'We are sorry we are not signing our names to this declaration and realize how ironic that is for employees of a free expression organization.'

some new books in the house in the last few days. the piles just keep on piling. these beauties sent by Penguin India, Westland Books, Seagull Books سیگل, HarperCollins, and HarperVia.

নিভন্ত এই চুল্লীতে মা
একটু আগুন দে
আরেকটু কাল বেঁচেই থাকি
বাঁচার আনন্দে।

Shankha Ghosh (1932-2021)
<3

this is exactly how i think goddamit

Students at Miami University in Oxford, OH are taking up the fight for Palestinian lives. We stand with the students of Columbia, UNC, and all those organizing against genocide. 🤝

#FreePalestine #StudentSolidarity

Encampment is speech. Withdrawing from consideration for an award is speech. Calling a genocide a genocide is speech. Free speech is under attack, but not just on the front of book bans. To only choose to look at one aspect of fascism is to underwrite its power.

If you work more, you will be given more work

Be lazy

So thrilled to see an entire chapter on Translators Aloud in TRANSLATION AS ADVOCACY, out soon from John Murray Press! A million thanks to Katie Brown.

the timeline of Representative Ilhan Omar grilling Minouche Shafik and the next day Shafik expelling Omar's daughter and calling in the NYPD to arrest peaceful protesters is extremely damning, hard to see it as anything but mismanaged ego and revenge

As her peaceful antiwar students were suspended to be arrested by armed NYPD, the Barnard prof president of a “free speech” organization writes that principled dissenters who have declined awards & invitations are silencing & erasing others.

Light years beyond satire.

I really resent the suggestion that authors who have withdrawn from PEN America events are choosing to ‘silence ourselves’. Also the insinuation that we’re intimidating other writers lithub.com/pen-president-…

Columbia called, CUNY answered!

We stand with the Columbia students & the Gaza Solidarity Encampment!

UNSUSPEND MY STUDENTS, Columbia University!

Kuzhali Manickavel is the best and y'all should absolutely read her new book that Blaft Publications (@[email protected]) will be releasing soon <3

Langston Hughes attended Columbia. He was denied a dorm room because he was black. From his poem, Kids Who Die:

This is for the kids who die,
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die

Dear pencanada:
A serious Q:
Why are you partnering with RBC, (the world’s biggest investor in fossil fuels) to fund this ‘green-washing’ literary prize?

Indigenous leaders gathered to protest pipelines at their AGM last week.
tinyurl.com/4xbfshuw

So these kids don't just get the cops called on them, but also they're suspended and kicked out of their place of residence.

wild thought: if you’re writing on behalf of an organization embroiled in criticism for not taking seriously the dehumanization of victims in an ongoing war & genocide, maybe, just maybe, don’t open and close with references to storks, squirrels, hawks, and ravens?!

Awww look the PEN America president being so twee while writing about the institution's abysmal stand/actions on the genocide.

This just gets worse and worse

Congratulations to Fady Joudah Fady Joudah, winner of the 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize. The prize, which this year carries an increased award of $100,000, is awarded annually by Poets & Writers to an American poet of exceptional talent. Read the press release: