My Bureaucratic Birthday Celebration Returns: A September of Free Books, 99¢ Reads, Learning, and Legacy
- Joseph Crown
- 30 minutes ago
- 11 min read
Apparently, a birthday is supposed to last one day.
I have reviewed the paperwork and rejected that proposal.
My birthday is September 6, but beginning tomorrow, September 3, I am once again commencing what I have decided to call my bureaucratic birthday celebration: a wonderfully overextended period in which I give away as much of my published work as Amazon will allow me to, put a few other books at 99 cents, and encourage people to read, write, experiment, argue with ideas, talk with characters, try exercises, and generally make productive trouble with information.
Last year, I used September to make books freely available as a gift of literacy and inspiration.
This year, I want to push the idea further.
Because I have become increasingly interested in something that happens after we read.
A sentence becomes useful in a meeting six months later.
A character's mistake suddenly looks suspiciously like our own.
A de-escalation technique learned for conflict helps us navigate a frightened family member.
A lesson about data changes the way we interpret a headline.
A fictional world gives us language for something happening in the real one.
We rarely know which idea will become useful until the moment arrives when we need it.
And sometimes having encountered that idea before is enough to change what happens next.
Reading Is Not Just About What Happens While You Are Reading
Learning researchers often talk about transfer of learning: something learned in one setting
affecting what we are able to do in another.
Sometimes the transfer is obvious.
You practice writing a clear explanation of a number in a data-storytelling exercise, and later you are better prepared to explain a complicated statistic during a community meeting.
But sometimes the transfer travels farther.
You learn to separate observation from interpretation while working with data. Months later, during an argument, you catch yourself distinguishing what someone actually said from what you assumed they meant.
That is a very different task.
But part of the underlying skill traveled with you.
Consider a few more examples.
You practice de-escalation and discover that slowing your voice can change the tempo of a conflict.
Later, you use the same awareness while facilitating a tense meeting, calming a frightened child, negotiating with a customer, or simply noticing that you are becoming reactive before you make matters worse.
You study Kingian Nonviolence as a framework for social change and begin thinking about conflict as something that can reveal relationships, systems, and opportunities for transformation. That perspective may later affect how you manage disagreement on a board, respond to a hostile social-media comment, supervise an employee, or advocate for yourself.
You learn data storytelling and begin asking where a number came from, who was counted, who was not counted, what denominator was used, and what context is missing. Suddenly a news graphic, hospital report, neighborhood survey, political claim, annual report, or infographic does not look quite the same.
You read fiction and spend several hours inhabiting the choices of someone whose life bears little resemblance to yours. Later, when an actual person behaves in a way you do not immediately understand, you may have a larger library of possibilities available before deciding what their behavior "must" mean.
You study narrative structure because you want to write a better story. Then you discover that the same skills help you organize a presentation, write a grant, explain a project, prepare testimony, answer an interview question, or help someone understand why a problem matters.
You learn to recognize a character's turning point in a novel and become a little better at noticing turning points in your own life.
Even poetry can transfer. Metaphor trains us to see relationships between apparently unrelated things. That ability matters in creativity, problem-solving, teaching, leadership, design, science, and quite a few conversations over coffee.
Learning does not guarantee that we will make the right choice when the moment comes. Transfer is not magic.
But practice gives us something to retrieve.
A word.
A framework.
A remembered scene.
A question we learned to ask.
An action we rehearsed before we needed it.
And sometimes the distance between reacting automatically and responding differently is exactly that small.
Literacy Is Not One Ladder
This is also why I have been thinking differently about literacy.
We frequently talk about someone having a "high" or "low" literacy level as though literacy were a single staircase and everyone could be assigned a permanent step.
Real life is considerably messier.
The 2023 U.S. Survey of Adult Skills found that 28% of adults ages 16 to 65 performed at Level 1 or below in literacy, while 44% performed at Level 3 or above. But those levels describe the kinds of tasks people can successfully perform. They should not be read as labels for the intelligence, worth, or potential of the people taking the assessment. At Level 1, for example, adults can work with short texts and organized lists when information is clearly presented; the demands increase as texts become denser, longer, more ambiguous, or require evaluation and integration across sources.
That distinction matters enormously.
Literacy is partly contextual.
A nurse may move effortlessly through a medical chart and then stare at a mortgage disclosure wondering what civilization invented it.
An attorney may interpret a dense legal opinion and have no idea what the mechanic means when the diagnostic report says something perfectly obvious to everyone in the garage.
A data analyst may understand a multivariate model and still spend twenty minutes trying to understand an insurance explanation of benefits.
A teenager may navigate a new digital platform in thirty seconds while an accomplished professional searches unsuccessfully for the button that everyone under twenty apparently received
telepathic instructions about.
A longtime New Orleanian might immediately understand directions involving the neutral ground, while a visitor who can read every word perfectly may still have no idea where you just told them to stand.
Someone may have excellent literary literacy and understand symbolism, point of view, unreliable narration, and metaphor while being uncomfortable interpreting a confidence interval.
Someone else may be highly data literate and immediately see that two percentages have different denominators while finding a poem maddeningly ambiguous.
There is health literacy.
Financial literacy.
Digital literacy.
Media literacy.
Scientific literacy.
Civic literacy.
Legal literacy.
Data literacy.
Cultural literacy.
Workplace literacy.
Information literacy.
AI literacy.
And within every one of those are different levels of complexity.
Reading "Take one tablet twice daily" is a different literacy task from comparing the risks and
benefits described in several pages of medical information.
Reading the balance in a bank account is different from evaluating the long-term cost of a variable-rate loan.
Recognizing the tallest bar on a chart is different from asking whether the chart uses counts, percentages, rates, adjusted estimates, or a conveniently truncated axis.
Using an AI tool to draft a paragraph is different from assessing its sources, identifying hallucinated information, protecting provenance, or deciding when its polished answer should not be trusted. I mention this as it is many people's first reaction now when they have to write something.
Understanding the words in a city budget is different from understanding what the budget reveals about priorities.
Even reading a novel has layers. Following what happened is one form of literacy. Recognizing what the narrator is avoiding, what the author has deliberately left unsaid, and how the structure is positioning us to interpret events is another.
So I increasingly prefer thinking of literacy as a landscape rather than a ladder.
We move across it.
We develop expertise in some territories and remain tourists in others.
And learning in one territory can give us tools for exploring the next.
That is one reason I keep making books.
My Birthday Gift Is an Invitation to Use the Books
This year's giveaway is not simply:
Here. Have a book.
It is:
Here. Do something with it.
Read something outside your usual territory.
Write in response to it.
Try an exercise.
Teach one idea to somebody else.
Disagree with me, but please be kind and respectful.
Take a framework apart and rebuild it for your setting.
Read a short story and ask what the character noticed that you would have missed.
Talk about a character with somebody else and discover that they apparently read an entirely different human being than you did.
Use a nonfiction chapter during a meeting.
Take something designed for one context and see whether it travels.
Ask yourself:
What does this help me notice that I could not see as clearly before?
That question interests me far more than whether someone finishes every page.
Explore the Free Titles
Throughout the entire month of September 2026, most of my Kindle e-books will be available for free (at different times) via Amazon. These works span a range of topics—from cultural transformation and conflict resolution to personal growth and poetry—so there’s something for everyone. Here are just a few of the titles you can explore, at little or no cost:
Beyond Stigma: A Cultural Competency Training for HIV Healthcare Professionals – A resource to bridge gaps in empathy and understanding in healthcare, helping professionals provide compassionate, informed care.
Culture Catalyst Frameworks: Igniting Transformation through Intentional Change – A guide for fostering innovation, resilience, and positive cultural change in a rapidly evolving world.
Kingian Nonviolence Frameworks Training Manual: Empowering Movements for Change – Practical strategies for conflict resolution and social change, rooted in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles of nonviolence.
Navigating Life’s Conflicts: Strategies for Effective De-Escalation and Communication – A handbook for improving communication and relationships, offering everyday techniques to peacefully navigate disagreements.
67 Days of NOLA Poetic Exploration Between Here and There – A poetic journey through New Orleans, blending self-reflection with cultural insight and celebrating the spirit of the city....and many more!
📚 All of these titles (and others) will be offered for free on Kindle throughout September. Check my Amazon author profile for the specific dates each book is available for download at no charge. Whether you’re interested in personal development, social change, or a creative escape through poetry, this giveaway is a chance to fill your digital library with meaningful reads.
There will also be fiction.
Short stories you can enter and leave quickly.
Longer novels that ask you to live somewhere else for a while.
Characters making excellent decisions.
Characters making spectacularly questionable decisions.
Characters who may leave you thinking, Well, that was clearly a terrible idea, approximately three chapters before realizing that you have made a suspiciously similar decision yourself.
That counts as learning too.
The point is not that every book is for everybody.
The point is to create many doors.
Choose one.
Why Follow the Joseph Santiago Author Profile?
The giveaway will rotate.
Different books will become free or drop to 99 cents at different times, so the easiest way to catch what is available is to follow my Joseph Santiago Amazon Author Profile and check back
throughout the celebration.
Follow Joseph Santiago on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B006MEH3X0?ccs_id=861a9403-8d4c-4faf-b1ad-8e0d38c72d98
Following the profile also makes it easier to find new releases across nonfiction, fiction, data storytelling, de-escalation, community development, Kingian Nonviolence, and the other areas I continue to explore.
And yes, the library keeps growing.
I have accepted the evidence.
Then I would correct the closing to:
Joseph SantiagoWriter, Researcher, Trainer, and Executive Director, Crown Legacy Program
Follow my Joseph Santiago Amazon Author Profile and watch for the September giveaways:https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B006MEH3X0?ccs_id=861a9403-8d4c-4faf-b1ad-8e0d38c72d98
Explore the Crown Legacy Program:https://www.crownlegacyprogram.org/
Consider making a birthday gift to support the Crown Legacy Program and help us continue creating opportunities for writers, artists, cultural creatives, and community-centered work.
Storytellers and Poets: Building a Legacy in NOLA
This giveaway isn’t just about statistics and books—it’s also about people and stories, especially in our beloved city of New Orleans. As the Crown Legacy team likes to say, “In New Orleans, storytelling is more than art—it’s legacy.”Our stories, poems, and voices carry the memory and identity of our community. That’s why we’re launching the NOLA Storyteller and Poet Fellowships – to invest in the voices who will carry that legacy forward.
What are these fellowships? What are these fellowships? Beginning now, the Crown Legacy Program will select two creatives—one Storyteller and one Poet—for a six-month sponsored fellowship. As funding is secured, fellows will receive mentorship (editorial coaching and publishing support), a platform to share their work, and stipends. We are working to raise at least $14,000 in 2026 to fully launch our project. To begin this journey now, our inaugural Storyteller Fellows—Adrian Flowers and Andre J. McDonald, C.Ht.—are contributing monthly posts to the Crown Legacy blog, bridging technology, tradition, and cultural memory starting in September.
By downloading the free books this September, you’re directly contributing to this vision. We’re using the increased visibility and readership from the giveaway to raise funds and awareness for the fellowship program. Every new reader who joins our cause is a potential supporter of a local artist. The funds generated (through optional donations and sponsorships) during this campaign will help ensure we can pay and mentor those first two fellows. Imagine a young storyteller from New Orleans writing the next great chapter of our city’s story because of supporters like you—that possibility is real, and you can help make it happen.
Illiteracy has profound personal and social costs. Parents who struggle to read often can’t share stories with their children. By supporting literacy and local storytellers, we aim to help break this cycle for the next generation (source: National Literacy Institute).
Our hope is that these fellows will not only hone their craft but also engage the community—through readings, workshops in schools, storytelling events, and more. They will become ambassadors of literacy and creativity, inspiring others to read, write, and find their voice. In a city as vibrant and storied as New Orleans, there is no shortage of tales to tell or poems to pen. With your support, we can lift up those voices that too often go unheard.
Want to be a Crown Legacy Storyteller or Poetry Fellow?
We’re building the 2027 cohort (and future cycles) now. Writers, poets, culture bearers, and creative technologists with NOLA roots—email joe@crownlegacyprogram.org with your bio, links, and a brief project idea.
Subject: Fellow Interest — [Storyteller/Poet] — [Your Name]
Let’s make work that stays with the community.
Your Support Matters
This September book giveaway is more than a one-time event – it’s the start of something bigger. Every download, every read, and every shared story matters. Here’s how you can help build a legacy of literacy and creativity:
Read and Enjoy: Download the free books (as many as you like!), dive into the topics that intrigue you, and enjoy the journey. Knowledge truly is power, and by empowering yourself you empower your community.
Spread the Word: Tell your friends, family, colleagues, and social networks about the free book giveaway. Share the alarming literacy facts you’ve learned. Encourage others to read the books and discuss the ideas. The more people who join this effort, the greater our collective impact.
Contribute to the Cause: If you believe in our mission, consider going a step further. We are actively seeking supporters and sponsors to help fund our literacy programs and creative fellowships. Your donation or sponsorship can directly fund an adult literacy class or sponsor one of our Storyteller/Poet Fellows. Even a small contribution can make a huge difference in someone’s life. (Below can be found a QR Code and a donation link)
Remember, by simply reading a free book, you are already helping. You’re proving that there is a demand for knowledge and that people care about these issues. Each download boosts our visibility, showing authors and platforms that topics like cultural competency, conflict resolution, and poetry matter and have an audience. This, in turn, helps attract more resources and partners to our cause.
Lastly, we invite you to stay connected. Visit the Crown Legacy Program website often to learn more about our ongoing work in the community, from educational initiatives to our new Lagniappe Logic podcast. Follow our updates, join our mailing list, or reach out if you’d like to collaborate. And be sure to check out my Amazon Author Profile for details on these titles and future releases.
Together, let’s build a legacy of literacy, creativity, and transformation. Thank you for being a part of this journey. Go download your free books today – read them, enjoy them, and help us share the gift of reading with others. By turning pages, you’re helping turn the tide on illiteracy and igniting change that will resonate far beyond this month.
Joseph Santiago, Executive Director, Crown Legacy Program joe@crownlegacyprogram.org
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