Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories.
“You’re not supposed to write about big feelings while you’re having them. You’re supposed to wait until you have enough distance to be objective, to sort out the important details from the ones that will fade with meaning over time. But I realize that’s the problem: I am always waiting my turn to be important.” Lucy Feldman, a senior editor at TIME, responds to the recent shootings in the Atlanta area, in which a gunman targeted three massage parlors and killed eight people, including six Asian women.
The Asian American Writers Workshop has issued a statement in response to the attacks: “Violence against Asians and Asian Americans is not a new phenomenon. It is a shadow that tails the history of our people, driven by a hate-filled ideology rooted in white supremacy and misogyny.”
“Already the media is reporting on this hate crime in Georgia, the same way they always do every single time a young white man is the perpetrator. There is an inexplicable refusal to engage with hate crimes as hate crimes.” Roxane Gay situates the shootings within the broader history of white supremacy and anti-Asian violence. (Audacity/Substack)
“We need to really listen to each other and hear each other’s stories. A lot of the fractious divides have to do with the fact that we don’t know each other because everything that we’ve heard about each other has been through white people.” Cathy Park Hong talks to Alexander Chee about her essay collection, Minor Feelings, and how to build solidarity between marginalized communities in the fight against racism. (GEN)
The Feminist Press has created a resource list in support of the movement to #StopAsianHate, including recommended reading and a link to a bystander intervention course.
“I thought home wasn’t supposed to hurt, but everywhere has a history of hurt slicing through the soil, so I want to come back home to the hurt I know best.” Poet Tiana Clark reckons with the racism of her home state, Tennessee. (Nashville Scene)
At the New York Times, Sophia June writes about the rise of virtual writing groups in the pandemic era.
