I’ve been more tuned into the news lately than is healthy, I’m sure. Each day I hold my breath as I learn what fresh new hell awaits this country. Many have written about how we’re living in unprecedented times. While our country is rooted in white supremacy, what’s happening now is especially blatant: a government sanctioned crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion. Meanwhile the richest man in the world has assembled a team of young people to go into government buildings and take sensitive data. The same man did a Sieg Heil salute at the inauguration—and yes, I’m aware of alternate explanations, but his social media response was to crack pro-Nazi jokes. Plus the president’s slew of anti-trans and anti-immigrant executive orders. Threats to take over Gaza. And more, each day so much more.
NONE OF THIS IS OKAY.
How do we get through it? I imagine it will take a lot of patience, persistence, kindness, love, art, and resistance.
Here at CHIRB we’ve been trying to take comfort in literature. We’re trying to remember the work we do to elevate writers and their books does matter. And that standing up against tyranny and injustice can take multiple forms. We’re looking at ways to push back.
We have a history of doing so. In 2017, our founder, Adam Morgan, made the decision we wouldn’t cover books published by Simon & Schuster that year in response to them giving a book deal to Milo Yiannopoulos, an internet troll who spewed hate toward women, people of color, Muslims, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. CHIRB has always held a strong belief in the inherent dignity and value of all people, a belief that shouldn’t be political, but sadly feels that way these days.
Our sister organization, StoryStudio Chicago, has offered Writing Your Resistance classes and recently sponsored a Reading Your Resistance panel discussion. If you’re a writer, we highly recommend checking out their classes to keep you inspired and writing. Because we all should keep making art. We should keep consuming it. Art is essential right now. That’s why we’re launching this new column: Read Your Resistance. Here you’ll find book lists, essays on old and new books that are bringing us solace in these challenging times, and more.
Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter (and StoryStudio Chicago’s while you’re at it) so you don’t miss anything. We’re going to keep delivering quality book reviews and author interviews. We’re going to press on out of love for books, for the literary community, for Chicago, and above all, love for humanity. We will continue to hold space for writers and readers. We will continue to champion literature. We will continue to read, to love, and to resist, however we can.
