Finds for Writers

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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.
  • How’s this for an event title: “‘The Grim Keys of My Smug Typewriter’: On the Material Practice(s) of Sylvia Plath”? Happening March 8, online, at no charge.
  • High Country News EiC Jennifer Sahn has announced that Paisley Rekdal will be that publication’s first poetry editor. “She officially joins us in March, so keep an eye out for more details, and soon, poetry in your mag!”
  • Select content from the new (March/April) issue of Poets & Writers magazine went online this week, and I’m delighted to find my friend Sara Lippmann featured in the latest Literary MagNet column, describing a few of the journals that first published stories in her soon-to-be-published second story collection.
  • If you’ve been living under the proverbial rock, this Library Journal item will acquaint you with Wordle (and, while you’re at it, Spelling Bee, and some other word-focused games you might enjoy). No need to share your daily scores on social media, though! 😉
  • And of course, you can find a new set of Jewish literary links posted over on the My Machberet blog.

Happy weekend, everyone.

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