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.”

- Tweeted by Ilya Kaminsky: “A gentle reminder: please help to spread the word about this resource for refugee writers from Ukraine: https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1BDJAZC1lJSIkR7WS_XNAfF5s9nmQTbi1btlOYfJ6MRI/mobilebasic.”
- Free online event happening Sunday afternoon for librarians and educators (I suspect that writers, too, will appreciate it): “How to be an Ally to Jewish Patrons and Students (Even in a Non-Jewish Neighborhood).”
- I’ve become an avid follower of Sarah Einstein’s Writing Family Histories newsletter, so I was particularly interested when I ran across Einstein’s post “Using a Newsletter as a Prewriting Exercise and Research Tool” over on the Brevity blog.
- Sensing that you might benefit from a quick refresher on apostrophes? Tense consistency? Any of a number of other writing points? Check out the exercises provided by Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab (OWL). I used some of them this week with my students, and I plan to continue using them myself.
- Surprise! This week, instead of the usual end-of-week post on the My Machberet blog, I switched things up a bit for the Purim holiday. Take a look at what I posted instead.
May everyone have a good weekend.
