Erika Dreifus

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.”

• First things first: The May issue of The Practicing Writer went out to subscribers yesterday. In addition to 30 fee-free (and paying!) opportunities, this issue features a number of subscriber success stories. Read it, if you haven’t yet. (And if you aren’t a subscriber, sign up to receive the June newsletter as soon as it goes out.) And please share the issue with your networks.
• “The Kenyon Review is delighted to announce that Nicole Terez Dutton has been named KR’s new editor.”
• In which BookBub’s Diana Urban rounds up a variety of approaches for virtual book launches.
• New project from Alexandra Zapruder: “Writers, teachers, & historians: I’m launching Dispatches from Quarantine: Young People on Covid-19, a project to use writing made by young people in the past to inspire teens and young adults to document their experience of the coronavirus pandemic.”
• And don’t forget: Each week there’s a new collection of Jewish-lit links up on the My Machberet blog. Here’s the latest post.

P.S. In case you’ve missed it, this site maintains an (updated) of emergency resources for writers:  bit.ly/EmergencyResourcesWriters. Please have a good, safe, healthy weekend.