Call to Action

Our democracy is at stake in this election.  As writers and citizens, we cannot stand by.  Please join us in the battle of our lives.

  1. Register to vote and then vote in local as well as national elections.  Urge everyone you know to exercise this precious right.

  2. Volunteer to serve as a poll worker at your local precinct.

  3. Join Writers for Democratic Action.  We’ll keep you informed of specific campaigns and opportunities to volunteer locally.

  4. Don’t have a state WDA chapter?  Form one.  Contact us, we’ll get you started. 

We can’t say we aren’t warned. The massive upsurge in book banning just reported by UABB demands notice, response and action.

Writers resist! Readers resist! Voters vote!  

Writers for Democratic Action says No To Book Bans!

More Than 4,000 Unique Titles Challenged: ALA Releases 2023 Censorship Data

The American Library Association has released censorship data from 2023, showing a sharp increase in the number of unique book titles targeted for censorship. You can read the ALA’s press release here. You can read the full announcement here.

What can each of us do about it?

  1. Join the Unite Against Book Bans campaign.

  2. Report censorship to the American Library Association.

  3. Make a plan to attend your library or school board meeting.

  4. Spread the word. Share UABB/ALA graphics on your social networks. Use UABB’s toolkit.

Current Affairs

In this moment of devastation and suffering in Israel and Gaza, we turn, for words, to the voices of Israeli and Palestinian poets. . .

YEHUDA AMICHAI

Source: The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2015). Poetry Foundation.

Source: The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (© 2013, Hana Amichai & Chana Bloch, reprinted in Houston’s Favorite Poems, Calypso Editions, 2018, with permission of U California Press).

“Wild Peace”: Yehuda Amichai’s Opinion piece in response to the New York Times, December 9, 1994.

MAHMOUD DARWISH

Source: Unfortunately, It Was Paradise (University of California Press, 2003), Academy of American Poets.

Source: The Butterfly’s Burden (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), Poetry Foundation

“Who Am I Without Exile”: An Essay on Mahmoud Darwish by Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha in Volume IX of the Arrowsmith Journal.


A Tribute to MOSAB ABU TOHA

Source: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza (City Lights , 2022) ; Recipient of the Palestine Book Award & the American Book Award; Poetry Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award; and most recently the recipient of the 2022 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry (Arrowsmith Press). Poetry (March 2021)

from the Gaza Notebooks (2021-2023)

 My two eyes, when closed,

each see different things:

One me leaving Gaza in peace,

in one piece,

one me getting jailed at the Erez crossing point.

                                                  My head: a confused old TV channel

                                                        picking up crossed signals.

 *

In 5th grade, I visit the school library.

On one wall next to the door, a poster claims

“If you read books, you live more than one life.”

Now I’m thirty and whenever I look at faces

around me, old or young, on the foreheads I read:

If you live in Gaza,                you die several times.

*

No one at home.

The doorknob                 only dust touches it now.

The pots grow parched.

The frying pans miss the smell of olive oil.

The clotheslines pine for soap scent.

The flowerpot               the window                the key

The                                                                                   [language].

*

Birds draw the lines of their homes in the sky,

and the wind…

Los Angeles Review of Books

November 21, 2023

Wednesday, December 13, 2:00 PM ET

Special event with Mosab Abu Toha

Join MECA & Palestine Writes for this special virtual event with poet Mosab Abu Toha, honoring two dear friends and colleagues Refaat Al-Areef & Doaa Al-Masri who were killed by Israeli attacks.

REGISTER HERE.

A Reading for the Edward Said Libraries

with Mosab Abu Toha & Friends

Hosted by Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Massachusetts

Listen here.