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Thank you for your interest in writing for HEART & SOUL, the total life empowerment magazine for today’s African-American woman.

We feature articles that help our readers live a healthy, wealthy and wise lifestyle. We look for articles on health and fitness, wealth building and knowledge and wisdom building.

Word length is given upon assignment. Please send a query letter rather than submitting a completed manuscript, and understand that we will contact you if your query is selected. If we think your subject is of interest to our readers but you are a writer new to HEART & SOUL, you may be asked to submit the completed manuscript on speculation. Payment will be made if the article is accepted.

Give us a clear outline of your story; one page is sufficient. It would also help to include a brief biography that describes your writing experience, and some clips. If you would like to submit more than one idea, write a separate query for each topic. Check our masthead in the current issue for the names of the appropriate editors. All manuscripts must be typed and double-spaced. (We suggest that you keep a copy of your original manuscript.) We cannot be responsible for unsolicited material. Be sure to include your name, address and daytime phone number, and include a self-addressed stamped envelope. Allow six to eight weeks for review.

Our address:

Heart & Soul Enterprises, LLC
2514 Maryland Avenue
Baltimore , MD 21218
Attn: Editorial Dept.
Send queries to:editor@heartandsoul.com

We look forward to hearing from you!

Heart and Soul Magazine is the pre-eminent health and fitness magazine for today’s African-American woman. The publication has a bi-monthly circulation of 300,000 and a readership of more than 1.5 million. As part of our growth initiatives, we seek to increase our presence online, so that we may expand our current readership base.

Heart and Soul Magazine seeks talented college students to participate in our Fall 2008  Internship Program as an Online Social Network Intern. Our Fall 2008 Internship Program begins on September 10, 2008 and continues through December 7, 2008.

Responsibilities
    Managing our social network profiles on Facebook and MySpace
    Building friends lists and interacting with users on various social networks
    Creating and disseminating e-newsletters and e-promotional blasts
    Developing podcasting
    Acting as the liaison between our brand and the social network communities and  
    Posting news stories and adding relevant tags to maximize searchability and engage discussion amidst online community.
      

Qualifications

Interested students are expected to have demonstrated an interest in media, specifically print, Internet and/or magazine publishing, and have a current grade point average of 2.5 or better.  Interested students must also be a self starter with strong follow-through ability; heavy Internet user with detailed knowledge of social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and others; excellent communications skills - both written and verbal; good Microsoft Office and Microsoft Vista skills; and be an innovative and creative thinker.  In addition, applicants must have excellent spelling, proofreading, and communication skills, be detail oriented, well organized, and possess the ability to take initiative and work independently.

Compensation

This is an unpaid internship requiring 15 - 20 hours of work per week.  We will assist those students seeking course credit for this internship.

Application Procedure

   Interested students should forward their resumes, cover letters and writing samples. Completed applications should be mailed to:

Riza J. Redd
Assistant to the Publisher
Heart and Soul Magazine
2514 Maryland Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21218
rredd@heartandsoul.com

Incomplete applications will not be considered for the internship program.  Please visit our website at www.heartandsoul.com.  Heart and Soul does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, color, sex, age or handicap.

Publishing Internship

Heart and Soul Magazine is the pre-eminent health and fitness magazine for today’s African-American woman. The publication has a bi-monthly circulation of 300,000 and a readership of more than 1.5 million.

Heart and Soul Magazine seeks talented college students to participate in our Fall  2008 Internship Program.  Interns have the opportunity to learn the many different facets of magazine publishing, including production, sales, marketing, public relations, event and database development, accounting and business planning.  Our Fall 2008 Internship Program begins on September 10, 2008 and continues through December 7, 2008.  

Responsibilities
    Assisting with administrative duties
    Filling requests for sales and editorial staff
    Creating and executing communications and marketing strategies
    Researching and coordinating mailings
    Arranging PR activities and
    Coordinating special events.
      

Qualifications

Interested students are expected to have demonstrated an interest in media, specifically print and/or magazine publishing, and have a current grade point average of 2.5 or better. The ideal internship candidate must be a team player, able to prioritize a heavy workload, have ability to multi-task, and have a strong knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Windows Vista. In addition, applicants must have excellent spelling, proofreading, and communication skills, be detail oriented, well organized, and the possess ability to take initiative and work independently.

Compensation

This is an unpaid internship requiring 15 - 20 hours of work per week.  We will assist those students seeking course credit for this internship.

Application Procedure

Interested students should forward their resumes, cover letters and writing samples. Completed applications should be mailed to:

Riza J. Redd
Assistant to the Publisher
Heart and Soul Magazine
2514 Maryland Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21218
rredd@heartandsoul.com

Incomplete applications will not be considered for the internship program.  Please visit our website at www.heartandsoul.com.  Heart and Soul does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, color, sex, age or handicap.

Edwin V. Avent,
President/CEO/Publisher

Edwin
V. Avent is the President, CEO and Publisher of Heart & Soul
Magazine the nation’s leading health, fitness and life solutions
magazine targeting African-American Women. In this capacity Mr. Avent
is responsible for all day-to-day activities associated with running
the
magazine including advertising sales,marketing, promotions,
editorial, design, circulation and newsstand sales. A driven, motivated
and visionary entrepreneur, Mr. Avent has over 20 years of experience
in magazine publishing, advertising, marketing and sales. He also has
over 12 years of health related marketing experience.

Immediately
prior to acquiring Heart & Soul, Mr. Avent served as Co-owner,
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Twenty First
Century Group (TFCG), a Baltimore, MD based advertising, public
relations and strategic planning firm. He directed all day-to-day
management, account services and new business development efforts.

Prior
to joining TFCG, Mr. Avent founded and served as President/CEO of U.S.
Prevention Marketing Group (USPMG) producers of the first brand of
condoms targeting African Americans called Umoja Sasa condoms.
Established in 1991, Mr. Avent was the driving force behind USPMG’s
success in launching national HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns and
realizing their health education and prevention marketing mission.

His
magazine publishing career began at Cornell University in 1981 when he
founded and served as publisher and sales manager of Equity Magazine, a
campus based magazine for Cornell’s minority student population. He
followed that experience by helping to launch The Ithaca Times Weekly
Newsmagazine where he served as the Advertising Sales Manager. In 1985
he joined Career Communications Group, Inc., publishers of U.S. Black
Engineer Magazine and Hispanic Engineer Magazine. There he held various
positions of increasing responsibilities including advertising account
executive, marketing director and director of sales and promotions.

Mr.
Avent is an active participant in the Baltimore community; co-founder
and board member of Black Professional Men, Inc.; he has also served on
the board of directors of Associated Black Charities, Inc. He is a
graduate of The Leadership Program and has been recognized by the
Baltimore Business Journal as one of its “40 under 40″ future business
leaders. He holds a Baccalaureate Degree in Policy Analysis and
Management from Cornell University. Mr. Avent is married to his wife,
Tracey, has a son named Austin and they reside in Hanover, Md.

Yanick Rice Lamb
Editorial Director, Heart & Soul

Award-winning
journalist and author Yanick Rice Lamb returns to the helm of Heart
& Soul as editorial director. Her editorial vision led to the
health and fitness publication becoming one of the largest and most
successful magazines targeted to African Americans.

She experienced similar results as founding editor of BET Weekend ,
helping it become the second-largest publication targeted to African
Americans with a circulation that grew from 800,000 to 1.3 million in
three short years.

Yanick
has kept her fingers on the pulse of young men and women as a lecturer
and News-Editorial Sequence Coordinator in the Department of Journalism
at Howard University in Washington . She has also served as a magazine
publishing consultant, an editor-at-large at Essence and a contributing
editor for Emerge .

Previously,
Yanick worked for The New York Times Company for 10 years, most
recently as a senior editor at Child magazine. At The New York Times,
she worked in various roles, including assistant style editor, deputy
home and living editor, assistant editor of the Connecticut Weekly ,
and metropolitan copy editor. She was also a copy editor at The Atlanta
Constitution and a reporter at The Toledo Blade . Yanick and her staffs
have won numerous editorial and design awards, including a Folio:
Editorial Excellence Award and a McDonald’s Black History Maker of
Today Award in Journalism.

Yanick,
who served twice as president of the New York Association of Black
Journalists, is the co-author of Born to Win: The Authorized Biography
of Althea Gibson . She also wrote the text for The Spirit of African
Design and was a contributor to Health & Healing for
African-Americans, Sisterfriend Soul Journeys and Aunties .

A
graduate of Ohio State University , she will also receive a master’s in
business administration from Howard University during this academic
year. She is married and has one son.

By Kenneth J. Cooper

Sarah Palin joked she was a pit bull with lipstick. She sure came off that way in speech accepting the vice presidential nomination at the Republican convention.

She began by talking about her family life. It was warm and affecting stuff, yes. She mentioned her infant son, Trig, who has Down syndrome, and vowed to be an advocate for children with special needs. Being a loving mother, daughter and wife, though, doesn’t qualify anyone to be vice president.

Before Alaska’s governor laid out her own experience in political office, she attacked Barack Obama on his credentials and consistency. Palin disparaged his job, right out of college, as a community organizer, contrasting it unfavorably to her role much later in her life as a mayor.

“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities,” she said.

Some African Americans, particularly those who came of age during the civil rights movement, may take exception to her comment. In their younger years, they may have done that kind of organizing and felt responsible for improving people’s lives without the power or resources of a government.

No national holiday honors a mayor, from a small town or a big city, but one does honor a community organizer. His name was Martin Luther King Jr. Anyone who studies the intensity of his facial expressions can see he felt burdened by responsibilities.

Usually, it is a mistake for politicians to introduce themselves to the public by attacking their opponents. It’s particularly risky at a time like this election year, when negative politics has turned off many voters. Will Palin and running mate John McCain pay a noticeable price in the polls?

Besides Palin, women did not have as prominent roles in the Republican convention as they did at the Democratic convention. They made up about a third of Republican delegates, compared with more than half of Democratic delegates.

Women who addressed the Republican convention included Dr. Elena Rios, president of the National Hispanic Medical Association, and Renee Amoore, a black businesswoman from Pennsylvania.

Rios made an important contribution in talking about health disparities, normally not a big topic of conversation in Republican circles.

“Twice as many Hispanics have diabetes than non-Hispanic whites,” she noted. “The incidence of HIV/AIDS among Hispanic women is five times that of whites. African Americans face higher rates of mortality for heart disease and cancer.”

Rios listed a number of reasons that she said compound the disparities “poverty, language and cultural barriers, and limited access to health information” as well as delayed treatment in hospital emergency rooms, lower rates of childhood immunization and the cost of medical insurance.

Curiously, the leader of the national organization of Hispanic doctors left out one cause of health disparities, the “unequal treatment” that minorities receive from the health system. That racial-ethnic discrimination was documented five years ago in a report from the prestigious Institute of Medicine.
 
Amoore talked some about the health services provided by business, the Amoore Group near Philadelphia. But most of her speech was a rallying cry for McCain.

She ended this way: “I’m proud to be an African American woman. I’m proud to be a Republican, and I’m proud to be voting for John McCain.”

Few seated in the convention hall could say the same. African-American delegates numbered 36, way down from 167 four years ago, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
 

Join women from across the country, including many you’ve read about on the pages of Heart & Soul, in Nashville, Tennessee, for four days of pampering, relaxing, socializing and networking.

This incredible weekend will feature special red carpet events including:
The Heart & Soul Awards hosted by Lynn Whitfield
Divas Against Disparities Benefit Concert starring
Angie Stone, Mary Mary, Tamia and Lalah Hathaway

Come enjoy an evening of inspiration and enlightenment with author and speaker
Iyanla Vanzant

You’ll also be treated to luxurious spa treatments
and be inspired when you attend our
Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Workshops and Seminars
Free Health Screenings
Health Expo

SPA Health Conference 2008 Program

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Opening Night Reception

Friday, October 17, 2008

Early Bird Fitness Workout

Opening Plenary Session
with keynote speaker Alexis Herman
workforce expert and former U.S. Secretary of Labor

Healthy, Wealthy, Wise Workshops

Heart & Soul Awards Luncheon

An Evening with Iyanla Vanzant
Sponsored by Sam’s Club

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Early Bird Fitness Workout

Pamper with a Purpose (spa pampering services)

Discovery Day (Tours of Meharry Medical Campus and Nashville)
   
Healthy, Wealthy, Wise Expo

Divas Against Disparities Benefit Concert

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Early Bird Fitness Workout

Grace & Fellowship Farewell Brunch
Guest Speaker
Rev. Dr. Vashti Murphy McKenzie

Special Registration Price until October 1, 2008 $199

Onsite Registration Only After October 1, 2008
Onsite Registration Price $350

Tickets for Divas Benefit Concert $50
Tickets On Sale Now at all Ticketmaster Outlets