You're reading the Tuesday Telegrams, a bimonthly newsletter from author Naseem Jamnia. Every other Tuesday, I send out a Telegram that's either writing related or a personal essay. You're currently reading a writing-related Telegram, where I update you on projects, offer behind-the-scenes looks, delve into craft, and other publishing things.
You can change whether to receive a writing-related, personal, or all Telegrams in the footer of this email. Go to "Update your profile" and choose from the drop-down menu.
You may have noticed that I missed the last newsletter. Part of that was because I'm was on deadline; I'm happy to announce that copy edits for The Glade have been turned in, and I'm now able to pivot to planning the cover reveal!
(If you'd like to be involved, no matter how small or large your platform is, hit that button above! I'll be reaching out to book people to help a guy out and appreciate your enthusiasm.)
The other part was because—well, the election happened. And while I was not at all surprised by the results, I was particularly devastated that WC-1, the local ballot measure that would have ensured funding for the public libraries for the next thirty years, failed. What's worse, I'm one of the organizers behind the Yes on WC-1 campaign, so it's a personal hit as well. (If you want to read a little more, I wrote about it for Assigned Media.)
This newsletter is going to all my subscribers about what's coming next and what we can do about it. I do want to acknowledge from the get-go that this is US-centric, but while the mechanisms of getting involved are different elsewhere, the concerns are similar.
Here's the thing: it's going to get worse. In the wake of the 2016 election, we saw a sharp rise in hate crimes. During COVID, there were a slew of anti-Asian attacks. After the 2020 election, the January 6 insurrection took place. Since October 2023, there's been an increase in attacks on Palestinians and anyone who looks Muslim (including a recent attempted assault on a pregnant person by a white lady in a Panera in Downer's Grove, a Chicagoland suburb). A couple weekends ago, a random in New York told pro-Palestinian activists "I'm gonna teach my kid to exterminate you all."
But people smarter than me will talk about those issues. I'm going to talk about literature and libraries and local politics and how you can get involved.
Book challenges have skyrocketed in the past few years, but particularly in the past year. Every week, I get Book Riot's free Literary Activism newsletter to learn about the latest challenges (such as Utah banning a 14th book from schools statewide, this one published in 2008). PEN America also tracks book challenges, and clocked over10,000 over the 2023-24 academic year.
(Just a side bar that PEN America has been silent on the genocide against Palestinians and has been pro-Israel in its supports, and while the CEO leading that has stepped down in October, the current president published a pretty milquetoast argument of "we can't silence any writer" in April, and I anticipate that to still be the current stance. This goes to show that big organizations, like people, inherently hold contradictions and are never our saviors.)
One limited survey by that ALA (always be critical of surveys and stats, even when they support your view!) shows that over 70% of people surveyed don't agree with book bans. The problem comes in semantics. Book challenges are a form of banning because they seek to limit access to certain books. There are no nationwide book bans because these challenges happen on the state level. But make no mistake—someone seeking to reshelve, remove, recategorize, or otherwise limit access to books are proponents of book bans.
I'm not going to spend time talking about the opposition talking points and why they're misinformed at best and disinformation at worst, and how books by queer creators and creators of color are disproportionately targeted, or how within the first five pages of Project 2025, it lays out plans to prosecute (in terms of jail time and to include on the sex offender registry) authors, librarians, and teachers who get kids access to these books (or even promote queer material). You can find that elsewhere.
I want to pivot to actionable steps to do something about it. The thing is, most people feeling helpless right now in the face of our impending nose-dive into fascism have no idea how to organize their thoughts, organize their actions, or where to begin.
(Please keep in mind that I am not a legal expert, or anywhere close. These following notes come from my own observations and understanding of how things work in my area, extrapolated out.)
You must understand that voting does matter—but not in the way you think. Voting matters on the local level. Who's in your courts? Who's on the school board? Who are your city and county representatives? What ballot measures will impact your state and your community? These people make immediate impacts on your area, which means these are the people in charge of how your daily life will or will not change. It's too late to go back and change however you did or didn't vote. It's not too late, however, to research those elected and learn their policies and their plans, and to figure out the people who represent you on local councils (city, county, and state) and how you can get in touch with them.
These councils are dependent on how your local area is governed. In Washoe County, we have area-specific councils (like the Reno City Council or the Sparks City Council) as well as the county commissioners (Washoe County is broken into five areas, and each one has an elected commissioner).
These local councils are required to be open to the public by something called open meeting laws. The particulars vary state by state, but any public governing body is required to have meetings, where decisions are made, open (if not accessible) to the public. These include available minutes of previous sessions and periods of public comment whenever a legislative body has something on their agenda for possible action.
There are also councils for the public school and public library systems—they are subject to the same (or similar) rules as bodies like the county commissioners.
Public comment is how you make your voice heard. You usually get a couple of minutes to state your name and share your comment. Depending on what body you're addressing, you may want to give more specifics about where you live—for example, if you're at a county commissioner meeting, you may say which district you live in or name the commissioner who is your representative.
These meetings, while open to the public, tend to be during times convenient to the members of the board and not the public. That might mean they happen in the morning during a workday or right after the workday ends. Many places allow you to email in your public comment or have an online portal where you can share them. In theory, these comments are read and taken into consideration, but in practice, if you can be in person reading a public comment, that will make more impact (by virtue of their immediacy if nothing else).
These meetings tend to go long, especially if you're in an area where things are contentious. If you can stay for much of it, it's meaningful to do so (particularly if it's for a smaller body like the library board).
Due to the pandemic, some meetings also have a streaming option on Zoom or a similar platform. You can also watch virtually and make a public comment there.
To find out when and where these meetings are, go to your county website or type in your county name and the governing body into Google. Your public library should have a page for the board of trustees and their meetings; so should your school district.
Even if you don't have children, it's worth being tuned into what's happening at the school board. What happens at public libraries inevitably impact schools, and vice-versa.
You're not the only person at these meetings. Bring a friend or several! Make it a solidarity party. Grassroots organizations are there too, and you can bet any conservative groups have brought out their retiree members to flood these meetings. Any formally organized group will likely have a website or some sort of platform to contact them; you can google variations of "grassroots progressive [insert city] group" or be more specific, like "anti-censorship progressive [insert city]" or "freedom to read [insert city]." If you don't know how to access these groups, wait to hear public comments of like-minded people and approach them after.
And it's likely groups are already fighting book challenges in your area you may not even know about. It's better to be preemptive than be forced to react; even if your area is particularly blue, these challenges are coming. If a local freedom to read group isn't in your area (or isn't available on the state level), reach out to like-minded people, local independent bookstores, teachers, and librarians and see about forming one.
It's never too early to share your support for your librarians and library system and to encourage your trustees to not give into the demands of antidemocratic ideologues. As I said, even if book challenges aren't in your area, no matter how blue you may be, they're coming.
Yes, even your emailed public comment matter. Yes, sitting in the audience and saying nothing matters. And yes, we need you to do these things as soon as possible, even if that's where your limit is.
For libraries specifically, beyond going to (and speaking at) the board of trustee meetings, you can also:
Get a library card. You may think you won't use it, but a library card tells the system that the library is used and valued. You may find yourself using the Libby app for audio and ebooks, or use one of the databases or magazines your library is subscribed to, or reserve a library meeting room, or go to a library program. Library cards are free and easy to get.
Encourage others to also get their library cards. Organize a party with your friends where you all go to your nearest or favorite library branch to get library cards.
Attend library programming. Libraries have lot of in-person and virtual programming open to the public. They bring authors for talks, host book clubs, run workshops, and more. Libraries are great places for senior activities, teen activities, and kid story times.
Volunteer at the library. Librarians are about to be slashed in positions and/or employed time, but the work of a library will continue. Volunteering a couple hours a week to do whatever they need, even menial work like shelving books, can go a long way to helping. You may also find that your unique skillsets are actually something the library could use.
Tell librarians how much you appreciate them. Whether an email or a card or in person, a friendly word can help when many librarians face death threats for doing their jobs. (And while you're at it, you can ask them what they need to feel supported and/or safely do their jobs.)
Use the library! It's one of the last third spaces in the country, where anyone, regardless of background or identity or means, can go to just be and not spend a cent. Libraries are more than places for books—librarians are trained to help with job applications, applying for government programs, finding housing, and using other resources. Washoe County's library system has 3D printers and lets people borrow blood pressure cuffs! Some libraries have free passes for museums! You never know what your library has to offer until you check it out.
Spread the word far and wide. The more people we can pack into libraries in the coming months, the better.
You'd be surprised just how many people are desperate for change at the local level and have no idea where to begin, and just as many people who are involve and could use the support. Not everyone is equipped (or want!) to be part of the organizational squad (and indeed, we can only have so big an organizational group before things fall apart, the center cannot hold). Still, knowing they'll have another person writing in public comment or signing a petition or starting on social media or another body that can fill the seats or even a friendly face is necessary to our work.
For those in Washoe County, I'm an organizer with Freedom to Read Nevada, and you can respond to this email and let me know you want to be involved in our efforts to fight anti-library and anti-school practices. If you're in Nevada more broadly, please reach out anyway—we're planning on going statewide.
Upcoming: Looking Ahead
This is my final Telegram of 2024. I usually take December off, and this year, I am in desperate need of a break as I recalibrate and figure out next steps both personally and professionally.
In the new year, I expect to revamp my Telegrams again, potentially moving my personal Telegrams to a "persons who know me IRL/whom I have a relationship with" list. Most people are here for my writing, but those who joined my Telegrams when it was 50 people on TinyLetter are friends and family who want to keep in touch.
But I am hoping to pivot to have more writing resources geared toward marginalized writers. My hope is to have some low-commitment email courses (e.g. seven days of revision-related prompts or some such) as well as on-demand craft-related videos. I've talked often about running my own MFA focused on marginalized writers, and my students have encouraged me to make a long-term writing program (outside of an organization) a reality sooner rather than later.
If there's anything you'd find particularly helpful (or something you wish existed), hit respond or email me at naseem@naseemjamnia.com to let me know. I'll give you a coupon code if I end up doing something with that suggestion.
Solidarity Corner
As worldwide atrocities and disasters continue, I decided to make this a permanent section of the Telegrams. If you have organizations or causes you'd like me to spotlight here, please send those links my way. We get through these things when we do so together.
If you haven't already heard of the BDS Movement, I suggest you look it up and start spending your money on brands and groups that don't support genocide. (The BDS Movement calls for specific brands to be boycotted in order to be effective in their targeting, but we can also be discerning individually. Here is another list of companies profiting off genocide.) The only ethical consumption under capitalism is when we trace where the money goes.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also has pages for these various conflicts and is another place to donate
Other forms of activism:
If you're like me and hate phone calls, you're in luck!ResistBot is my favorite way to reach out to my representatives, and it's free (although you can pay for more effective methods of reaching out, like letters).
Don't forget to get the latest COVID booster with your annual flu shot! Look for a local pharmacy here.
Love and solidarity to all. We already need it.
See you in 2025!
Image description: Naseem's author signature with "xx," above it. The author signature is their name in Farsi.