Finds for Writers
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.”
- Julie Vick’s “Writing Prompts for When You Can’t Write Due to a Global Crisis” may bring a smile (or two, or 14) to your face.
- “When the coronavirus lockdowns ease, ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and Al Roker will return to their studios. Comedians will return to the stage after dabbling in Instagram stand-up. But in the book world, however, the virtual author event may well be worth preserving.” Amen, John Warner!
- I meant to “attend” Amy Stewart’s Authors Guild webinar on “Book Club Strategies for Authors” when it happened, but I missed it. I’m grateful that it’s available online, and I’m looking forward to watching it this weekend (I have heard good things about it.).
- Tips for throwing a virtual book launch (applicable to other virtual book events), from K.B. Jensen, in a guest post for Jane Friedman’s site.
- And, of course, there’s a new batch of Jewish lit links posted on the My Machberet blog. They’re all worthy, IMHO, but, especially given the prevalence of virtual events among this week’s finds, perhaps you’ll want to take note of some upcoming online literary happenings mentioned there and mark your calendars accordingly.
And the newly routine reminder that 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.
