January Newsletter
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Twitter: @teachergorman Instagram: @teachergorman
Facebook: Benjamin Gorman - Author Website: www.TeacherGorman.com
Dear Perspicacious and Iridescent Readers,
So I'm going to try producing a newsletter. My goals:
Make sure it comes out monthly
Make it useful
Make it fun
Keep it short
My challenges:
Life happens. I'm going to work on developing habits which will help me produce this over the course of each month rather than writing it at the last minute and missing the deadline because something came up.
Sometimes the things that are the most useful are unpleasant.
Sometimes the things that are the most enjoyable aren't useful.
I have never been particularly good at being brief. If something can be said with fewer words, I have a tendency to opt for more. I sometimes annoy friends by making the same point over and over. Also, I can be redundant. And repetitive.
I intend to give brief updates about my writing and publishing. For example, I have a short story coming out in an anthology I co-edited with one of my lifelong friends (we met in 2nd grade) Zack Dye. If you are concerned about the rising tide of fascism in the United States and want to read some excellent writers standing up for a more just world, check out Shout: An Anthology of Resistance Poetry and Short Fiction, available on Feb. 2nd (but you can pre-order now!) I made a video about it: https://youtu.be/3htcqDrTvKM
I'll include a link to an article about something I wish were getting more attention, like this one:
Miller Dismisses DACA in Emails, Mirroring Anti-Immigrant Extremists' Views
I'll also include a tweet from someone you should consider following, (in addition to following me at @teachergorman, of course!) like:
https://twitter.com/simone__kern/status/1216844179025866753?s=20
I'll try to include a poem of mine each month, like:
Dance on the Ashes
The world is on fire.
Stipulated.
But those of us
trying to stamp it out
can enjoy
dancing on the ashes
and maybe
stop drop and
roll together
And a book recommendation or two (or three), like:
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy
I binged this trilogy over the holiday break (English teachers, ironically, rarely have time to read for fun during the school year), and I loved it. The protagonist is an ancillary, a reanimated corpse who is a part of one of the many identical bodies who make up the crew and hive-mind of a spaceship. But when she rebels against an unjust order and her ship and all the other ancillaries are killed, she's just one person trapped in one body with one purpose: Revenge. The trilogy is richly conceived, the view of our possible future (especially in regards to gender identities) is really cool, the characters are memorable, and the ending is satisfying.
There will be some announcements/reminders, too. For example, if you're interested in joining my Writing Against the Darkness team to help raise money to fight Alzheimer's Disease, we'll be taking on their annual The Longest Day fundraiser by writing from dawn until dusk. Some folks will get together to do this face to face (location TBD. Beach house on the Oregon coast? My house?) and many participate online. If you want to learn more about it and sign up for an incredible day of writing that also helps a good cause, check it out here: http://bit.ly/AgainstDark2020
Oh, and maybe there will be a sponsored section down here if one of you wants to tell the rest of you about something cool, too! Email me HERE about that if you want your thing announced.
I hope this sounds good to you. If so, I'll see you back here each month. (If you want this in your email inbox, sign up HERE.)
Put out the fires you can, and dance while you're doing it.
-Benjamin Gorman
Copyright © 2020 Benjamin Gorman, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Benjamin Gorman
P.O. Box 184
Independence, OR 97351
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The novels Don't Read This Book, Corporate High School, The Sum of Our Gods, and The Digital Storm are available now!