What: Happy Hour with Patrik Henry Bass of Amistad/HarperCollins
When: Thursday, Feb.17, 2022, from 5:30-6:30 pm ET (2:30-3:30 pm PT)
Where: Via Zoom Videoconference
Cost: Free for members. (Non-members, please inquire for more information.)

Please join us for a members-only ABPA Happy Hour with Patrik Henry Bass of Amistad/HarperCollins, the most respected and celebrated African-American imprint in publishing. This happy hour will delve into Amistad’s bestselling editorial program, the authors and titles, and Patrik Henry Bass’s thoughts on future acquisitions.

Amistad, now in its 35th year, was founded in 1986 to specialize in the works of authors who honor and hallow the memory of those who fought—and continue to fight—for freedom. Amistad’s original publishing program included works by tennis legend and activist Arthur Ashe, tastemaker Susan L. Taylor, and literary gatekeeper Henry Louis Gates Jr. 

Amistad aims to educate, entertain, and empower readers interested in the past, present, and future of Black people throughout the diaspora. It publishes stories that have seldom been told, expanding historical narratives in new and surprising ways, while driving conversations that provide solutions and direction for people in their everyday lives. Recent titles have included Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson; Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey; Open Season by Ben Crump; and Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston.

Who You’ll Meet

Executive Editor Patrik Henry Bass acquires commercial and literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, graphic novels, current affairs, self-help, wellness, and history. He has recently published New York Times bestsellers Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers; as well as the NPR 2020 Book of the Year, Lakewood by Megan Giddings. For nearly two decades, Patrik was books editor at Essence, where he worked with a range of writers including Pulitzer Prize winners Isabel Wilkerson, Robin Givhan, Rita Dove, and Leonard Pitts, Jr., as well as Maya Angelou, Colin Powell, and Terry McMillan, among others.

He is the author of Like A Mighty Stream: The March on Washington, August 28, 1963 (Running Press, 2002), The Zero Degree Zombie Zone, ages 8–12 (Scholastic, 2014), and co-author with Karen Pugh of In Our Own Image (Running Press, 2001). Bass has written and edited for The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Paris Review, and has lectured widely on African-American culture as adjunct professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University.