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.”

• I’m always interested in learning about people’s professional paths. So this item on the Kenyon Review blog, about Joumana Khatib, who graduated from Kenyon in 2013 and works as a senior staff editor on the Books desk at The New York Times, intrigued me.
• Juneteenth may have received a lot of extra attention this year—but I still haven’t read Ralph Ellison’s novel that bears its name. Especially if Ellison’s Juneteenth‘s unfamiliar to you, check out this post on the Library of Congress’s “From the Catbird Seat” blog.
• In which Allison K. Williams explains “Why No One’s Interacting with You on Twitter.”
• While we’re on the topic of social media—Sree Sreenivasan is providing a (free!) opportunity to learn “everything you need to know about the most popular social media platforms (Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and Instagram) for professional settings, whether you are looking to expand your network, build a business or find a new gig.”
• And of course, there’s a new set of Jewish literary links posted over on the My Machberet blog.

Have a good weekend. And #WearAMask.