Creativity is non-acceptance, wonder, rebellion
We Lived Happily during the War And when they bombed other people’s houses, we protested but not enough, we opposed them but not enough. I was in my bed, around my bed America was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house— I took a chair outside and watched the sun. In the sixth... Continue Reading →
Ghosts in stories tend to represent a single person - a child who died young or was killed, whose presence continues to haunt her family, the victims of a serial killer who haunt a house, a woman killed on a highway who scares passing drivers. For me, a non-believer in ghosts, I see these as... Continue Reading →
The publishing industry’s focus on profits amounts to a censoring of a diversity of viewpoints and experience. Books are lives compressed, humanity summarized into screaming or striking stories. One would think the book world would be a safe haven from inequality, but instead the traditional publishing industry – the big corporate publishers - is perpetuating... Continue Reading →
I am sorry this world could not keep you safe..
Fun characters, an intriguing plot, the excitement of a murder and an affair... is it okay to write a novel, story, or article, purely in order to entertain the reader? To distract them? In a world of rife and normalised injustice, I confess I often feel like distraction is out of order and those with... Continue Reading →
The first pages of the Butterfly Prison: Who made the story rules? Once, stories had been an oral tradition, a way to teach. Then they were stolen, canned, and sold. But now and then people tried to reclaim stories. They told them in order to redefine corrupted ideas and to name injustice. They broke the... Continue Reading →
An odor has remained among the sugarcane: a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating petal that brings nausea. Between the coconut palms the graves are full of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles. The delicate dictator is talking with top hats, gold braid, and collars. The tiny palace gleams like a watch and the rapid... Continue Reading →
Emmanuel Ortiz - "Moment of Silence" Before I start this poem,I'd like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence in honour of those who died in the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon last September 11th. I would also like to ask you a moment of silence for all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,... Continue Reading →
The stress of the world, of rushed long work days, of all the injustice, the organized routine hypocrisy makes aching holes in your chest and labours your breathing and hangs from your cheeks as a disproportionate, unreasonable, impossible weight. Then you read something - a poem, a story - little drops of humanity - and... Continue Reading →
resistance words 