"Better To Cry Now is a beautiful memoir that tells the story of a brilliant, creative, successful and loving life. Kudos Geoff, my dear friend!"
"Better to Cry Now holds significant meaning and value from my perspective, for it chronicles a pathway to one's very best life in the presence of existential obstacles. Geoffrey's journey narrates the life of a charming, optimistic, gay, Black man who had the creativity and tenacity to live life on his terms, and in the manner that Zen teacher Norma Wong encourages: "Envision the brightest story. From the brightest story of the future we can imagine, it becomes possible to map the actions and goals to arrive at the places we conjure in our creative mind." Geoffrey' vision for his dazzling future was the catalyst that catapulted him toward living his brightest story in every area of his professional and personal life."
"I absolutely love the epilogue of Better to Cry Now! I designated Geoffrey director of everything when we worked together at Howard University. I gave him that title because he did and knew that he could direct any and everything impeccably and successfully. It is heartwarming to note that his memoir concludes with a shift in Geoffrey's journey from director of everything to a new graceful pathway where he has elegantly "Stopped Directing and Started Dancing." The Ultimate Victory! Bravo!! "
Sandra Bowie
Former Vice-President for Arts Education at New Jersey Performing Arts Center and former Executive Director of the Billy Holiday Theater in New York
“I like the warm, vernacular tone of Geoffrey Newman’s memoir, Better to Cry Now; reading the book is like having a conversation with a wise old friend. His life is a classic American success story, with the Civil Rights movement and the Gay Rights movement as part of the backdrop of his life. He’s lived through changing times, and he’s helped to change the times. I admire his perseverance and unflagging good cheer. He recalls the white high school French teacher who did not want to teach him because, that teacher said flatly, he did not believe Blacks were capable of mastering French. He recalls an interviewer asking him, when he was up for a top academic position, if his being Black would influence any of his decisions. (Newman’s response was, in effect: no more than a white applicant’s being white might influence his decisions.) He helped Montclair State University’s performing-arts program gain greatly in prominence, impact, and recognition. And, in a time when reactionary forces are trying to devalue concepts like diversity and inclusion, his life is a vivid reminder of the importance of both.”
Chip Deffaa
The author of nine books and 20 plays, Deffaa was for many years a music and theater critic for the New York Post
“Geoffrey Newman has written a memoir that is, engaging, honest, hopeful, and purposeful. He reminds us that the emotional scars and wounds we carry within us begin to heal first when we confront the pains that caused them with perception and honesty, and then when we take positive action, when we commit ourselves to the process of change – in how we see ourselves, how we see others (not as adversaries
or challenges, but as flawed human beings like ourselves) and in how we see our world around us (not as a space that exists only as a force that acts upon us, but as a space in which we can experience our best selves), it is then that we can construct a space in which we can be, finally and unafraid.”
Richard Wesley
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