Hi Everyone, I'm an author and creative and am trying to raise printing funds for my new book, Wings of Àsùwà, with Africa World Press. They're an amazing small press with a global reputation but very little money. That's what I'm trying to raise to make the first print run of this special book. Anyone of any age can enjoy the story and get lost in the magical pictures of a child yearning to fly who gets to be a bird for a day. That transformation is the cover image you see above! Wings of Àsùwà is what I call a graphic-recitation with rich, full-color images telling the story. All the art was hand-made by me - chiaroscuro charcoal images,

hand-cut, glued, water-color collage images.

Wings of Àsùwà is also grounded in West African (specifically Yorùbá) indigenous worldview making for fun, magical story-telling. In 2006 I completed my PhD at the Centre of West African Studies, Univ. of Birmingham (UK) with my focus on the Yorùbá indigenous culture of Ifá. I've been traveling to Nigeria since 1995 and have a previous book published with AWP titled 'Reciting Ifá: Difference, Heterogeneity and Identity'. Wings of Àsùwà is a kind of illustration of ideas in that book and how Ifá functions in people's lives which is why I call Wings of Àsùwà a "graphic recitation."

We're hoping to raise this money by June, so we have a month!

I'm asking for 4 different donation amounts each with its own gift. (We will get the thank-you postcards and posters out asap as funds come in. The books will take a little longer once we get all the necessary money for printing. Then we'll send those out to you):

$25 (you get a postcard with an image from the book)

$50 (a wall-poster with an image from the book)

$100 (a signed soft-cover edition (when it gets released))

$150 (a special, signed hardcover edition (when it gets released))

Wings of Àsùwà has been years in the making and now I'm really excited to get it into the world and people's hands for their enjoyment.

Please help make this a possibility!

Thank you all! - Noël