Hummingbird in Underworld

• Outreach to media such as Publishers Weekly and other trades, the Santa Barbara News-Press, San Luis Obispo Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, O Magazine, Guernica Magazine, publications interested in social issues and/or criminal justice, Poets & Writers, poetry publications; writing/book websites, including Writer's Digest and/or its blog, The Dig, etc.; alumni media • Outreach to radio and podcasts, including local shows and shows on public policy. Outreach to include NPR, KPFA, KQED, KCLU, KCBX, etc. • Outreach to women's media and websites • Outreach to book bloggers interested in memoir • Outreach to websites and publications or media concerned with the field of Corrections and/or therapeutic art programs and/or teaching and/or social justice and/or prison reform • Events at bookstores, associations, libraries, book festivals, etc., throughout California as well as in Seattle, Portland, Anchorage, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Texas. • Possible events with Poetic Justice, or with Literature for Justice. • Placement of excerpts and other content • Social media • Author website

Alternating between tales of creating original theatre in a men’s prison and her own story, Deborah Tobola’s Hummingbird in Underworld takes the reader on an unforgettable journey, affirming the power of art and the strength of the human spirit.At the age of forty-five, Deborah Tobola returns to her birthplace, San Luis Obispo, to work in the very prison her father worked in when he was a student at Cal Poly. But she's not wearing a uniform as he did; she's there to teach creative writing and manage the prison's arts program - a dream job. As she creates a theatre program for prisoners, Tobola finds plenty of drama off the stage as well. Inside the razor wire she finds a world frozen in the '50s, with no contact with the outside except by telephone; officers who think prisoners don't deserve programs; bureaucrats who want to cut arts funding; and inmates who steal, or worse. But she loves engaging prisoners in the arts and helping them discover their voices: men like Opie, the gentleman robber; Razor, the roughneck who subscribes to The New Yorker; charismatic Green Eyes, who really has blue eyes; Doo Wop, a singer known for the desserts he creates from prison fare. Alternating between tales of creating drama in prison and Tobola's own story, Hummingbird in Underworld takes readers on an unforgettable literary journey - one that is frank, funny, and fascinating.