Applying pressure.

lithub.com/withdrawals-an…

i’m so moved by the authors who have withdrawn their works from PEN consideration. it’s courageous to reject the opportunity to be considered for $75,000, life changing money for most writers! happy to support Maya Binyam Eugenia Leigh Ordinary Notes Ghassan Zeineddine

In solidarity with the writers boycotting the PEN America World Voices Festival; PEN America United; Writers Against the War on Gaza; and all the other writers who have declined PEN awards this week––

Yea, you won an award or whatever, but how do you treat people?

Are you voting for Palestine & Planet?? 🇵🇸✒️🍉

Join us at the Society of Authors EGM, 2nd May 5-7pm BST.

We're asking everyone who supports the motions to share these graphics! 📨

Illustration by Sieve Bonaiuti.

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Despite my deep gratitude to the judges who believed in my book, BIANCA, I have withdrawn from consideration for the 2024 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. I made this choice in keeping with the boycott sustained against @penamerica, and in solidarity with Palestine. 🧵

taking a short break from social engagements, calls, and private messages/WhatsApp to help with anxiety & energy

sorry if I don’t reply or can’t meet up in the interim 💗

I’ll still be around for work & organising!

hopefully see you at this event at Lighthouse - Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop tomorrow ❤️‍🔥

Bi+ Lines edited by Helen Bowell, with readings by Ilisha Thiru Purcell & Len Lukowski

Part of our resistance to the finality of genocide is for us to talk about tomorrow, plan for tomorrow, work on healing the wounds of our people. The aim of this war is that there would no Palestinian tomorrow. We own tomorrow. Tomorrow is a Palestinian day.

I've been thinking about this a lot. I want to be a part of that better something even if the progress is gradual. Even if it feels hard to give things up right now. Even if that space comes after me. I want to be a part of the community that's imagining better possibilities.

Poetry Northwest joins the many journals and literary orgs condemning the ongoing genocide against the people of Palestine at the hands of the Israeli state.

Read the full statement:
poetrynw.org/statement-in-s…

These collections all sound so beautiful. Congrats especially to my talented friend Nicole Lachat 💙

Inspired by @thedykeproject’s action, an autonomous group of NYC artists replaced subway ads with designs from Queering The Map. These posters amplify the heart-wrenching, beautiful stories of queer Palestinians.

‘We are proud Jews who denounce the weaponization of Jewish identity and the memory of the Holocaust to justify what many experts in international law, including leading Holocaust scholars, have identified as a “genocide in the making.”’

variety.com/2024/film/glob…

🧵I declined the PEN/Ralph Manheim Award for Translation, in solidarity with the 1300+ writers who've decried PEN America silence on the genocidal murder of Palestinians, & with the PEN America United fight to maintain free speech for PEN employees,

Does anyone I know work with & help organise the UCU strike funds? Or does anyone have advice or experience with distribution of mutual aid (monetary)?

❤️ Help appreciated! I can send more info through DM if anyone is willing to chat about this.

For some reason I thought it cost money to upgrade from Associate to (voting) Full Society of Authors member.
Reader it does not, if you can upgrade then do so asap so you can vote on these vital resolutions.

If you're an author in the UK that wants to see an end to the stark silence from our cultural orgs on Palestine, here's what you can do 👇🏾

I know there's a lot of info here and not everyone has attended an EGM before. Please reach out if you have any ?s about joining or voting!

'What is a witch? ...Isn't the ability to communicate with the invisible world, to keep constant links with the dead, to care for others and heal, a superior gift of nature that inspires respect, admiration, and gratitude?'

~ Maryse Condé, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem