The Open Road Blog

February 19 marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Virginia Hamilton, one of the most distinguished authors of children’s literature. Hamilton wrote and published forty-one books and was awarded nearly every award in the field, including the Newbery Medal and the National Book Award for M. C. Higgins, the Great. Woven into her books is a deep commitment to the memories, traditions, and generational legacies that help define the lives of African Americans.

Open Road celebrates the work of this beloved author with a video featuring Hamilton’s husband, Arnold Adoff, and son, Jamie Adoff, who describe her wonderful ...

Former VP and Publisher at Crown Will Lead Open Road’s Editorial Services, Expansion into New Verticals, and Acquisition of New Titles

Pohlman Will Oversee a Growing Editorial Team That Already Includes the Recently Announced Betsy Mitchell for Sci-Fi and Fantasy and Nita Taublib for Romance

Pohlman Has Worked with Amos Oz, Rebecca Skloot, and Colson Whitehead, and Managed Backlists of Writers Like Virginia Woolf and Eudora Welty

(New York, NY - February 15, 2012 ) Open Road Integrated Media (www.openroadmedia.com), a digital publisher and multimedia content company, announced today that Tina Pohlman is joining the company as Publisher. Pohlman, a former ...

If you eat and you read, you’ll love our featured ebook today: The Mindful Carnivore by Tovar Cerulli. Beloved by vegans, vegetarians and carnivores alike, Tovar Cerulli is a popular blogger who gained a large following in recent years for his meditations on the ethics and ecology of food. And his perspective has certainly changed a lot over the years—once a strict vegan, Cerulli is now a hunter who kills and prepares the animals for his table.

In The Mindful Carnivore, Cerulli traces his relationship with food—eating McDonalds as a child, experimenting with vegetarianism in college, going vegan, ...

Today marks the release of six highly anticipated new ebooks from Pegasus Books and Open Road Media. Featured titles include The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance, the deeply personal, profoundly provocative story of a vegan-turned-hunter; Mrs. God, a transformative ghost story from one of America’s most celebrated authors; The English Opium Eater, a masterful biography of one of England’s most notorious literary figures; A Darker Shade of Blue, a new short story collection from crime master John Harvey; Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly, the newest in Donald Thomas’ respected Sherlock Holmes ...

“Readers will come to cherish Dreenie’s openheartedness, just as Dreenie comes to cherish
her newfound friend.”

–Starred Review, Publishers Weekly

Open Road Integrated Media is pleased to announce the release of the ebook Bluish by renowned children’s book author Virginia Hamilton. In this story, ten-year-old Natalie is different from the other kids at her New York City magnet school: She is often absent, wears a knit cap, and uses a wheelchair. Her classmates have nicknamed her “Bluish” because her pale skin is tinted blue from chemotherapy. Hamilton delivers a lesson of compassion and demonstrates the power of friendship to ...

In “The Man in the Empty Boat,” Salzman Confronts a Challenging Year With A Sense of Humor And Hope For Personal Peace 

(New York, NY – February 13th , 2012) Open Road Integrated Media (www.openroadmedia.com), a digital publisher and multimedia content company, announced today that it is digitally publishing an E-riginal from award-winning and best-selling writer Mark Salzman. In the memoir The Man in the Empty Boat, a book of love and family, loss and enlightenment, Salzman confronts a year of catastrophe in which he suffers from acute anxiety and debilitating panic attacks all compounded by the sudden ...

The photograph shows author Alice Walker being arrested and taken into custody during a protest in Concord, California in the 1980s, against weapons shipments being sent to Central and South America. Her shirt “Remember Port Chicago,” refers to an explosion during World War II that killed mostly black sailors, which occurred while the sailors were loading munitions.

Born the youngest of eight children, Alice Walker was raised by parents who believed in the power of education, despite being a family of black sharecroppers in the South. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 1956, she moved back to the South, ...

According to the Midcontinent Public Library and Based on the Book, more than 1,200 books, novels, short stories, and plays have been made into English language feature films—and that's just since 1980! In fact, all but two of this year's Academy Award Best Picture nominees are based on books including The Descendants, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Moneyball, and War Horse.  

Of course it's no secret that Hollywood producers and bestselling authors don't always see eye-to-eye when it comes to writing the all-important screenplay adaptation; but with patience, respect, and determination, success—and maybe ...

Black History Month reflects on, celebrates and honors the African-American experience. Everywhere you look, black culture, talent, and political efforts have played an enormous role in shaping America's past and present.

African Americans have  revered good stories and storytellers. The story-telling history of Africa is rich and varied, and it remains a living tradition that continues to evolve and flourish in the diaspora today. "How many of us really know about the truly great civilizations of Africa, in their days as glorious and resplendent as any on the face of the earth?" asks Henry Louis Gates Jr., educator, author, ...

Open Road Media Continues to Add Experienced and Highly Respected Publishing Executives With the Appointment of Nita Taublib, Strategic Advisor for Romance

Taublib Will Spearhead Acquisition and Publishing of Backlist Romance Titles and Joins A Growing Team Which Already Includes The Recently Announced Betsy Mitchell for Sci-Fi and Fantasy

(New York, NY – February 6th, 2012) Open Road Integrated Media (www.openroadmedia.com), a digital publisher and multimedia content company, announced today that it is continuing to add experienced and highly respected publishing executives and editors to its team. Nita Taublib, former executive Vice President, Publisher, and Editor in Chief ...

Our Archival Photo of the Week features award-winning author, Virginia Hamilton performing at a club in New York City in the mid-1950s. Born in 1934, Hamilton grew up among a large extended family in Ohio. She excelled as a student and attended Ohio State University to study literature and creative writing. She later moved to New York City in order to publish her fiction. In between jobs, she took additional writing courses at the New School for Social Research and continued to meet fellow writers, including her husband, poet Arnold Adoff. In 1967, Hamilton published her first novel, Zeely, ...

If you're reading this, it stands to reason you love a good mystery.  In fact, you may even be a mystery writer. . . in which case, you'll surely want to read more about the field trip we took earlier this week to the newly founded Crime Fiction Academy situated in the Center for Fiction in New York City's Mercantile Library.

[What's that?  Oh. You were looking for the Links We Like segment?  Right.  Well, that posts on Fridays—come back tomorrow.  But, wait. . . ! Now that you're here, why not stick around, have a read, and share ...

An Enhanced Ebook that Connects the People to Marley's Legendary Music

Enhanced Ebook Features A Collection of Marley Poems, Meditations and Lyrics Selected by Cedella Marley 

Multimedia Content Includes Video, Never Before Seen Photos, Social Features and Ability To Access Marley's Songs through iTunes and Amazon

(January 31^st, 2011) Open Road Integrated Media, a digital publisher and multimedia content company, announced today the launch of Listen to Bob Marley: The Man, The Music, The Revolution, an enhanced ebook featuring a collection of Marley’s lyrics and sayings as chosen by Cedella Marley.

Listen to Bob Marley is the best of Bob Marley ...

When it comes to true crime fiction, no one does it quite like M. William Phelps. Now he is bringing his investigative instincts and sharp storytelling style to a new TV series, Dark Minds, which premiered this week on Investigation Discovery. Phelps teamed up with criminal profiler John Kelly to revisit unsolved homicides believed to be the work of serial killers. Joining them in the hunt for answers is an unlikely and anonymous source: a convict serving multiplelife sentences for a series of murders. Known to audiences only as "13," this unique source offers his “expert” opinion about potential ...