Your hold is ready! (04.22.24)

April 23, 2024

Happy April. And Earth Day. And, of course: chag Pesach sameach. It’s Passover, but I’m not feeling very “happy,” generally, that a holiday whose ethos is to commemorate & rehearse our collective liberation from slavery, from pharoah’s tyranny, given the long shadow of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. One of what will inevitably be many mass graves has been discovered, and the right-wing, pro-empire crackdown on students exercising, of all things, the free speech speech rights these clowns claim to care so much about.

And yet.

I woke this morning to the fresh news, courtesy of LitHub, that this year’s PEN Literary Awards ceremony was cancelled. I’ve been following the rapid attrition of nominees on twitter and elsewhere, watching some categories go from full to nearly- or entirely-empty in the face of PEN’s cowardice. Authors whose names constitute brands withdrawing and otherwise signing onto a statement of resistance against PEN’s institutional complicity, which began long before October 2023. After all, what does it mean to celebrate literature and literary culture as libraries and universities and archives burn? Genuinely, even if you don’t care at all, does that juxtaposition not look intolerably grotesque?

Evidently, it did to enough people to engender such a massive change. Beyond the symbolic victory, though was the material implications. The Jean Stein Award, named for a psychiatrically disabled Jewish writer and supporter of Palestinian liberation, and worth 75,000 dollars, was not awarded to an author. Nine of ten withdrew from consideration. The entire sum was donated to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.

Elsewhere –– indeed, across the country –– peoples’ universities for Palestine have emerged in solidarity with columbia, the epicenter of militant repression of antizionist campus activism. Today, faculty at columbia and elsewhere walked out, demanding the end to the violence against students for exercising their right to protest, and, broadly, for a wholesale divestment of columbia from “israel”, where it currently has (among other things) a joint-degree program. [Follow columbia SJP and JVP for up-to-date information].

Their position is indeed a popular one. A plurality of voters in their divestment referendum voted in favor of divestment, a pattern that mirrors universities across the country –– including uc davis.

This is the “and yet” I’m talking about. None of this mass action changes the unimaginable loss Palestinians face every day, have faced for a century and more, under israel and the british too. The resilience for which they are praised, while certainly admirable, should not be necessary to any person, ever. Jews know this intimately, carrying with us lineages of genocide that predate the very term by millennia. Increasingly, a range of people are waking up to the reality that this is the “what if” and “what would I do”? Moment once speculated on. Indeed it always has been.

So, to recap: I’m heartened by the swell of resistance I observe across the u.s. and around the world. Take these small victories as fuel to push harder. I believe in us, collectively; I believe in a free Palestine within my lifetime. We cannot cross until we carry each other.

Usual updates from me: preorder Failure to Comply, get an arc on Edelweiss, contact me if you’re interested in a review/interview, add it on Goodreads and Storygraph, and tell your friends. Check out some early reviews: Briar and Guadalupe on GR, and Alex Carrigan for Harbor Review.

General submissions are open for manywor(l)ds through the end of the month, and always for MENA/SWANA writers. Mad dykes and friends are welcome to submit my guest-edited issue of Sinister Wisdom called Mad Dykes, Queer Worlds, open through June 2024.

Now, onto the recommendations.

Today’s Recs:

Books:

A/V Media:

Poetry & Prose & In-Between:

Essays and Articles:

My Recent Work: