Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

Three quick updates from my desk.

1. I’m proud to be hosting the latest Jewish Book Carnival on my “other” blog, My Machberet. The July 2020 Carnival went live earlier this morning.

2. Yesterday, my friend Jessamyn Hope was the featured author in the latest online event organized by Jerusalism. So I would have “attended” it even without the open-mic element that followed Jessamyn’s own reading (from a gorgeous essay that you’ll find in the forthcoming anthology The New Spice Box: Contemporary Jewish Writing).

But Jessamyn had encouraged me to sign up to read from Birthright: Poems. So I did!

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Finds for Writers

Description: closed trunk and text label announcing, "Finds for Writers."
Image of a wooden trunk, with text label that reads, “Finds for Writers” beside it

Most Fridays the Practicing Writing blog shares writing and publishing resources, news, and reflections to peruse over the weekend. But it’s been an excruciating week for so many of us. And frankly, I’ve paid next-to-no attention to garden-variety news from the writing and publishing spheres.

On Wednesday, however, I received an email from Facing History and Ourselves, a Boston-based global nonprofit organization that I’ve admired for many years. The email introduced a “mini-lesson” titled “Processing Attacks in Israel and the Outbreak of War in the Region.”

The resource isn’t perfect. (What resource is?) But one of its segments impressed me as something that, though intended for educators and students, could be clarifying for writers as well, in our work and in the rest of our lives. It’s a section titled “Avoiding Antisemitic and Islamophobic Tropes in Discussing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

Screenshot of text published beneath "Avoiding Antisemitic and Islamophobic Tropes in Discussing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." Text taken from the website linked within the post.
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Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

Three quick updates from my desk.

1. Last week’s “Midweek Notes” found me smack in the middle of the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) conference. As I mentioned, the conference pivoted quickly this spring from its planned in-person event in Evanston, Illinois, to a fully-online happening.

And it was simply sensational.

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Finds for Writers

Description: closed trunk and text label announcing, "Finds for Writers."
Image of a wooden trunk, with text label that reads, “Finds for Writers” beside it

Most Fridays the Practicing Writing blog shares writing and publishing resources, news, and reflections to peruse over the weekend. But it’s been an excruciating week for so many of us. And frankly, I’ve paid next-to-no attention to garden-variety news from the writing and publishing spheres.

On Wednesday, however, I received an email from Facing History and Ourselves, a Boston-based global nonprofit organization that I’ve admired for many years. The email introduced a “mini-lesson” titled “Processing Attacks in Israel and the Outbreak of War in the Region.”

The resource isn’t perfect. (What resource is?) But one of its segments impressed me as something that, though intended for educators and students, could be clarifying for writers as well, in our work and in the rest of our lives. It’s a section titled “Avoiding Antisemitic and Islamophobic Tropes in Discussing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

Screenshot of text published beneath "Avoiding Antisemitic and Islamophobic Tropes in Discussing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." Text taken from the website linked within the post.
(more…)