• Anne Boyer
    November 16, 2023

    Poet Anne Boyer Resigns from New York Times Magazine

    Anne Boyer—the author of the poetry collection Garments Against Women, the essay collection A Handbook of Disappointed Fate, and the nonfiction book The Undying—has resigned from her position as poetry editor at the New York Times Magazine, stating: “The Israeli state’s U.S.-backed war against the people of Gaza is not a war for anyone.” She also writes: “I can’t write about poetry amid the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies.” 

    The winners of the 2023

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  • Lexi Freiman
    November 15, 2023

    National Book Awards tonight; A profile of Lexi Freiman

    The National Book Awards are tonight at 8 pm Eastern time. The event, hosted by LeVar Burton, will be streamed live on YouTube and Facebook. Ahead of the event, two sponsors have withdrawn their participation after learning that some of the awardees would likely address the war in Gaza. The National Book Foundation released a statement: “Political statements, if made, are by no means unprecedented in the history of the National Book Awards, or indeed any awards ceremony. We are working with the venue to ensure a safe environment for all our guests. We of course hope that everyone attending the

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  • Jazmine Hughes and Jamie Lauren Keiles on Democracy Now!, November 14, 2023
    November 14, 2023

    Jazmine Hughes and Jamie Lauren Keiles on resigning from the New York Times Magazine; 2000+ writers boycott the Poetry Foundation

    Former New York Times Magazine staff writer Jazmine Hughes and contributing writer Jamie Lauren Keiles speak with Democracy Now! in their first broadcast interview since resigning from the publication after signing an open letter published by Writers Against the War on Gaza

    n+1 has published a collection of voice memos from Gazans, transcribed and translated by a group of volunteers in New York City and Chicago. “I’m six wars old,” said Sahar Kalloub on October 22. On October 13, 10-year-old Salma Alghalayini said: “It’s so hard, but it’s not new. It’s actually very old. From year to year,

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  • Prudence Peiffer. Photo: Charles Fulford.
    November 08, 2023

    Remembering activist and lawyer Ady Barkan; Prudence Peiffer’s advice to writers

    In The Nation, a remembrance of activist and lawyer Ady Barkan, who died of ALS last week at the age of thirty-nine. As Sarah Johnson and Brad Lander write, Barkan did not let his diagnosis slow down his activism: “He recognized that his own story, his failing voice, his dying body had become powerful tools for change that he could add to his organizing toolkit. As he lost the ability to move, his organizing dexterity only grew.” 

    For The Guardian, Moira Donegan writes about the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, and how conservative gender ideology has fuelled his rise: “The revelations

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  • Rupi Kaur. Photo: Baljit Singh
    November 07, 2023

    An open letter from Jewish writers and artists; Rupi Kaur has rejected an invitation to the White House

    n+1 has published an open letter drafted by a group of Jewish writers, artists, and activists disavowing the idea “that any criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic.” The letter goes on to state: “It is precisely because of the painful history of antisemitism and lessons of Jewish texts that we advocate for the dignity and sovereignty of the Palestinian people. We refuse the false choice between Jewish safety and Palestinian freedom; between Jewish identity and ending the oppression of Palestinians. In fact, we believe the rights of Jews and Palestinians go hand-in-hand.”

    Canadian poet

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  • Hagai El-Ad. Photo by Keren Manor/activestills.org
    November 01, 2023

    An interview with Israeli activist Hagai El-Ad in the New Yorker; essays on Gaza in The Drift

    For the New Yorker, Isaac Chotiner interviews Israeli activist Hagai El-Ad about the West Bank. 

    In The Drift, seven short essays on Gaza by Bobuq Sayed, Dylan Saba, Hadas Binyamini, Mariam Barghouti, Nasreen Abd Elal, Natan Last, and Sophia Goodfriend.

    n+1 has launched its 2023 Bookmatch personality test. If you donate any amount to support the magazine, you’ll be able to take a brief quiz that editors and friends of n+1 will use to create a personalized reading list for you. This year, the recommendations will come from authors including Hernan Diaz, Deborah Eisenberg, Miranda July, Alexander

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  • Isabella Hammad. Photo: Elizabeth van Loan 
    October 31, 2023

    Simon & Schuster has been sold; Isabella Hammad’s Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture

    Simon & Schuster has been acquired by private equity firm KKR for $1.62 billion. 

    The editorial board of the Financial Times has issued a statement on the war on Gaza: “It is time for a humanitarian ceasefire. That would ease the suffering of Palestinians and cool regional tensions. Hamas must release all hostages.”

    The Paris Review has published the novelist Isabella Hammad’s Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture, which was delivered this September at Columbia University. She discusses the Palestinian struggle, crisis and turning points, “recognition scenes,” and writing about the life of her

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  • Namwali Serpell. Photo: Peg Skorpinski
    October 27, 2023

    Namwali Serpell on "clockiness"; the new issue of n+1 is online now.

    At the New York Review of Books, Namwalie Serpell writes about “clockiness,” George Eliot, and whether there is such a thing as a “female style.” 

    Artforum editor-in-chief David Velasco has been fired following the publication of an open letter about the Gaza war on the magazine’s website, which states, among other things, “We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes.” The

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  • Rashid Khalidi
    October 25, 2023

    An interview with Rashid Khalidi; The new issue of Parapraxis is available to preorder now

    At The Drift, an interview with historian Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, about the situation in Gaza and the media coverage of the war: “I used to write about Soviet Middle East policy, and in those days, the only sources we had were Pravda, Izvestia, Krasnaya Zvezda, and so on. I feel today like I’m back in the Cold War and The New York Pravda Times and Washington Izvestia Post are mouthpieces for the Biden administration.”

    An open letter about the Gaza war posted on Artforum.com with more than 8,000 signatures has been updated:  “We . . . would like to repeat

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  • Meghan O’Rourke
    October 18, 2023

    An open letter on Gaza from more than six hundred writers and artists; Meghan O’Rourke writes about her mentor Louise Glück

    At the London Review of Books, more than six hundred writers and artists have signed an open letter on the situation in Palestine: “In Gaza, neither the occupying power, Israel, nor the armed groups of the people under occupation, the Palestinians, can ever be justified in targeting defenseless people. We can only express our grief and heartbreak for the victims of these most recent tragedies, and for their families, both Palestinians and Israelis. Nothing can retrieve what has already been lost. But the unprecedented and indiscriminate violence that is still escalating against the 2.3 million

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  • Louise Glück. Photo © Katherine Wolkoff 
    October 17, 2023

    Writers remember Louise Glück; Sarah Schulman on manufactured consent and the Israel-Hamas war

    Louise Glück, the Nobel and Pulitzer winning poet and essayist, died on Friday last week. At the New Yorker, several writers, readers, and former students remember her work. Hilton Als writes: “Even though she was considered a confessional poet, along the lines of Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, early in her career, I have to say that part of what I grew to love about her writing was how much she was hiding in plain sight within it. It is very difficult to find the metaphors that ring true about a life, but Glück achieved that again and again.”

    For New York magazine, Sarah Schulman writes

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  • Teju Cole. Photo: Martin Lengemann
    October 10, 2023

    Julian Lucas on Teju Cole’s new novel; Jewish Currents seeks reader questions on Israel/Palestine

    Jewish Currents is seeking reader questions about the situation in Israel/Palestine for an explainer piece that will be reported on a rolling basis over the coming weeks. 

    At The Nation, read an excerpt from Dan Sinykin’s Big Fiction about the invention of the term “literary fiction” some four decades ago: “Under newly intense economic pressure, publishers used it to describe less overtly market-driven work; booksellers described their shops as featuring literary fiction—or not; and book reviewers held it up as a standard to aspire to.”

    In his New Yorker review of Teju Cole’s new novel Tremor

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