Our Community

". . .Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality.

"Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship. . . .

"Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can…

For a writing workshop, my students and I had to pick a news event that sparked a strong emotion and learn more about it. I picked veterans affairs. I am now an avid reader of Military.com

In my writing workshops, we are working on paying attention. I am asking my students to pick an issue, something that has recently caught their attention, and follow it. Learn its history, study it. The subject should spark some kind of emotion, something that makes you FEEL something--curiosity, awe, admiration, anger, fear, angst. I decided to pay attention to a situation that made me mad. I got mad when Vermont senators voted to confirm Doug Collins as head of the VA, even though I knew very little about the guy. So I decided that rather than just be mad, I would follow him. Recently, I added to my daily reading list Military.com, which reports…

So I wondered: Why has the biography of a Civil War veteran been banned from reading lists in school for military families?

I don't know about you, but when I see a list of banned books, I immediately want to read ALL of them, one right after another, asap.

So when I read that the U.S. military had banned a biography of Albert Cashier, a civil war veteran, from reading lists in elementary schools for military families, I immediately had to find out who the bloke was. Albert Cashier? Never heard of him.

From Wikipedia: “Albert D.J. Cashier, born Jennie Irene Hodgers, was an American soldier who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Cashier adopted the identity of a man before enlisting, and maintained it until death. Cashier became famous as one of at least 250 soldiers who were assigned female at birth and enlisted as…