NO PRIDE WITHOUT
PALESTINE
FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 2024
6:30pm - 8:00pm est
a virtual reading to support Life for Gaza
PURPOSE
As May turns to June, social media feeds will flood with rainbow-washed platitudes about pride. Meanwhile, over 1 million people in Gaza are suffering from intentional starvation and overt genocidal violence, our queer and non-queer kin among them.
This event serves as a reminder that there is no art or pride without liberation; there is no pride without a free Palestine.
format
This reading is virtual. It will be held from 6:30pm ET - 8:00pm ET on Zoom webinar.
After opening remarks, nine readers representing three journals will read for approx. 5-7 mins each. The readers have full rein to decide whether to read from published or new work, excerpts or complete drafts.
how to attend
The three hosting journals—So to Speak, The Offing, & phoebe—ask that attendees make a minimum $5 donation to the Life for Gaza fundraiser, run by The Municipality for Gaza. The organization’s social media was run by Dr. Refaat Al-Areer before he was killed by an Israeli airstrike on December 6, 2023.
“The Gaza Municipality is tasked with providing vital services such as water supply, waste management and sewage treatment. However, the widespread destruction in Gaza City has severely hampered the Municipality's ability to deliver even the most basic necessities to its residents. With limited access to water, the population faces a dire health and environmental crisis, especially affecting children.
By joining forces in this initiative, we cultivate hope and solidarity, fostering empathy and collaboration across communities while easing the hardships endured by those in Gaza. This collective effort reassures them that they are not alone in their struggle. The Gaza Municipality earnestly appeals for your support to help reinstate essential services, currently the foremost priority. In the northern regions of the Gaza Strip alone, over 500,000 individuals urgently require these services.”
Donations to Life for Gaza will be directed to “water supply enhancement projects, maintenance of water wells, implementation of water desalination initiatives, management of waste collection and disposal systems, reconstruction of roads demolished during war, implementation of sewage water pumping and treatment schemes, and execution of pest control and rodent eradication programs.”
Once a donation has been made, please send a screenshot of the donation to sts@gmu.edu. From there, a staff member at So to Speak will reply with your unique Zoom webinar link. These links cannot be shared among multiple people; they are individualized and will only work for the original recipient.
participating journals & readers
rasha abdulhadi
they/them
Rasha Abdulhadi is calling on you—yes you, even as you read this—to renew your commitment to refusing and resisting genocide everywhere you find it. May your commitment to Palestinian liberation deepen your commitment to your own. May your exhaustion deepen your resolve and make you immovable. May we all be drawn irresistibly closer to refusals that are as spectacular as the violence waged against our peoples.
AíDA ESMERALDA
she/they
Aída Esmeralda is a queer Salvi poet and interdisciplinary tinkerer from Woodbridge, VA. She is completing an MFA in Poetry at Arizona State University. Aída unconditionally supports Palestinian liberation and stands alongside all people refusing the desires and borders of empire worldwide.
elena dudum
Elena Dudum is a Palestinian-Syrian-American writer. Her writing seeks to explore the boundaries of generational trauma and what it means to have an identity shaped by political narratives and agendas. She is currently working on a memoir about living in the diaspora as a Palestinian in America.
she/her
AERIK FRANCIS
they/them
Aerik Francis is a Queer Black & Latinx poet & teaching artist based in Denver, Colorado, USA. Francis is the author of two poetry chapbooks MISEDUCATION (May 2023, New Delta Review), and BODYELECTRONIC (April 2022, Trouble Department). Their website is phaentompoet.com.
elina katrin
she/her
Elina Katrin is a Syrian-Russian immigrant and the author of the poetry chapbook, If My House Has a Voice (Newfound, 2023). Her writing has appeared in Electric Lit, Poetry Daily, So to Speak, and elsewhere. She works and organizes with Mizna as a Community Engagement Coordinator and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University. You can find her on IG and Twitter/X @elinatkatrin.
MAYS KUHAIL
she/her
Mays Kuhail is a writer born and raised in Ramallah, Palestine. Mays crafts stories which grapple with nostalgia and memory, generational trauma, spatial politics, hope, and joy. She recently received an MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. You can find her on Twitter @mayskuhail.
amy debellis
she/her
Amy DeBellis is the author of the novel All Our Tomorrows (CLASH Books, 2025). Her work has been published in Pithead Chapel, Write or Die, HAD, Atticus Review, Phoebe, and elsewhere. She is also passionate about raising awareness for chronic illness, especially Long Covid and ME/CFS.
jade guthrie
she/her
jade guthrie is a queer, mixed-race (Jamaican, Chinese, mixed European, and Mi'kmaw roots) educator, community organizer, and sometimes-writer born and raised in Treaty 13 Territory (Toronto, Canada). Her words have been published online in Rookie Magazine and rabble, and heard on podcasts like the Toronto Star’s This Matters and Canadaland. Find her on Instagram @jadelovesnachos.
p. hodges adams
they/them
p. hodges adams is a poet from michigan who currently lives in virginia. their work—concerned with gender, art, and the body—can be found in Tilted House, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Arkansas International, and forthcoming on the Queer Poem-A-Day podcast. hopefully they will transform into a beam of sunlight someday soon.
event emcee
saba keramati
she/her
Saba Keramati is a Chinese-Iranian writer from California. She is the author of Self-Mythology (University of Arkansas Press, 2024), selected by Patricia Smith for the Miller Williams Poetry Series. She is the poetry editor for Sundog Lit. Saba's work appears or is forthcoming in Lit Hub, Kenyon Review, AGNI, The Margins, and other publications.
a word from the journals
As active participants in the broader literary community, So to Speak, The Offing, & phoebe have taken steps to offer space for writers in search of expressive outlets, with particular respect to writers speaking up about the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The Offing actively seeks and supports work by emerging and established writers, including those often who have been historically marginalized.
In solidarity with writers who have withdrawn their work from publications in protest against their organizational silence about genocide, The Offing will continue to host work from those affected by widespread censorship regarding their support for a free Palestine.
So to Speak’s most recent blog call, CENSORED, was created to uplift voices and experiences of people affected by the ongoing genocide in Gaza, particularly writers silenced for their support of Palestinians living under occupation. This call extended, also, to writers displaced by state violence and war. This series is currently available to read on the blog.
So to Speak continues to amplify messaging and news surrounding the genocide in Gaza on social media, and are so thankful for the participating journals of this event for their solidarity.
For their first-ever summer issue, phoebe is dedicating their platform to the preservation of Palestinian perspectives, art, and culture. phoebe believes in the collective responsibility of writers and artists to speak out against the genocide of the peoples of Palestine. Palestinian writers and artists are invited to submit any work that celebrates Palestinian culture and identity until June 15, 2024.
All submissions to this issue are free. At this time phoebe can offer each accepted contributor to this issue a $50 honorarium.
disclosures
The ask for attendees to donate directly to Life for Gaza was intentional: this ensures aid reaches impacted Palestinians more quickly, and offers transparency to attendees about where, what, and how their dollars will support aid efforts on the ground in Gaza.
This method of contribution, as opposed to an event hosted on a ticketing platform like Eventbrite or Humantix, also means that every cent of donated funds is being spent on aid, rather than absorbed by service fees and/or sales tax.
This also removes the onus from the hosting journals—So to Speak, The Offing, & phoebe—to handle attendees’ contributors directly. The aforementioned journals are not responsible for the disbursement of aid funds.
We appreciate those attendees who may also want to support our independent journals with donations. However, we ask that instead of donating to our publications, please direct all donations to Life for Gaza or other fundraisers supporting impacted Palestinians; their needs are far greater than ours.
For reliable sources that amplify ongoing Palestinian fundraisers in need of support, please visit @GazaFunds, @PoetsGaza, @OperationOliveBranch, or @GazaDirectAid.