Sending Light to Our Jewish Warriors in the Writing Community

On AWP 2025

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference and Bookfair is this week. An annual event, it attracts thousands of participants and is known for being the biggest literary conference in the world. It’s always an intense week for writers who spend most of their time alone with words, but last year, AWP challenged many Jews far beyond the usual “too much stimuli for writers and other associated introverts.”

At AWP 2024, Jewish attendees faced anti-Israel protests complete with antisemitic signs and chants.

The chaos has already been covered by several writers here on Substack. Sarah Einstein provides an excellent overview, and anyone interested in learning more should click here.

If you don’t feel like catching up on the whole story, here’s a sample pulled from Einstein’s newsletter:

Well folks, here we go again. AWP 2025.

This year, Jewish authors worked to prepare and organize. Panel proposals by Jewish writers (unless they were by anti-Zionist Jews) were rejected. The Jewish Book Council got involved, and thanks to their added help, we now have a panel featuring Jewish authors who also support Israel’s right to exist.

It was a tremendous undertaking. And it’s not over yet.

That panel is happening later today and will feature the above mentioned Sarah Einstein, as well as writers Elissa Wald, Harold Lovy, Amy Fish, and Jennifer Lang. It’s titled “A Narrow Bridge: Jewish Writers on Resilience in an Antisemitic Climate.”

Below, please find a description of the panel quoted from Wald’s newsletter:

Since Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, Jews have been increasingly targeted for exclusion in both the journals and events of American letters. In this panel, Jewish American and Israeli authors will discuss how this has affected their work and the reception of that work, as well as share strategies for resilience in the face of overt hostility to Jewish voices.

Wald goes on to write the following:

I am not attending AWP this year for personal reasons unrelated to the political climate, but I wanted to go SOLELY for the purpose of supporting our Jewish warriors. In lieu of my physical presence, I will be checking in from afar through here and Facebook.

There is much more to say about antisemitism in the writing community. I believe the situation is harmful to all Jews, not only Jewish writers. We must combat the rampant antisemitism in our intellectual spaces—if we fail to do so, I believe Jews will suffer decreased safety in the USA and beyond, including Israel itself.

I plan to address these concerns with more depth in a future post.

For today, I simply want to extend my gratitude toward Einstein, Wald, Lovy, Fish, and Lang.

Please hold them in your heart and send them prayer and light. While we hope AWP will protect their hard-earned space, there’s no knowing whether they will be subject to harassment.

What I wish for them is an infinite supply of Holy Chutzpah.

Am Yisrael Chai!

xoxo Jen xoxo