is an Atria Books/37 Ink/Simon and Schuster publication.
Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the author of Wrench, the New York Times bestselling novel. In addition to being a prolific teacher, Dr. Perkins-Valdez is the beneficiary of the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.  She makes Washington, D.C. home.

By Esther Callens

A unique listening experience can be found in the music of Donovan Tate aka XI-VOX.  A New Beginning is the title of the new CD by XI-VOX. Combining a mixture of techno, pop, synth and Tate’s signature style, XI-VOX music is thoroughly innovative and cutting edge.
To properly describe A New Beginning, I referred to XI-VOX liner notes. It states “XI-VOX, the new solo Christian project by Donovan Tate. Consistently captivated with a dynamic electronic and keyboard range combining the familiar sounds of the old school ’80s Synth-pop and Gothic past with its own original ideas.  Fascinating and intriguing with its CD EP “A New Beginning” that includes the aggressive six minute synth-pop track “Glorify, Purify” with a Gregorian chant choir opening the song as an intro. “Renew” gives off a catchy darker and striking melodic vibe that’s masterfully crafted with the help of Donovan’s cousin and producer, Daron Franklin. The EP is to let the listeners interpret and experience their own reactions to it and be touched by the music and the lyrics itself.”
Further it stated “XI-VOX is the new essential compelling new music project. Influences are early Depeche Mode and Clan of Xymox. Original modern synth-pop and gothic sounds and ideas shining through all six tracks on the CD, while the seventh track “You Ain’t Getting In” have an old traditional gospel flavor that’s written and sung by Donovan’s children, Allistair Monrow and Stacia.”
A New Beginning offers a one of a kind CD by an exclusive artist. Something the entertainment industry can use more of as music is unlimited.
Track listing: Aisha, Renew, Aisha II, Glorify, Purify, You Ain’t Getting In, Trap In Darkness, Two Strangers.

Web series that takes a critical yet humorous look at stereotypes of African-Americans—one of Time magazine’s ‘10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life’—heads to California for season 3
NEW YORK —The third season of “Black Folk Don’t,” the satirical documentary web series challenging common stereotypes of African-Americans, premieres on Monday, December 2. Alternately provocative, irreverent, comical and profound, the series heads to California for its third season, with engaging interviews of celebrities like John Norwood Fisher of the punk band Fishbone, director Ava DuVernay, actress Lisa Gay Hamilton and renowned feminist Sikivu Hutchinson, as well as everyday black folk. The series, a project of TuckerGurl LLC, is funded by National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and runs weekly on Mondays for six weeks through January 6. NBPC serves as executive producer.
The brainchild of director-producer Angela Tucker, who specializes in creative, bold and varied social issue, film-based projects from public service announcements to features, “Black Folk Don’t” is designed to inspire dialogue around a number of controversial issues. Featured in Time magazine’s “10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life,” on NPR, TheRoot.com, Huffington Post and in PBS’s Online Film Festival, the series this season questions whether black people go green (December 2), live to the end of a horror film (December 9), do plastic surgery (December 16), do feminism (December 23), adopt (December 30) and join the NRA (January 6). A special episode on Thursday, December 12, will be a behind-the-scenes mini-episode about California.
“As only about 6.6 percent of the population, black people are far from the majority in California and that intrigued me. And I found that people in Oakland, Los Angeles and San Francisco had such diverse views of the world, leading to a real clash of ideas this season among the interviewees, more so than in past seasons,” said Tucker.
“Season three of ‘Black Folk Don’t’ is going to spark conversations in homes and offices around the country as well as online, as people take sides and even question the audacity of the assertions that are raised in the show,” said Nonso Christian Ugbode, Black Public Media Director of Digital Media.
The series is shown on BlackPublicMedia.org, the official website of NBPC, YouTube, and PBS.org, as well as at blackfolkdont.com.