Dareen TatourDareen Tatour is facing imprisonment for her poetry in Israel/Palestine.
Posted by Jewish Voice for Peace on Wednesday, 10 August 2016
Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour was arrested on October 11th, and has been detained ever since. Her crime? Poetry. A poem of Tatour’s was posted on Youtube, and her reading of another poem at a Women’s Day commemoration in Nazareth.
Tatour spent the first three months of her detention in three prisons – Kishon, Damon and Hasharon. She was then transferred to house arrest, but the court insisted that she be kept 40 km away from her home because of the ‘danger’ she posed to the public.
This outrage cannot stand, and we are pressuring the Israeli government to free her with a sign-on letter from writers, poets, and artists.
Signers represent some of the most respected and renowned individuals in the arts and literary worlds including ten Pulitzer Prize winners, fourteen recipients of Guggenheim Fellowships, an NAACP Image Award winner, many Lambda Literary Award winners, and scores of recipients of the highest U.S. writing, translation, and arts honors: including Tony Awards, Grammy Awards, Obie Awards, PEN/Open Book Awards, National Book Critics Circle Awards, Kenyon Review Award, Pushcart Awards, LA Times Book Awards, and MLA Prizes.
Aaminah Shakur
Artist & Poet
Achmat Dangor
Novelist & Poet
Former CEO inter alia of Nelson Mandela Foundation; recipient of the South African Literary Awards (SALA) 2015 Lifetime Achieve Award
Adam Shatz
Editor
London review of Books; formerly The Nation
Ahdaf Soueif
Novelist and Translator
Works include: In the Eye of the Sun; The Map of Love; I Think of You and Stories of Ourselves
Aja Monet
Poet
Works include Inner-City Chants & Cyborg Cyphers; Youngest individual to win the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe Grand Slam title
Alev Adil
Writer, Artist, Scholar
Alex Zucker
Translator
English PEN Award for Writing in Translation; Typographical Translation Award; National Translation Award; NEA Literature Fellowshop
Alexis De Veaux
Alice Peck
Editor
Alice Walker
Poet and Novelist
Works include: The Color Purple, Possessing the Secret of Joy, Once, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; National Book Award for Fiction; Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters
Alisa Solomon
Author, Teacher, Dramaturg
Author of Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of ‘Fiddler on the Roof”
Alison Kinney
Writer
Author of Hood (Object Lessons)
Allan Kolski Horwitz
Poet, Playwright, Musician
Alma ganihar
Screenwriter
Winner of Best Fringe Play 2008, the Arab-Hebrew Theater
Amahl Bishara
Professor, Author
Back Stories: U.S. News Production and Palestinian Politics
Ammiel Alcalay
Poet, Translator, Professor
Queens College / Graduate Center, CUNY
Amos Gvirtz
Activist, Author
Founder, a founder of Israelis and Palestinians for Non-Violence, chairperson, Committee Against Home Demolitions
Andrew Hsiao
Senior editor with Verso Books
Andrew Spieldenner
Professor
Hofstra University
Angela Davis
Activist and Writer
Anne Germanacos
Author
In the Time of the Girls
Ariel Dorfman
Poet, Playwright
Awards include: Roger L. Stevens Award, Time Out Award, Literary Lion, 1995 Writer’s Guild of Great Britain Award for best feature film, 2002 ALOA Prize
Arun Kundnani
Author
The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, extremism, and the domestic War on Terror
Ashraf Kagee
Author & Academic
Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Winner of the European Union Literary Award in 2012 and the South African Literary Award in 2013 for the novel Khalil’s Journey.
Askold Melnyczuk
Writer
Works include: What Is Told; Ambassador of the Dead; House of Widows and Excerpt from Smedley’s Secret Guide to World Literature
Asti Hustvedt
Author
Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris
Audrey Zee Whitesides
Poet, Musician
Aurora Levins Morales
Writer
JVP Artists Council. Works include: Getting Home Alive; Medicine Stories; Remedios; Kindling: Writings on the Body
Ayelet Waldman
Author
Works include Love and Treasure; Red Hook Road; and New York Times bestseller Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace
Barbara Hammer
Filmmaker
Winner of Teddy Award for Best Short Films, Shirley Clarke Avant-Garde Filmmaker Award, Women In Film Award 2006 from the St. Louis International Film Festival
Ben Ehrenrich
Author
Journalist National Magazine Award
Bill Clegg
Literary Agent
Did You Ever Have a Family
Bob Shacochis
Author
Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction and National Book Award for First Work of Fiction
Bongani Kona
Author
Shortlisted for Caine Prize for African Writing
Brenda Hillman
Poet, Translator, Professor
Olivia C. Professor of Poetry, Saint Mary’s College of California. Winner of the LA Times Book Award for Poetry; the Griffin Poetry Prize; Northern California Book Award; Recipient of Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships
Brian McKeown
Award-winning Writer, Director, Producer
Burhan Sönmez
Novelist
Works include North; Sins and Innocents; and Istanbul, Istanbul. Recipient of the Sedat Simavi Literature Prize
Cara Page
Organizer & Writer
Executive Director, Audre Lorde Project
Carl Dennis
Poet
Winner of Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA. Works include Another Reason; Callings; Practical Gods; and Meetings with Time
Carol Sills
Director, Sills/Spolin Theater Works
Carolyn Forché
Poet, Editor, Translator
Director of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Lannan Chair in Poetry at Georgetown University. Works include Gathering the Tribes, Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness; and The Angel of History. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award
Casey Llewellyn
Writer and theater maker
Chaitali Sen
Author
Chana Bloch
Poet, Translator
Chavisa Woods
Fiction writer, Poet, Performance Artist
The Albino Album
Chris Mann
Emeritus Professsor of Poetry, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
Cheryl Clarke
Poet
Living As A Lesbian
Christian Hawkey
Author
Ventrakl. Founder and director of Pratt Institute’s MFA in Writing program
Christopher Nelson
Poet
Claudia Rankine
Poet
Playwright Works include Citizen: An American Lyric. Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award; PEN/Open Book Award; PEN/Open Book Award; Los Angeles Times Book Prize; NAACP Image Award; Forward Prize
Colin Dayan
Professor
Awards include Danforth, NEH and Guggenheim fellowships
Corey Robin
Professor of Political Science
Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center
D.A. Gray
Poet
Dale Peck
Author, Critic
Works include Sprout. Winner of Lambda Literary Award; Finalist for the Stonewall Book Award. Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship
Daniel Boyarin
Historian
Author of over a dozen books
Daniel Maguire
Professor and Author
Daphne Muse
Writer, Social Commentator and Poet
Darcey Steinke
Writer
Works include Up Through the Water; Suicide Blonde; Jesus Saves; and Milk
Darrah Cloud
Playwright
Dave Eggers
Writer, Editor, Publisher
Works include A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Awards includie PEN Center USA Award of Honor, The New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books, Publishers Weekly’s Best Books, an American Book Award, and two Los Angeles Times Book Awards
David Abram
Cultural Ecologist, Geophilosopher, Performance Artist, Author
Works include Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, and The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World
David Ball
Translator
Winner, French-American Founation 2014 Translation Prize for non-fiction; MLA’s prize for outstanding translation of a literary work in 1995
David Halperin
Theorist, Author
Cofounder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Works include: Before Pastoral (1983) and One Hundred Years of Homosexuality
David Herskovits
David Lan
Playwright, Filmmaker, Theatre Director, Social Anthropologist
David Mura
Author
Wrote Turning Japanese (Josephine Miles PEN Oakland Book Award), The Last Incantations, Where the Body Meets Memory.
David Palumbo-Liu
Professor, Writer, Essayist, Editor
David Zellnik
Playwright and Musical Theater Writer
Deborah Eisenberg
Short Story Writer
MacArthur Fellow; Whiting Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship; Winner of the O. Henry Awards; PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Deema Shehabi
Poet and editor
Dr. Alice Rothchild
Author, Filmmaker
Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience, On the Brink: Israel and Palestine on the Eve of the 2014 Gaza Invasion, contributor to Extraordinary Rendition: (American) Writers on Palestine; Voices Across the Divide
Edwidge Danticat
Novelist and Short Story Writer
The Story Prize, American Book Awards, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Lannan Literary Fellowship, National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir/Autobiography
Eileen Myles
Author, Poet
Author of nineteen books including “I Must Be Living Twice: New & Selected Poems” and “Chelsea Girls”
Winner of four Lambda Book Awards, Guggenheim Fellowship, Shelley Prize, Clark Prize
Elana Dykewomon
Activist, Author, Editor
Winner of Lambda Award
Eliot Weinberger
Writer
Primary translator of Octavio Paz into English. Recipient of the National Book Critics Circle prize for criticism. Winner of PEN’s Gregory Kolovakos Award.
Ellen Eisenman
Artist
Elly Bulkin
Author
Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism
Emily Skillings
Poet and dancer
Eve Ensler
Playwright, Performer
The Vagina Monologues; Tony Award, Obie Award; Guggenheim Fellowship
F Tinwei Lam
Poet, Author
Works include Intimate Distances, Enter the Chrysanthemum, and the children’s book, The Rainbow Rocket
Fady Joudah
Writer
Poetry collections include The Butterfly’s Burden; Like a Straw Bird it Follows Me, and Other Poems; and Alight. Winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
Faisal Azam
Writer, Photographer, Award-winning Film Editor
Fiona Khan
Author, Poet, Academic, Environmentalist
Gabeba Baderoon
Poet
Author of The Dream in the Next Body; The Museum of Ordinary Life; and A Hundred Silences
Gary Geddes
Poet, Writer
Winner: Canada’s National Poetry Prize and Writers’ Choice Award
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Scholar, Literary Theorist, Feminist Critic
Winner of the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy
Gayatri Gopinath
NYU Professor
Author of Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures
George Beeferman
Composer, Pianist, Improviser
2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow
Githa Hariharan
Writer
Works include Almost Home, Finding a Place in the World from Kashmir to New York; Convenor, Indian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel; Founding Trustee, Indian Writers’ Forum
Glenn Shaheen
Poet
Author of the book Predatory. Winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize
Greg Newton
Owner of bookstore The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
Prof. Haim Bresheeth
Professorial Research Associate
SOAS, London, Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Harry Owen
Poet
Hatim Kanaaneh
Author
Chief Complaint: A Country Doctor’s Tales of Life in Galilee, A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel
Hayan Charara
Poet, Children’s Book Author
Former president of RAWI (Radius of Arab American Writers)
Heather Raffo
Playwright, Actor
Winner of Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation. Marian Seldes-Garson Kanin Fellowship (for 9 Parts of Desire) and Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Show
Heid E. Erdrich
Poet from the Ojibwe nation
Enrolled at Turtle Mountain, North Dakota, USA.
Hilary Plum
Author
They Dragged them through the Streets
Hilton Obenzinger
Novelist, Poet, History
Winner of American Book Award for This Passover or the next, I will never be in Jerusalem
Honor Ford-Smith
Playwright, Scholar, Poet
Associate Professor, Community and Environmental Arts, York University
Iain S. Thomas
Poet
Author of I Wrote This For You
Dr. Ilana Hammerman
Editor and Writer
Ingrid de Kok
Poet
Irene Suico Soriano
Poet, Literary, Film and Video Curator
Isabella Morris
Author
Ishtiyaq Shukri
Writer, South Africa
Author of The Silent Minaret and I See You. Recipient of the European Union Literary Award
Isobel Dixon
Poet, Literary Agent
Jacqueline Brown
Scholar and Writer
Jacqueline Woodson
Writer of Books for Children and Adolescents
Works include Miracle’s Boys; Show Way; Feathers; Brown Girl Dreaming’ and After Tupac and D Foster. Awards include: Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation; Margaret A Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement; Newberry Honor Medal; Coretta Scott King Award; National Book Award for Young People’s Literature
Jafar Ramini
Palestinian writer and political analyst living in exile in London
Jaime manrique
Writer
Works include Cervantes Street and Our Lives Are the Rivers. Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship; Winner of Colombia’s National Poetry Award
jaishri abichandani
Artist
Winner of Urban Artists Award, NY; Brooklyn Arts Council BRIC Artist’s Honoree; Enfoco New Works Award
Jamil Nasir
Writer
James Schamus
Screenwriter
Three time Oscar nominee
Jane Hirshfield
Poet
Author of The Beauty: Poems and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World (both Knopf, 2015); recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Current chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, 2016 Mohr Visiting Poet at Stanford University
Janet McAdams
Poet
Winner: American Book Award
Janlori Goldman
Lawyer
Director, Institutional Advancement and Senior Strategic Advisor at the Center for Community Change; Professor of law, Columbia University and NYU; Co-founder, Center for Democracy and Technology
Jason Grote
Playwright
Jeffrey Sacks
Author, Professor, Translator
Works include: Iterations of Loss: Mutilation and Aesthetic Form, al-Shidyaq to Darwish
Jen Marlowe
Playwright, Filmmaker
There is a Field
Jen Thorpe
Author of The Peculiars
Jennifer Natalya Fink
Professor, Novelist
Author of Burn and Thirteen Fugues
Jessica Hagedorn
Writer
Winner of an American Book Award
Jillian Christmas
Organizer, Poet
Winner of Grand Poetry-Slam Championship titles at the Vancouver BedRocc poetry-slam and the Vancouver Poetry Slam
Joan Hewitt
Poet
Joan Morgan
Writer, Cultural Critic
Joan Nestle
Writer
Six-time Lambda Literary Award Winner
Joe Amato
Author, Poet
Joel Beinin
Professor of History
Works include: Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt; Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, co-edited with Frédéric Vairel; and The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt
Joan Ferrante
Professor Emirita
John Peterson
Publisher, Editor
Jon Soske
Historian, Scholar
Professor of modern African history at McGill University
Jonathan Tucker
Poet, Teacher, DJ, and Activist
Jorie Graham
Poet
Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
Joseph Hutchison
Colorado Poet Laureate
Judith Butler
Philosopher, Theorist
Works include: Gender Trouble, Frames of war: when is life grievable?, Precarious life: the powers of mourning and violence., Undoing Gender. Awards include: Theodor W. Adorno Award, 1999: Guggenheim Fellowship
Kamal Boullatta
Artist, Art Historian
kareem james abu-zeid
Kareem James Abu-Zeid
Translator
Karen Finley
Poet
Performance Artist
Karen Malpede
Author/director of 16 plays
Kathryn Schulz
Writer, Journalist
Author of Being Wrong and winner of a Pulitzer Prize
Kazim Ali
Poet, Essayist, Translator
Karen Finley
Poet
Performance Artist
Karen Malpede
Author/director of 16 plays
Kathryn Schulz
Writer, Journalist
Author of Being Wrong and winner of a Pulitzer Prize
Ken Chen
Poet and Lawyer
Winner: Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
Keli Garrett
Playwright
Kevin Killian
Poet, Author, Editor, and Playwright
Co-founder of the Poets Theater and winner of a Lambda Literary Award
Kia Corthron
Playwright
Winner: United States Artist (USA) Fellow in Theater October 2014, Windham–Campbell Literature Prize in Drama
Kim Jensen
Writer, Professor
Kimberly Blaeser
Wisconsin Poet Laureate
Kopyt Szczepan
Russian Poet
Kristin Prevallet
Poet and essayist
Laila Lalami
Novelist and Essayist
Author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Secret Son, and The Moor’s Account
Laura Tanenbaum
Author, Poet, Teacher
Lauren Berlant
Political Theorist
Lawrence Joseph
Poet
Author of Into It and Codes, Precepts, Biases, and Taboos
Leah Horlick
Writer, Poet
LeAnne Howe
Author
Winner of the first the MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Language as well as the Oklahoma Book Award and the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award
Leila Buck
Writer, Performer, Educator
Lee Sharkey
Writer, Teacher, Editor
Beloit Poetry Journal
Linda Spalding
Fiction and Nonfiction Writer
Author of The Purchase and editor of Brick
Lisa Duggan
Professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University
Author of The Twilight of Equality: Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy
Lital Levy
Professor, Author
Poetic Trespass: Writing between Hebrew and Arabic in Israel/Palestine
Lois Marie Harrod
Poet, Writer
Luc Sante
Writer and Critic
Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada, Whiting Awards, Grammy Award for Best Album Notes
Lucy R. Lippard
Author, Art Critic
Winner, Guggenheim fellowship, Frank Jewett Mather Award for Criticism, 2 NEA grants in criticism
Lynn Nottage
Playwright
Winner: Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, Guggenheim Grant, PEN/Laura Pels Award, Lucille Lortel Fellowship
Lynne Procope
Poet
Founder, louderARTS Project Inc.
Maia Tabet
Arabic-English Literary Translator
Manijeh Nasrabadi
Scholar
Marcia Lynx Qualey
Editor & Journalist
Arablit.org
Margaret Ferguson
Distinguished Professor of English
Past President of the Modern Language Association
Margie Orford
Novelist
President of PEN South Africa, member of PEN’s International Executive Board, Patron–Rape Crisis South Africa, Patron–The Little Hands Trust
Marie Philip
Publisher
Marietta Elliott-kleerkoper
Poet
Marilyn Hacker
Poet, Translator, Critic
Winner: National Book Award, PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, and PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry
Marilyn Nelson
Poet
Honors include: 1990 Connecticut Arts Award, Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, Fulbright Teaching Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts. Poet Laureate of Connecticut, 2001–2006
Marion Winik
Author, Poet and Professor
Mark Haskell Smith
Writer, Novelist, Screenwriter
Mark Heywood
Executive Director of SECTION27
Mark Statman
Writer, Translator, Poet, Professor
Marta Renza
Author
Martha Collins
Poet, Translater
Author of eight books of poetry and co-translator of four volumes of Vietnamese poetry
Martin Wilson
Novelist
Author of What They Always Tell us
Mary-Terese Cozzola
Resident Playwright
Mary Baine Campbell
American poet, scholar, and professor
She teaches medieval and Renaissance literature, as well as creative writing, at Brandeis University
Mary Gaitskill
American Writer
Author of The Mare, Nominee National Book Award, PEN/Faulkner Award
Mary Jo Bang
Matthew Shenoda
Poet
Winner: American Book Award
Maxine Chernoff
Professor
Author of six books of fiction and fourteen books of poetry
meena alexander
Writer, Poet
Minni Bruce Pratt
Poet, Essayist
Winner of the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, Lambda Literary Award, Fellowship in Poetry, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award
MJ Kaufman
Playwright
Winner: ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting, Global Age Project Prize, Jane Chambers Prize in Feminist Theatre
Mohja Kahf
Arab-American poet, Literature professor, Author
Works Include: Emails from Scheherazad, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf
Molly Crabapple
Artist, Writer, Editor
Molly McGlennen
Writer
Author of Fried Fish and Flour Biscuits
Morgan Bassichis
Performance Artist
Moris Farhi
Novelist, Poet
Works include: Children of the Rainbow and Journey through the Wilderness. Former Vice President of PEN International
Moustafa Bayoumi
Writer, Professor
Awards: American Book Award, Best Music Writing 2006, Arab American Book Award
Myrna Kotash
Writer, Journalist
Nada Elia
Educator, Activist
Association of Middle East Women’s Studies, The Critical Ethnic Studies Association, Founding member of the Radical Arab Women’s Activist Network
Nadia Hijab
Analyst, Author
Nancy Kricorian
Author
Winner: Anahid Literary Award, gold medal of the Writers’ Union of Armenia, Daniel Varoujan Award of the New England Poetry Club
Naomi Klein
Journalist, Writer and Filmmaker
Naomi Shihab Nye
Poet
Chancellor Emeritus, Academy of American Poets
Naomi W
Playwright, Poet, Screenwriter
Two-time winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Joseph Kesselring Prize, the Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, and an Obie Award
Natasha Trethewey
Poet
Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, US Poet Laureate
Natylie Baldwin
Author
Nava EtShalom
Poet
Winner: Pew Fellowship in the Arts and 92Y/Boston Review Discovery Prize
Nayland Blake
Artist
Nic Alea
Poet, Writer
Nicole Aragi
Literary Agent
Nicole Peyrafitte
Artist Performer
Noam Chomsky
Linguist, Philosopher, Historian, Social Critic
Awards include: Guggenheim Fellowship (1971), APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology (1984), Orwell Award (1987, 1989), Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences (1988), Helmholtz Medal (1996), Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science (1999)l Sydney Peace Prize (2011)
Nora Lester Murad
Writer
Norman Solomon
Executive Director, Institute for Public Accuracy
Nuar Alsadir
Poet, Essayist, Professor
Nyla Matuk
Author
Sumptuary Laws (2012), nominated for the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Award for a best first book of poetry in Canada and chapbook of poems, Oneiric (2009)
Olga Broumas
Poet
Winner: Lambda Literary Award
Olivia Laing
Author, Critic
Winner of fellowships at Yaddo and Macdowell, grants from the Arts Council and the Authors’ Foundation
Orlando White
Poet
Patricia Davis
Poet, Essayist, Playwright
Patricia Penn Hilden
Professor Emerita
Patrick Mathelié-Guinlet
Poet
Patricia Storace
Poet, Novelist
Whiting Award
Paul Stein
Musician
Penny Rosenwasser
Author, Activist
Works include: Hope into Practice, Jewish women choosing justice despite our fears
Peter Balakian
Rebar Professor of the Humanities, Colgate University
Winner of Pulitzer Prize for poetry, PEN/Albrand Prize for Memoir, Raphael Lemkin Prize
Peter Cameron
Novelist
Peter Trachtenberg
Author
7 Tattoos, The Book of Calamities, and Another Insane Devotion. Recipient of Whiting and Guggenheim Fellowships
Philip Metres
Poet
Author of *Sand Opera,* Lannan fellow, member of PEN
phillippa yaa
Poet
Pierre Joris
Poet, Translator, Anthologist
Pratibha Parmar
Award-winning Producer, Director, Writer, Editor
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Member of JVP Rabbinic Council
Rae Armantrout
Poet
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
Rafeef Ziadah
Performance Poet, Human Rights Activist
Works include Hadeel
Raja Shehadeh
Writer, Lawyer
Works include Strangers in the House, and Palestinian Walks. Winner of the Orwell Prize
Ramola D
Fiction-Writer, Poet, Editor, Independent Journalist, Blogger, Activist
Author, Temporary Lives (UMass Press, 2009), Invisible Season (WWPH, 1998) NEA Fellow, 2005
Randa Jarrar
Novelist, Essayist
Works includ A map of Home, and Him, Me, Muhammad Ali
Raymond Deane
Composter, Author
Raymond Louw
Vice-President of PEN South Africa
Raymond Suttner
Author and Scholar
Remi Kanazi
Poet
Works include Before the Next Bomb Drops: Rising Up From Brooklyn to Palestine
Reuben Woolley
Poet
Works include The King is Dead, Dying Notes, Skins. Oneiros Books, Runner up: the Erbacce Poetry competition 2015
Richard Falk
Author
United Nations Special Rapporteur, Guggenheim Fellowship for Social Sciences, US & Canada
Rick Simonson
Chief Bookseller
Elliot Bay Book Company
Rickey Laurentiis
Poet
Rita Dove
Poet
U.S. Poet Laureate (1993-95), Pulitzer Prize, National Medal of Arts
Rita Mae Reese
Poet, Fiction Writer
Works include: The Book of Hulga and The Alphabet Conspiracy.
Rob Lipton
Poet and Writer
Robert Bernard Hass
Poet, Literary Critic, Professor
Robert Hershon
Poet and Author
Robert Shetterly
Artist and Activist
Works include Americans Who Tell the Truth
Robin D. G. Kelley
Professor of History, UCLA
Winner: PEN Open Book Award, Guggenheim Fellowship
Rochelle Nichols-Solomon
Education Specialist
Founder of The Notebook
Ron Silliman
Poet, Critic
Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere
Rosemund Handler
Author
Roy chicky arad
Poet, Scriptwriter, Artist
Editor of Maayan Magazine
Ru Freeman
Novelist, Journalist
Works include A Disobedient Girl, On Sal Mal Lane. Winner: Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction
Russell Banks
Novelist, Poet
Works include Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone, Cloudsplitter, The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction. Pulitzer Prize Nominee
Ruti Kantor
Designer and Lecturer in Visual Communication at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and Shenkar College for Design and Engineering in Tel Aviv
Sabrina Mahfouz
Poet, Playwright, & Performer
Sal Amendola
DC Comics
Saleem Haddad
Fiction Writer, Essayist
Author of Guapa
Sami Shalom Chetrit
Poet, Novelist, Essayist
Works: Phreha Shem Yafe, Shirim Beashdodit, On Ein Habuba
Samiya Bashir
Poet
Winner, Lesbian Poetry Award from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Finalist, Lambda Literary Award
Sara Ahmed
Political Theorist
Winner of the FWSA Book Prize
Sarah Porter
Author, Artist
Works Include Lost Voices, Waking Storms, The Twice Lost, Vassa in the Night
Sarah Riggs
Poet, Essayist, Translator, Core Faculty of the Pratt MFA in Writing and Social Justice
Author of Chain of Minuscule Decisions in the Form of a Feeling, and seven other books of poetry
Sarah Schulman
Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, City University of New York-College of Staten Island, Playwright, Novelist.
Winner: Guggenheim Fellowship, NYFA Scholar, Two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships
Selina Hastings
Journalist and Author
Shailja Patel
Writer
Winner: Sundance Theatre Fellowship, Creation Fund Award from the National Performance Network, Fanny-Ann Eddy Poetry Award from IRN-Africa, Voices of Our Nations Poetry Award, Lambda Slam Championship, Outwrite Poetry Prize; named one of Fifty Inspirational African Feminists by the African Women’s Development Fund
Shelley Ettinger
Author
Vera’s Will
Siamak Vossoughi
Author
Better Than War, Awards: 2014 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction
Simone Zelitch
Novelist
Works include: Judenstaat, Waveland, Louisa, Moses in Sinai, The Confession of Jack Straw
Sinan Antoon
Poet, Novelist, Scholar
Works: Ya Maryam, National Translation Award for Mahmoud Darwish’s In the Presence of Absence
Stacy Szymaszek
Poet, Author
Works include: hart island, Emptied of All Ships, Hyperglossia, numerous chapbooks of poetry
Steven Robins
Professor, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Solmaz Sharif
Teacher, Editor, King’s College
Works: Her Various Scalpels and The, Cinema of Sally Potter: A Politics of Love
Susan Abulhawa
Author
Works: Mornings in Jenin, The Blue Between Sky and Water. Best Books Award in Historical Fiction
Susan Eisenberg
Poet, Artist, Analyst, Educator
Susan Muaddi Darraj
Professor, Author
Works include: A Curious Land: Stories from Home, The Inheritance of Exile
Susan Wheeler
Poet
Works: Ledger and Record Palace, Winner: Guggenheim Fellowship, New York Foundation in the Arts Fellowship
Suzanne Gardinier
Suzy Exposito
Writer, Illustrator
Rolling Stone Magazine
Tal Nitzan
Poet, Editor, Translator
Two-time winner of the Ministry of Culture’s Translation Prize and an honorary medal from Chile’s president for translation of Pablo Neruda’s poetry
Tariq Al Haydar
Poet, Journalist, Professor
Tavia Nyong’o
Cultural Critic, Historian, Performance Studies Scholar
Tayari Jones
Fiction writer
Author of Leaving Atlanta and Silver Sparrow. Winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for debut fiction
Tema Okun
Author
Works include: The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don’t Want to Know
Tessara Dudley
Author and Educator
Thomas Naff
Emeritus Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Tikva Honig-Parnass
Free-lance author and editor, political sociologist, anti-zionist socialist
Author of False Prophets of Peace.
Tony Geballe
Guitarist, musician, composer and sound designer
Traci Kato-Kiriyama
Writer, Performer
Creator of PULLproject, and founder of Tuesday Night Project
Tracy K. Smith
Poet, Professor
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for Life on Mars
Vanessa Huang
Poet, Artist, Cultural Worker
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Fiction Writer, Professor
Author of The Sympathizer, 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
Zakes Mda
Novelist, Playwright, Painter, Filmmaker
Zehra Naqvi
Journalist