Why Is It Taking So Long To Be Paid?
Well, I just don’t know anymore what to think of the New Zealand Herald ? Why haven’t I been paid yet? Last month on June 5th 2007 John Gardner the associate editor of the New Zealand Herald said he wanted to publish my article “Shades Of Blackface.” Of course, I was excited because the hard work I had put into the article was finally over or so I thought. Well over a month later I still have not received payment for the article. I have three reasons why I really wanted the article published.
1. I wanted to get the article published because I believe it is important
2. The money
3. No North American publication would agree to publish the article in its original form.
Now the money for the article was decent amount even after the exchange rate.
However, I did not anticipate all this fucking bullshit. The editor John Gardner gets mad at me because I dared to ask him the payment date. I think after a month a writer has a right to ask about payment. Next, I receive an e-mail last week from Sabrina Fernandes the news room administrator. Fernandes tells me that I can receive direct payment if I send my banking details to Christine Kopell and the accounting department. I call my bank I ask my bank what info I have to provide for direct deposit and I send it to Kopell. Well, what a surprise, I e-mail Kopell early this morning because New Zealand has a 16 hour time difference. Kopell says the ” payment will be made tonite” her words not mine. I called my bank again and they tell me that if the payment was indeed supposed to be direct deposit I should of received it instantenously. Well I didn’t. And now I know what I had suspected all along the New Zealand Herald had absoultely no intention of paying me. It is a painful learning experience but yes a learning experience.
Under normal circumstances I would not want my work published in the New Zealand Herald because New Zealand is out of the sphere of influence of North America. I now know that maybe I should of been more specific? I should of asked about a specific payment date?
Gayblackcanada 
When the world seems out to get you, perhaps it is you and not the world who is to blame.
From the looks of it, it would seem that you might be a little on the paranoid side.
I read your biased Wikipedia page and it appears that you have a dispute with everyone you come in contact with. It might be worth not taking the point of view that you are the right well everyone else is the wrong.
Arsenal and TSAR are both fine publishing houses with exceptional track records (I looked into both of them). Typographical mistakes are often made in books, in fact I challenge you to find a book without one.
As for your articles, it would seem that the only theme you have any interest in writing about is whether or not this person or that person is a racist. I assure you that nine times out of ten the racism you see is merely in your head and a substitute for your not being able to accept the situtations you find yourself in. Racism exists, but you are taking things a little too far.
Paranoia will not bring you happiness. Smarten up and wake up, the world is not out to get you (even if you desperately want it to be).
First off we agree to disagree. Second off do not patronize me. You do not know my experiences as a young black man. You do not know what I have gone thorugh. Why don’t you take your own advice?I stand by everything I have written. I also think you need to wake up and get in the real world. There is overt racism and covert racism. As a black man I am sorry I cannot pretend to live in a world that does not see colour because the world does. In the real world race always matters. You may think TSAR is a great press that is your opinion. However, you have no right to tell me what my experiences were. I can tell you that Nurjehan Aziz did not care about my feelings at all she was very apathetic to it.
As for Arsenal Pulp Press would you sign a contract and give up rights to potential revenue for only $50 dollars? Because I as sure will not. Too many people feel they can rip people off. And I am the kind of person that stands up for myself. I dealt with TSAR in the end and got out of a bad contract with a penricious and unprofessional publisher. Nurjehan Aziz husband is an award winning writer and I am sure he wouldn’t accept errors in his work. Nurjehan had no respect for me as a writer and as a person. I have moved on from TSAR which is a very deleterious organization.
You obviously don’t know my publishing history. People that have read my work tell me they are proud of me because I am the kind of person that looks beneath the surface.