We Say Good-Bye to Ning on Aug. 20: Let's Continue Our Relationship

We Say Good-bye to our Ning Network on Aug. 20
On Jan. 25, 2008, Liberated Muse started with only 13 members it's first week. Those early members included some of my personal friends and students from a university I worked at at the time. Soon, some of the folks I met on the online network www.Sojournals.com joined me on LiberatedMuse.com, including Kelli Anderson, Sojournals' founder and the tech inspiration who inspired me to start Liberated Muse.

Soon after, my college buddy Maceo Thomas pitched the idea for the Capital Hip Hop Soul Fest and we agreed to use Liberated Muse as a way to attract potential acts for the festival. But, somehow, the site grew beyond that initial focus, embracing members who were from all disciplines of the arts, including those who are patrons of the arts.

After our first Capital Hip Hop Soul Fest in 2008, we began producing arts events and even published a book containing the literary and visual art of our members. Some of those included were published for the first time through our anthology. Then, we proudly had numerous benefit events that raised funds for organizations including The Saartjie Project, Southeast Ministry, DC College Success Foundation and Yele.org.

Finally, because of you, we had a fantastic debut in the Capital Fringe Fest with the first Liberated Muse produced stage play, Running: AMOK,  featuring five Liberated Muse members as actors and one as composer. Another arts collaboration at work.

We Are a Success Because of You
The Liberated Muse network has been a success because of those of you actively participated, whether you attended our events, participated as a featured act in our events, volunteered, helped us spread the word about our events, shared your art on the website and/or fellowshipped with others, making new friends in the process. I feel very successful knowing that the site contributed to the collaboration between many of you on your own projects.

While we leave the Ning network, know that the idea of Liberated Muse continues as I focus now on maintaining the blog, Twitter and Facebook pages in ways similar to how this Ning network was run. I am still accepting arts news to post on the blog, and will still be producing events, though, I will be focusing on my own specific arts projects in the coming year.

How You Can Stay Connected
Here's how you can stay connected to the Liberated Muse network:

1. Follow our Facebook, and Twitter pages with one click. If you have a Gmail account or Twitter account, you can also follow us on Blogger with a click of mouse. Our blog Transforming Places into Art Spaces has been around about as long as our Ning site and has archived information that has appeared on our Ning site.
2. Become a guest blogger. If you have news to share and want to blog about, shoot us an email to join our blogging team (all content subject to editing).
3. Plan a Liberated Muse meet-up. Plan a meet-up for Liberated Muse members in your area and we'll help with promoting it online.
4. Continue to do your art and share it with us. Email us updates on what you are up to, and we may add it on our blog or Facebook page (which is linked to Twitter).
5. Attend and Participate in Our Events. Maceo will still serve as the festival director of the Capital Hip Hop Soul Fest and we will still be producing smaller scale events for you to participate in and attend. Stay tuned.
6. Contribute to our upcoming anthology. The call for submissions will take place in the Fall.
7. Hire Us

It's been a pleasure meeting you and I thank you for being a part of Liberated Muse!

Cheers,

Khadijah "Moon" Ali-Coleman
http://www.Twitter.com/KhadijahOnline
http://www.KhadijahOnline.com