Author Pavilion Slated for NAACP Confab

by Calvin Reid, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 6/6/2007

For the first time, the NAACP will sponsor an author pavilion during its annual convention, to be held this year in Detroit July 7-12. The pavilion will feature presentations by 40 book authors, including presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, in addition to her husband, former president Bill Clinton.

The Author Pavilion was created and organized by Mocha Ochoa, an independent literary event planner, who also plans to launch an Internet TV show, In the Cafe with Mocha, that will kick off at the NAACP convention and feature interviews with 10 authors by Ochoa. The interviews will be streamed over the Web and be available through the NAACP Web site (NAACP.org) and at Ochoa's site, theoraclegroup.net. Ochoa said she is also in talks to partner with Amistad Press to feature four of its authors, including Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edward P. Jones and Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek, on the Web TV show beginning in August.

Among the authors slated to appear at the Author Pavilion are novelists Omar Tyree, Connie Briscoe and Christopher Farley as well as memoirists Rep. Charles Rangel and Victoria Rowell. Authors will give half-hour presentations on their books followed by book signings. Barnes & Noble will handle bookselling during the event and donate 10% of its sales to the NAACP for its literacy programs.

Ochoa has organized book events for B&N, the National Press Club and the National Council of Negro Women. She said the NAACP convention attracts more than 8,000 attendees, and she approached them early this year about starting the pavilion. "They were thinking along the same lines," she said. "It brings a book event into a nontraditional location, and we can sell books. It's the perfect venue for African-American authors."