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.”

• ICYMI: Writer Beware, which “shines a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls,” presents its 2022 in review.
• ICYMI, II: Over on Nieman Storyboard they’ve compiled an editor’s-favorites list of “non-exclusive list of Storyboard posts” from the past year “that explore the mastery of craft behind the art of nonfiction story work.”
• Opportunity alert: “Get the Word Out is a publicity incubator for debut authors. Under the mentorship of an accomplished book publicist, authors will develop and execute a strategic publicity plan to maximize the exposure of their first book, reach readers, and create a platform to propel their literary careers.” This fee-free program, under the aegis of Poets & Writers, is currently taking (also fee-free!) applications from those “under contract with a U.S.-based publisher for the publication of a debut poetry collection written in English and scheduled for release between April 1, 2023 and April 30, 2024.” Check for additional eligibility criteria. Deadline: February 3.
• “Since the initial 1970 publication of her classic coming-of-age novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume famously refused all offers for a film adaptation. Until screenwriter and director Kelly Fremon Craig wrote Blume an email that changed her mind.” Publishers Weekly‘s Ingrid Roper writes about this and about the movie tie-in edition of the novel that will be published next month ahead of the movie’s spring release. (And, as of this week, there’s a trailer!)
• And last, but by no means least: On this day 125 years ago, French author Émile Zola published his famous “J’accuse” letter; literary treatments of the entire Dreyfus Affair with which the letter is inextricably bound are just one thing you’ll find mentioned in the latest Jewish-lit links on the My Machberet blog.

Have a good weekend, and, for those in the United States, a meaningful Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday observance.