Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

A New Month, A New Newsletter, and New Hopes for My Poetry Practice

imagesIn case you haven’t yet seen it, the April issue of The Practicing Writer is now available.

Along with the usual hefty serving of no-fee contest listings and calls from paying publishers/litmags, you’ll find within the issue a brief item in which I describe my hopes for giving my poetry practice a kick-start this month and a few links to resources I’m counting on to help in that endeavor: the 2015 Poetic Asides PAD (Poem-A-Day) Challenge; the Poetry Super Highway Prompt-A-Day for National Poetry Month; and NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month).

Congratulations Corner

Stuart Miles/FreeDigital Photos.Net
Stuart Miles/FreeDigital Photos.Net

‘Twas a banner week for several writers I know. Special congratulations go to three past Practicing Writer interviewees.

To begin: Rebecca Makkai shared some terrific news on Facebook by means of a snapshot of her contract—she’ll soon be teaching in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Then, John Griswold was named Series Editor for the just-announced series from University of Georgia Press, Crux: The Georgia Series in Literary Nonfiction.

Finally, Natalie Wexler is the super-smart mind behind a new venture focused on public education in our nation’s capital: DC Eduphile. (If you’re heading over to read the newest post there, Natalie cautions you to heed today’s date as you read.)

Rebecca, John, and Natalie—cheers and congratulations to you all!

In Other News

circ_smallIf you’re reading this, you probably spend enough time reading other materials online so that you’re aware of why “Lena Dunham” and “Trevor Noah” have been topics of (a lot) of conversation—not to mention a lot of monologic thinkpieces.

I’ll cut to the chase. I think The New Yorker erred in publishing Dunham’s “humor” piece. And having been plenty dismayed by Jon Stewart’s anti-Israel “riffs” on his show in the past, I’m now hardly hopeful regarding his successor.

But that’s all I want to say/write about Dunham and Noah. What I’d much rather do is point you to Jeffrey Goldberg’s masterful cover story in this month’s issue of The Atlantic.

I read the article this weekend (smack in-between the two aforementioned contretemps). If you haven’t yet read it, I hope that you will. Then, perhaps, you’ll understand some of what feeds into my sense that jokes in the public sphere that traffic in (anti-)Jewish tropes are not at all funny. Not in our times.

2 thoughts on “Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

  1. Meir Braude says:

    Regarding the Daily show
    I don’t watch much TV so I have this question
    Was there a distinction made between anti-Israeli governmental policies and anti-Israel?
    And perhaps more importantly was there a distinction (implied or explicit) made between anti-Jewish and anti-Israel?
    I go off and read the Goldberg article as well as the New Yorker piece by Dunham.

    1. Erika Dreifus says:

      Hi, Meir. I can’t really go into details at this time, but with some creative Googling, you can likely find Stewart’s clips online yourself. Thanks for the comment.

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