Creativity is non-acceptance, wonder, rebellion
With creative writing, and even with art and photography, a text or work can be more powerful if it shows the thing (the person, event, issue, landscape) without directly mentioning it. It's not just about leaving room for the imagination, but about adding depth by going beyond the obvious. Subtext and hinting is expressive and... Continue Reading →
Why the hero of my latest novel is an old woman refugee “I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It's so fuckin' heroic.” ― George Carlin “No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going... Continue Reading →
Three writing exercises to help face difficult times, injustice, anger, and the news.
From hundreds of thousands to sometimes a million people marching in major cities, through to cultural events, rallies, and speak-outs in thousands of towns and smaller cities around the world, people have mobilised to speak up for Gazans. That creativity, regional diversity and passion can be seen in this collection of protest posters from around... Continue Reading →
Palestinian poet and author Heba Abu Nada's last tweet before she was killed by Israeli airstrikes. And here is a video where she is reciting one of her poems (translated, somewhat roughly, to English).
So much cool stuff to share. I love how in slam poetry people just say it like it is and that is the point. Unlike other mediums where it's frowned on to just scream out what isn't f-ing okay. At a time when the media is leaving big holes in its coverage of the coups... Continue Reading →
“But I don't shut up and I don't die.I liveand fight, maddeningthose who rule my country. For if I liveI fight,and if I fightI contribute to the dawn.”― Otto Rene Castillo There is a poem stuck to the door of the small room where I work and write, and it's by Otto Rene Castillo. It's about... Continue Reading →
Here are a few of my own poems, written in moments of nostalgia, sadness, and anger. -Tamara Pearson A well-contained crossness she was so silencedher broken glass ragewas sandsitting as little hillsin the landscapes of her feetshe stayed a mother and wifewell after the man and children were goneunable to pronounceher needsNo one, no place,... Continue Reading →
Mexican movements create artistic, poetic, powerful, and creative posters to build events and support causes. A lot of symbolism and references to Indigenous culture are used. Below are just a few of some of the awesome posters used by organizations over the past year. No fearful, nor obedient, nor submissive - It's women's time Unity... Continue Reading →
Yassin is a Palestinian writer living in Israel, and her poems are youthful, raw, and sincere. I've picked three that I particularly loved, and you can find more prose and poetry on her blog. No wonder we throw stones On the morning of 12th August,My house was razed to the groundIn Silwan, where I was... Continue Reading →
With the pressure to get all the many many tasks done and with most people writing on the side, on top of actual paid work, it can be very easy to slip into task mode as well while writing. We only have an hour or two and we want to get as much done as... Continue Reading →
Like everything with writing, creating powerful metaphors comes with lots of practice, and more hard work and crappy writing than most people are comfortable with. Metaphors are not spontaneous bursts of genius.
Jorge Madrid is a Honduran activist whose opposition to current right-wing president Juan Orlando Hernández saw him receiving death threats and having to flee the country. He was also a student leader when then President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown by a coup in 2009. He says the stealing of the elections in 2017 and direct... Continue Reading →
Obligatory apathy: We live in a society that despises any sign of caring about just how bad things are for most people. The planet is corroding and smoldering, and time and resources are going into nuclear weapons and sending humanity into its own carefully prepared hell. The unequal global economy is efficiently stimulating the starvation... Continue Reading →
A Dead Sun - by Bejan Matur I peel night from the dead sun's flesh and like a scarf wrap it round my head The graves of children - by Bejan Matur So – we died. We flitted out of darkness. Beaches bore witness, as did the tiniest of stones. Night and stars streamed above us where... Continue Reading →
It can be nice, and freeing, to move away from the typical (overused, cliche) plot points of murder, marriage, affairs, and winning, to just honing in on a single, strange moment. I like these moments because they are so humanising, and precisely because they can counter the Hollywood cliches about life and what is exciting... 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 →
Warsan Shire's poems are angry and they argue and rage and weep. As fighting poems should. A British poet, born to Somali parents in Kenya, Shire's poems have been read at rallies, and in homes and not-so-homes. She writes about people who are made invisible in society - often refugees, migrants, and other marginalised groups.... Continue Reading →
resistance words 