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.”

• Resonant piece on writing (or not writing) during this “pan(dem)ic” by Laura Maylene Walter.
• From Jane Friedman: “free afternoon discussions about the business of writing, publishing, and making a living predominantly online” (she’s calling them “Sunday Business Sermons”).
• On my weekend listening agenda: This week’s “Hello Monday” episode, from the LinkedIn podcast’s archive, features bestselling author Roxane Gay “for a conversation that touches on persistence in the face of rejection, discipline when honing a craft, and the power of being mentored, mentoring others, and creating opportunities to pass the mic.”
• A recent Twitter query inspired me to revisit and refresh my own resource page on where to find calls for submissions (and other advice for getting published).
• And, of course, there’s a new set of Jewish-lit links posted on the My Machberet blog.

Have a good weekend, everyone. Hope that I’ll catch some of you online on Sunday!