Dear CNRFs (comrades-neighbors-relatives-friends—pronounced ‘knerfs’):
Hoping this letter finds you well! I’m adding a mid-month or Ides issue to my newsletter. Unlike end-of-the-month essays, these will be smaller and more random bits related to exploring activist culture—events I want to share, other writing and publishing activity, activist news, upcoming events, updates on my Activist Explorer activist culture quest.
I invite you to regard the Ides of March as a day when dictatorships fall, as happened on this day to Julius Caesar, self-declared dictator of Rome, in 44 CE. I take that aspirationally rather than historically as an indicator that dictatorships past, present and future fall to the genuine will of the people—hopefully not as brutally as Brutus and his buddies did the job on JC.
The Struggle Continues for Justice and Peace in Palestine
As regular readers know, for several months I have published essays—here (republished here) and here—on the Gaza conflict from my perspective as a Communist Jew (an identity that is anything but easy for me to publicly claim, by the way. I don’t like labeling myself, but even less do I like new and old McCarthyisms to silence me…or anyone.)
As mentioned in this essay, my family and I have been part of a local constituents group focused on pushing our AIPAC-funded Congressperson, Glenn Ivey, to call for a permanent ceasefire and no more US support for Israel bombing Gaza. Even though polls and our experience show that most of his constituents favor halting support for Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza, Ivey refuses to budge.
Pictured above is a procession of a crowd of folks from our group to the congressperson’s house to bring home to him the seriousness of our demand.
On the right is a town hall meeting with him where a large group of constituents, mostly Muslim, including Palestinians who have lost family in Gaza, passionately advocated for him to call for stopping the ongoing genocide. After over an hour of his sidestepping, evading, and not even expressing sympathy for their losses and heartfelt pleas, most of the attendees stood, chanted Ceasefire Now!, unfurled our banners, and walked out.
Activist Fiction Writers Circle Workshop at Radical Elders
Tomorrow, March 16, in New York City I’m looking forward to joining my sister Activist Fiction Writers’ Circle1 comrades to lead an activist writing workshop at the People’s Forum in New York City for participants of the Radical Elders Day of Action.
This is how we describe our group:
We’re a circle of women writers and lifelong social justice activists who are each writing a novel centering activist characters, movements, and the activist experience. We feel activist writing is a form of political action everyone is capable of participating in. And we believe working collectively strengthens each of our voices as well as inspiring us to develop our collective voice.
We formed our circle to support and encourage each other as we tell stories situated within the world we’re struggling to transform, and envisioning the world we want to create. We want to share this vision with others by hosting periodic sessions on activist writing.
It will be exciting to meet them for the first time in actual real life!
Mexico: Elections, Solidarity, and Imperialism
I lived for over a decade and a half in Mexico City, and where I still have many close connections to people and organizations, including a neighborhood-based cultural association I participated in starting there in the eighties.
In the fear and fervor of US elections, let’s not forget the important elections in Mexico coming up this June. I hope to be there as an observer, and to catch up with friends, family and comrades.
A compañero journalist with the Mexico Solidarity Project will be moderating a panel on the Mexico elections, discussing internationalist solidarity and imperialist threats to sovereignty in Mexico and other parts of Latin America.
Don’t miss it! It’s vital to have first-hand information and analysis in counterpoint to the distortions in the US dominant narrative regarding Mexico.
Rainwood House Update
I have finished revising my “movement mystery” Rainwood House Sings and am deep into exploring the intricacies of publishing. I have done it before, but the publishing scene is changing all the time, and as activist novelists we are forging our own path.
Soon my Activist Fiction Writers’ Circle will be having a “mini-retreat” to mull over our plan for supporting one another to publish and share our work with our communities.
If you know someone capable and willing to guide our retreat, please let me know!
This is my letter to you. Please write back!
Read more about this circle and other writer organizing efforts in this essay.