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.”

• Historic news from the Library of Congress: “We’re thrilled to announce that Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry Ada Limón for a two-year second term.”
• Giveaway subscriptions! Apparently, I can offer three of you the equivalent of one month’s paid access to Christine Sneed’s excellent Bookish on Substack. Please leave a comment below if you’d like one. The first three who do so will get ’em. UPDATE: ALL THREE SUBSCRIPTIONS HAVE BEEN TAKEN (BEFORE 9:30 AM!) Stay tuned, though. I’ve found that sometimes, I do receive follow-up freebies to give away.
• I’ve been pretty impressed by the work of Chill Subs from the moment I discovered it. But reading about their team this week has increased even that (not-inconsiderable) respect, exponentially. A sampling: “Some weeks Karina, who is Belarusian, will have to take time away from Chill Subs not for an ill grandparent or an emergency doctor’s appointment, but because the developer helping her on other projects was arrested in Belarus for protesting Lukashenko’s crackdowns. Or because a coder helping us update our submissions tracker was hospitalized after being beaten on the streets of Poland where they live. Both of these events happened in recent weeks.”
• There are some pretty big names featured on the My Machberet blog in the latest Jewish literary links, where you’ll find items by or about David Grossman, Howard Jacobson, Nora Ephron, Harry Belafonte, Bernard Malamud, & more.
• And this weekend will bring the May issue of The Practicing Writer 2.0, which I expect to distribute sometime on Sunday. (We are <5 subscribers away from the 8,000-subscriber mark, so if you haven’t yet joined us, please do!) And check the archive for the April issue to make sure you haven’t missed any opportunities that are still open and a potentially good fit for your work. You’ll find everything here.

Have a great weekend.