CONTACT:
Sheila Rule
Resilience Multimedia
877-267-2303
resiliencemultimedia@verizon.net
New York, NY (BlackNews.com) - The journey that led Joseph Robinson to write the new book Think Outside the Cell: An Entrepreneur's Guide for the Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated (Resilience Multimedia) began in 1992, after he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for a crime that had its roots in his illegal drug business. Behind prison walls, Joe developed a passion for legitimate business by reading newspaper financial sections that other prisoners threw away. He traded cigarettes for books to build his own business library and became an authoritative financial adviser to fellow incarcerated men. And he convinced top Wall Street executives and others--including a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State--to go inside prison to share their business knowledge.
With the publication of his inspiring and informative Think Outside the Cell, Joe is encouraging men and women nationwide to use what for many are innate entrepreneurial gifts in order to build the lives they want and break the cycle of recidivism. This step-by-step guide is packed with straightforward information on a range of topics, including how to get others to embrace your ideas and help launch your business, how to legally avoid taxes, how to establish good credit and the steps to take to remove occupational restrictions that many states place on convicted felons.
Think Outside the Cell has already won high praise, including from John C. Whitehead, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs; Steve Mariotti, founder of the acclaimed National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship; Wahida Clark, best-selling urban fiction author; Nicole Lindahl, assistant director of the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York; Catherine F. Rohr, founder of the nationally recognized Prison Entrepreneurship Program, and Julio Medina, founder of Exodus Transitional Community, whose work with the formerly incarcerated has been recognized by the White House.
Think Outside the Cell is being published amid renewed efforts to help the formerly incarcerated--who are disproportionately black and Latino--successfully reenter society. But the reentry programs being developed focus on finding jobs in a nation where, according to a Princeton University study, it is easier for a white person with a felony conviction to get a job than for a black person who has never been arrested. Think Outside the Cell presents a largely unexplored option that can help give men and women leaving prison a realistic second chance.
Think Outside the Cell is published by Resilience Multimedia, a New York-based publisher of quality African-American and Latino books. Its founder is Sheila Rule, a journalist for The New York Times for 30 years who started writing to the incarcerated as a volunteer for the Riverside Church Prison Ministry. Inspired by the rich talent she found behind prison walls, she started Resilience Multimedia. Future titles will help the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated tackle other hard challenges. And to present a more balanced image of this population, Resilience will publish books featuring formerly incarcerated men and women who have become successful as entrepreneurs and in other endeavors. To order Think Outside the Cell, or for more information, please visit www.thinkoutsidethecell.com
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