WRITERS RESIST!! LOS ANGELES, 1/15/17
THESE ARE THE TIMES THAT TRY OUR SOULS, to paraphrase a great writer of the American Revolution. It is also a time when writers are witnessing the medium of their lifetime’s work – (language itself!) –as it is bullied and butchered in tweets, trump-isms, in the twisted tormented rhetoric of the powerful near-illiterate. To those who mis-use words on purpose, there is an anti-dote: a public that reads and thinks! SO HERE IS A CALL-TO-WORDS, IN FACT: A CALL TO INSPIRATION -- THE OLDEST CALL OF DEMOCRACY. DUMP THAT TAINTED “TEA” BACK INTO THE CRACKPOT: WRITERS RESIST!
Writers, those famously solitary, behind-the-scenes wordsmiths – are standing up against this assault on words-worth-listening-to, especially the words of the founding documents of this country, especially the words warning against infringements on the liberties granted by those founding documents, especially the words of heroes of human and civil rights, of outcries against oppression, of words that empower the enduring idea and aesthetic of freedom of expression.
The writer Joan Didion noted once that whenever “the people” were invoked, we risk “national piety” – so the WRITERS RESIST initiative, “launched” by Erin Belieu (poet, co-founder of VIDA) will focus less on grandiloquence, more on spotlighting how the words we utter help us take responsibility for our own lives – at this time of mass abdication of individual “character”.
So, thanks to Erin Belieu (and organizing writers in many cities) – WRITERS RESIST readings will take place across the country on January 15, 2017. In New York City, the reading will occur on the steps of the NY Public Library. Here in Los Angeles, it will be held at Beyond Baroque, a literary arts venue in Venice, from 1-4 in the afternoon.
There will also be readings on January 15, in Austin, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, Boston, Oakland, New Orleans, Chicago, Houston, Columbia, Missouri, Madison, Wisconsin and Tallahassee, and more.
WRITERS RESIST is not connected to a political party. PEN America (the national writers’ organization) is backing the major literary protest in New York (“Louder Together for Free Expression”) .The Los Angeles WRITERS RESIST reading will accept donations on behalf of the ACLU, whose message to the incoming administration, “See You in Court”, provides ringing testimony to “re-inauguration” for freedom and justice – a cause worth standing up for, including in courtrooms.
The list of participating writers is long and impressive – too long to note here – but it’s the words they will be saying that are what WRITERS RESIST is all about.
Join us! Stand up with the writers on January 15th! GET YOUR WORDS WORTH!!
- Carol Muske-Dukes