Tony Rose & Other Top Black Book Publishers Win Wheatley Book Award

TONY ROSE, PUBLISHER/CEO, AMBER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP, INC. AND OTHER TOP BLACK BOOK PUBLISHERS TO RECEIVE THE WHEATLEY BOOK AWARD AT THE 2008 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HARLEM BOOK FAIR -- THE SCHOMBURG CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN BLACK CULTURE, JULY 18, HARLEM, NEW YORK.

National (BlackNews.com) - Tony Rose, Publisher/CEO, Amber Communications Group, Inc. and Executive Director/Co-Founder of the African American Pavilion at BookExpo America has been selected to receive the prestigious Wheatley Book Award. Other 2008 honorees are Haki R. Madhubuti (Third World Press); W. Paul Coates (Black Classic Press); Kassahun Checole (Africa World Press) and Cheryl Willis Hudson and Wade Hudson (Just Us Books).

Created by Harlem Book Fair founder Max Rodriguez, the Wheatley Book Awards recognizes literary achievement that transcends culture, boundary, and perception. Past honorees include Maya Angelou, Chinua Achebe, Sonia Sanchez, Walter Mosley, Octavia Butler, Ishmael Reed, Ruby Dee, John A. Williams, Walter Dean Myers, Amiri Baraka, Eloise Greenfield, Omar Tyree and other notable authors.

Rose states, "I am very honored and proud to have been selected as a 'Wheatley Book Award' recipient, following in the footsteps of the many distinguished awardees who have vastly contributed to the literacy of all Americans, but particularly people of African descent. I applaud Max Rodriguez for creating such an important platform in recognition of the literary achievements of the men and women who had the foresight and fortitude to make a difference in our communities and the world."

The 2008 awards foreshadow an expansion to honor more writers in various categories from African and the African Diaspora experience. Max Rodriguez said, "Through this year's honorees, we acknowledge the diversity of our reading public; next, we will embrace those writers and publishers who contribute to our awareness as a global community."

The Wheatley Book Awards celebrates 40 Years of Black Book Publishing, a red carpet, award program, and reception for the founders of modern black publishing as the opening event of the 2008 10th Anniversary of the Harlem Book Fair. The event will be held on Friday, July 18, 2008, at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, New York, with a reception starting at 6:30pm.




The Award program was named after Phillis Wheatley, the first published African American poet whose writings helped create the genre of African American literature. She was born in in 1753 in Gambia, Africa, became a slave at age seven and was purchased by the Boston Wheatley family, who taught her to read and write, and helped encourage her poetry. The 1773 publication of Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, brought her fame, with dignitaries such as George Washington praising her work.

Tony Rose is the Founder, Publisher and CEO of Phoenix, AZ based, Amber Communications Group, Inc. (ACGI). Amber Books Publishing, the corporation's first imprint, was founded in 1998 and soon became established as the nation's largest African-American publisher of self-help, career-guide and commercial/pop book titles written by and for African Americans. During ACGI's ten year history, five other imprints emerged: BUSTA BOOKS - Celebrity Bios; COLOSSUS BOOKS featuring world-renowned personalities and history-making topics, AMBER/WILEY BOOKS - self-help & financial books co-published with John Wiley & Sons, Inc., AMBROSIA BOOKS for non-fiction/fiction novels and docu-dramas, and AMBER BOOKS2 for in-general specialty books.