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Please raise your voice in solidarity with City Lights author Aslı Erdoğan who is being persecuted by the Turkish government.
Aslı Erdoğan’s life-threatening situation is emblematic of the human rights crisis that has transformed civic life in Turkey. Carrying out an unrelenting "purge," since 2016, the government has persecuted and imprisoned hundreds of journalists, artists, writers, academics and civic workers on baseless charges, often calling for life sentences. As Aslı has said, "The government has crossed all barriers of ethics, and even shame." Aslı currently lives in what will probably become permanent exile from her home, friends and family, but even abroad she is not free from death threats, harassment, and ongoing State torment. She has suffered a series of debilitating physical consequences as a result of the Turkish government’s ongoing psychological torture, and this sudden push to sentence her in absentia is meant to further threaten those who would speak out. Please add your voice to the international protest against Turkey’s treatment of Aslı Erdoğan, and of all who attempt to speak truth to power. City Lights proudly published Aslı Erdoğan’s most recent book, The Stone Building and Other Places (translated by Sevinç Türkkan), in 2018. Please join us and add your voice to the international campaign of support. - Elaine Katzenberger, Publisher and Executive Director, City Lights Books TAKE ACTION Please publish articles and opinion in your national or local press highlighting the case of Aslı Erdoğan and freedom of expression in Turkey. Share information about the case and your activities on social media; please use the hashtag #FreeTurkeyMedia. See PEN International * * * In our Issue #6, we reviewed Martha King's book, INSIDE/OUTSIDE, about the last days of Black Mountain College, her own encounters there, and the art and poetry of her husband, Basil King, one of Black Mountain's graduates. Subsequently Martha was kind enough to give us a copy of one of her latest works, Max Sees Red, a crime novel featuring an artist/sleuth and some thought provoking ideas about art and the creative person. Published by Spuyten Duyvil. It's a delightful read. But that's not all, Basil King's newest book will be out in 2020, via Talisman House, Light Abstracts the Smallest Things: The Aesthetics of Basil King, edited by Burt Kimmelman. From ABR (AustralianBook Review): In Issue #6, we featured a review of Beyrouz Boochani's book, No Friend but the Mountains, as translated by Omid Tofighian, himself featured in ABR's August issue in an article about the politics of naming. The BeyrouzBoochani Fellowship, is open to English language writers, Australian or not, and is worth $10,000. And, as per our Issue #8 colophon, 
Only 120 Florida Panthers are left. Photo: Wikipedia
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As noted our introduction to Issue# 5, many kudos, congrats, and clapping of hands! Issue 4 InSight contributor Bill Hayward's feature film, Asphalt, Muscle & Bone, was selected for the 2018 Amsterdam International Filmmaker Festival. Post the several awards, he has received the festival's award for Best Cinematography in a Feature Film—see the clip accessed under "FILM" in Issue #7.
We have just received word that fellow writer and poet, Mel Kenne, has recently published three poems in Gris=Gris, a literary journal out of Nicholls University in Louisiana. See https://www.nicholls.edu/gris-gris/ Sam Farhi, who curated the "Mild Party" pocket anthology in Wall 4, features highlights of his work in film and fiction writing at www.samfarhi.com. Turkish Poetry Today can be found at https://www.redhandbooks.co.uk/turkish-poetry-today/ We have listed PEN International below for its work with writers in prison and at risk. In this increasingly vicious atmosphere we also wish to call your attention to ICORN, International Cities of Refuge Network, which helps writers in exile. Oral Tradition Journal, Issue 32, examines Naxi script from southwest China, on Serbian Fairie Stories received in a trance state, on Oral Features of the Qu'ran... Here's the link: http://journal.oraltradition.org/ Talisman: a Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics can be found at https://www.talismanmag.net/ Los Bárbaros, www.losbarbarosny.com is a revista, also a print publication, a Spanish language review published out of New York City and Madrid. This links to NYC, but is in Spanish. Poéta Miriam Palma Ceballos' blog: http://estoesunblogesunblogesunblog.blogspot.com.es/ JALADA is an online journal of translation featured work from African writers translated into quite a few languages. An audio reading in several languages is also included. See https://jaladaafrica.org. "The Upright Revolution: Or Why Human Beings Walk Upright," rendered in audio, as well as author, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's, mother tongue, Kikuyu: https://jaladaafrica.org/2016/03/22/jalada-translation-issue-01-ngugi-wa-thiongo/. Stateside literary translators par excellence: ALTA, the American Literary Translators Association at http://www.literarytranslators.org/ Readers and writers and their friends, who are concerned about challenges to the First Amendment rights of free speech that affect novelists, poets, and other writers in the US, may want to visit P.E.N. America's special site, Defending Free Expression. For issues of freedom of expression, writers in prison and writers at risk, internationally, see PEN International (English.) En Español, En Française. Steve Dodson's blog/site which deals with several languages. Dodson, himself, speaks/reads something like 6 - 8 languages, with a few more in his back pocket in case they need to be revived: http://languagehat.com/ Tupelo Quarterly, an online literary magazine, has an ongoing book review section and invites cross genre work as well as poetry and prose. Kristina Marie Darling is Editor in Chief; its founder is Jeffrey Levine of Tupelo Press. We've been in love with these folks for a long, long time: Words without Borders. Another outstanding online journal dedicated to translations from around the world is Asymptote. Denise Milstein, has been involved in a project focussed on Tierra del Fuego, brings readers' attention to that special environment: http://ensayostierradelfuego.net/ In Spanish and English. The Nesin Foundation, on the outskirts of Istanbul, is a residential community dedicated to providing orphaned and indigent children with everything they need; the Turkish Philanthropy Funds page has a short description and a donation portal: http://www.tpfund.org/my-tpf/nesin/ For an invaluable and creative take to renew your writing process, see writer Anya Achtenberg's The Disobedient Writer at https://thedisobedientwriter.com/ |