Acts of Faith
August 2026 Newsletter
Dear Friends,
Welcome to August’s Substack.
I hope you’ll enjoy this month’s essay Acts of Faith. The audio version is available by clicking the link in the blog or clicking the link here for all podcasts. https://joanneleedomackerman.substack.com/podcast
Book News shares information and interviews on my latest novels Burning Distance and The Far Side of the Desert and notice for an upcoming talk August 3 in Washington, DC with Azar Nafisi after the showing of the new movie from her exquisite book Reading Lolita in Tehran. A movie and book you won’t want to miss.
The Writer at Risk section this month focuses on Pakistani writer and activist Mahrang Baloch, who has been sentenced to life in prison.
The Books to Check Out section features William Boyd’s recent thriller The Predicament and Azar Nafisi’s classic memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran which has new poignancy given the current conflict there.
In the Scene section you’ll find a photo relating to text from my novel Burning Distance. Words of the Month share a couple of words you may not use but might like to know.
Thank you to everyone who has come to bookstores, libraries, book clubs and online for my new novels Burning Distance and The Far Side of the Desert. Also available are my novel The Dark Path to the River and short story collection No Marble Angels and nonfiction books PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line and edited volume The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate. Word of mouth sells books so thank you for spreading the word!
If you’d like to have me speak at a venue or with a book club, click here. Thank you too for reading and sharing this free monthly Substack On the Yellow Brick Road. I hope you’ll stay in touch!
Acts of Faith
Before using the title “Acts of Faith,” I checked to see whose title I might be borrowing. Three main books were highlighted—Iyanla Vanzant’s daily meditations, Erich Segal’s 1992 novel and Philip Caputo’s novel Acts of Faith, published in 2005 set during the devastating war in Sudan, and the book I had in mind.
Philip Caputo, who passed away a few months ago, is among the novelists I admire for his ability to take on a complicated world in conflict and render characters who move the reader to understand both the emotional and political complexity of that world through story. My focus in this essay, however, is more limited and focused on the physical book itself.
I recently closed down one space in my life and shipped books to another, purchasing bookshelves for these physical objects that have been so important in my life and imagination through the years. Yet trying to cram the books onto fewer shelves only highlighted how ephemeral the physical book is becoming. This is not a eulogy, just a recognition. As generations evolve, the physical universe around them evolves. I am on the edge of that change as I too now also listen to more and more books, read more and more in digital form where I can have control over the type size, the lighting and the portability. No longer do I travel with a suitcase half full of books. I often also buy the book itself out of nostalgia and the opportunity to sit in one place and read.
In transferring my pre-2020 library (is that the cutoff date?), I found that in many of the books were notes, underlinings and scraps of my life used as bookmarks. During the period I was reading Caputo’s Acts of Faith, I not only had five pages of elaborate notes on the end papers, notes about characters, descriptions, themes, and favorite passages, I had a napkin from the Acela train with a list of the items I wanted to cover in call with a PEN colleague Eugene dealing with work we were doing together with PEN International. A few pages later I found a ticket stub from the Barrymore Theater in New York to the play “Company” for the matinee Feb. 11, 2007. A third of the way through the 669-page book, I found a Delta shuttle receipt from Washington to New York and a few pages later a stub of a ticket on Continental Airlines from Washington to Newark, then an Amtrak stub from Washington to Philadelphia, US Airways from Providence to Washington, and British Air from Brussels to London, United from Denver to Washington, a hotel confirmation of a restaurant reservation in NYC, a Delta stub from Washington to Atlanta, and finally near the end of the novel, another United stub from Aspen to Denver.
I am exhausted just reading all the travel and can only conclude by the dates on the receipts that it must have taken me six months to finish the book. To add context that was during a period when I was International Secretary of PEN International and also on the boards of several organizations in various places. I was carrying Caputo’s novel with me and reading great writing rather than spending much time practicing the craft except in memos and position papers. The timeline of six months makes sense because I didn’t have or give the time to read a 669-page novel sitting in one place or when I was traveling doing other work. And yet my notes are extensive in the book, and there are few paragraphs where I haven’t underlined something or written a note on the side. The novel and the book itself not only helped me shape and see a story in a complex region of the world, but it was an anchor of sorts in my own peripatetic life at that time.
Today without a doubt I would be listening to the novel as well as reading it digitally and only when I could be in one place, preferably at home able to hold the large volume would I sit quietly and read the physical book. I do get many more books read these days, however, by using all three platforms, and I am a good customer because I often purchase all three—audio, digital and physical book.
As for the acts of faith—my faith is in the storytellers practicing their craft to see and weave a chaotic world into some order and to share the narrative, faith that I can still make my offering to that ordering of the universe, and perhaps largest faith that there are readers. I still travel but less these days, still fill bookshelves but fewer, and I am writing more.
Upcoming Events and Talks:
Monday, August 3, 2026
7:30 pm-10:00 pm
In conversation with Azar Nafisi following a screening of the film adaptation of her book Reading Lolita in Tehran
Avalon Theater
5612 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20015
I’m honored that The Far Side of the Desert (Oceanview Publishing) was named a finalist in the Suspense category for the 2025 National Indie Excellence Awards. The novel was also awarded the 2025 Bronze medal in the Suspense/Thriller category by the Independent Publishers Association (IPPY) Book Awards.
Published in 2024, The Far Side of the Desert was released in paperback April, 2025. I hope you’ll order, read and enjoy. If you’ve already read the hardcover, I hope you’ll buy the paperback and give to friends!
“The Far Side of the Desert by Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is a razor-sharp tale of sisters, daughters, spies, and lovers; some relatable, some who appear to be beyond redemption, and some whose acts of good or evil are much harder to tease apart. Deftly managing the tightrope between the tightly-paced geopolitical and the nuanced psychological, Leedom-Ackerman delivers a thriller that transcends genre and has stayed with me long after I read it in one breathless sitting. The Far Side of the Desert is one of my top reads this year!”
—Deborah Goodrich Royce, nationally bestselling and award-winning author of Best Boy and Reef Road
Burning Distance (Oceanview Publishing, 2023 and paperback in 2024) was honored by the 2024 American Book Fest International Book Awards as a Finalist in the Best Mystery/Suspense and Thriller/Adventure categories.
“Another deftly crafted novel of suspense featuring finely honed characters and an original storyline with more plot twists and turns than a Disneyland roller-coaster, “Burning Distance” showcases author Joanne Leedom-Ackerman’s impressive and narrative storytelling skills. Very highly recommended for community library collections.”
Thanks to Monica Hadley and Writers Voices for the recent interview about The Far Side of the Desert. You can listen here.
Selected recordings of past events and interviews:
Interview with Monica Hadley, Writers Voices
Strategies for Living Podcast: Finding Resilience Through Story
Interview with Janeane Bernstein on NPR’s KUCI, Get the Funk Out!
Book Launch for Akram Aylisli's People and Trees with Plamen Press
Why Baldwin Matters Series, The Alan Cheuse International Writers Center
Malaprop’s Bookstore and Café in Asheville, NC
Kinokuniya Bookstore in New York City with Salil Tripathi
Baum on Books on WSHU Public Radio
Interview with Anna Roins of Authorlink
Interview with Deborah Kalb
For more podcasts, videos and interviews, click here
Mahrang Baloch (Pakistan)
(Sources include PEN International, BBC, Reuters, Amnesty International and Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security)
Pakistani writer, doctor and human rights activist Mahrang Baloch has been sentenced to life in prison on charges of terrorism, sedition and murder for her participation in a 2024 protest that resulted in the death of a paramilitary soldier. Claiming that her “provocative speech” led to violence and the soldier’s death, the government arrested her in March 2025 during a peaceful sit-in protesting police violence and the forced disappearances of citizens of Balochistan. She was sentenced in June 2026.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest and most resource-rich province, yet also its most underdeveloped where dissent is suppressed.
“This development represents a grave escalation in the use of counterterrorism legislation against peaceful activists and raises concerns regarding fair trial guarantees, due process, and the continued shrinking of civic space for writers, journalists, and human rights defenders in Balochistan,” according to PEN International.
“By criminalizing peaceful women leaders, Pakistani authorities are undermining both peacebuilding and women’s advancement in society,” notes a report from the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.
Dr. Baloch is one of the founders of Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) the largest indigenous women-led movements in Pakistan committed to nonviolent protests against injustices. Dr. Baloch took up this work after her father was forcibly disappeared when she was 16 and later found dead and likely tortured. Many of the women are searching for their husbands, fathers and sons who have disappeared.
For her work Dr. Baloch has been recognized as one of BBC’s 100 Women 2024 and TIME’s 100 Emerging Leaders.
To Take Action for Mahrang Baloch:
Take Action:
Send appeals to the Pakistani government:
Protesting the detention of Mahrang Baloch as a violation of her rights to freedom of expression.
Requesting the immediate release or Mahrang Baloch.
Calling authorities to drop all charges and overturn detention orders against Mahrang Baloch.
Urging an end to the wider crackdown against activists and protesters across the province by allowing them to exercise their rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression without undue restriction
Send Appeals to:
Hon. Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti
Chief Minister Office
Zarghun Road
Quetta, Balochistan Pakistan
cm@balochistan.gov.pk
sarfaraz.bugti@gmail.com
Please copy appeals to the diplomatic representative for Pakistan in your country if possible. Details of some Pakistani embassies can be found here.
After more than five years in prison, Dr. Hany Babu, an associate professor of language and linguistics at Delhi University, has been granted bail by the Bombay High Court. Arrested in July 2020, he was charged, along with other noted Dalit and Adivasi rights activists, for allegedly inciting caste-based violence through speeches at a rally in December 2017. He languished in prison without a hearing for bail and without a trial for five years. Bail was granted on the grounds of prolonged pre-trial detention with a warning that “justice delayed should not become justice denied.”
(Details of Dr. Hany Babu case can be found in the Writers in Risk profile October 2025 Substack)
After more than five years in prison, Amanda Echanis, Philippine poet, writer, and activist has been cleared of a charge of illegal possession of firearms and explosives. She was arrested at her home where she was caring for her one-month-old child and detained without evidence. The court has found that the prosecution failed to establish its case. Her case has raised questions of evidence planting and violations of due process. The delays kept her in prolonged pre-trial detention, taking away her right of a speedy trial and five years of her freedom.
(Details of Amanda Echanis can be found in the Writers at Risk profile in April 2025 Substack.)
An attack on a writer, the shutting down of a publishing house, the torching of a newspaper reduce the space in the world where ideas can flow. Freedom of expression is vital to writers and to readers but is challenged daily around the world. Listed here are organizations whose work on human rights and in particular issues of freedom of expression I’ve been engaged with directly and indirectly over the years. Some of the organizations have broader agendas, but all have contributed to keeping space open for the individual voice.
PEN International (with its 147 centers in over 100 countries)
PEN American Center
English PEN
PEN/Faulkner Foundation
Human Rights Watch
Amnesty International
Amnesty International USA
International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX)
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Article 19
Index on Censorship
Poets and Writers
Authors Guild
International Center for Journalists
This month’s books include a new thriller The Predicament by acclaimed British novelist William Boyd who I haven’t read for several years and Azar Nafisi’s classic memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran which I read when it first came out in 2003 and now read again in celebration of the film which is making its U.S. debut. Both writers consider the world their canvas and add a literary voice to it that shares depth and nuance.
In The Predicament Gabriel Dax, a reluctant British/Soviet double agent and a moderately successful travel writer, finds himself on assignments that take him dangerously close to one of the most consequential events of his time—the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
On an assignment to Guatemala he meets the characters who appear a season later in Berlin during Kennedy’s visit there and a fictionalized thwarted assassination attempt. When the assassination does take place in Dallas months later, Dax is not surprised to learn that these same characters were also on site.
The plot of the book is clever though soon predictable since the reader knows that President Kennedy was assassinated. The characters drive the story and flesh out another possible narrative for what really happened that day in Dallas even though Gabriel Dax wasn’t there. Gabriel’s own existential questions and search for companionship, even love, enrich the narrative beyond genre and ultimately claim the reader’s attention.
From The Predicament:
Gabriel Dax looked out of his kitchen window over his back garden and saw the fox slink along the foot of the beech hedge. It was moving almost daintily, its dense brush holding a steady horizontal line. He noted the rich amber of its fur offset by the dark brown of the near-leafless hedge. The fox paused for a moment, as if to allow Gabriel to register the perfect juxtaposition, and turned its sharp head to stare directly at him, with animal clarity, or so it seemed. Then it slipped through a gap and disappeared into the small oak wood that lay beyond the garden’s border.
Gabriel felt a sudden whelm of apprehension, and shivered. Was that a good omen – or an evil one? he wondered. He was still troubled by last night’s unwelcome phone call that he had received from his ‘contact’ at the Russian embassy, Natalia Arkadina. She had requested a meeting, today, at the familiar place, the Café Matisse on the King’s Road in Chelsea. He could hardly say no, given that the money Natalia and the KGB supplied him with had, to a large degree, allowed him to purchase his new home, this solid old Victorian cottage on the outskirts of Claverleigh, in East Sussex.
If you have read Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, published in 2003, I encourage you to read it again. It is a stunning book, beautifully written and has added resonance given the situation in Iran today. If you haven’t read it, you have a treat in store. If you are fortunate to be in a city showing the movie version of the book which has recently been released, beat a path to the theater. The film is its own work of art.
Reading Lolita in Tehran tells the story of Azar returning to Iran after the revolution that overthrew the Shah and put the Islamic clerics in power. She had studied and lived in Europe and the United States, received her PhD in English and American literature, which she loves. Her father, who had been mayor of Tehran and put in prison by the Shah, was by then released, but he and she see the Iran they have loved and carried in their heads and hearts vanishing as freedoms for the individual were disappearing behind the chador and the veil for women and in the thought landscape for all citizens. Thought police had taken over. Freedom of what a citizen could read, see and even think was vanishing in the name of the theological state.
Reading Lolita in Tehran narrates this transformation and its effect through personal stories, focusing on seven top literature students Azar has taught at university whom she brings together for a private session at her home every Thursday. She had finally quit teaching at the university because the space for discourse had disappeared. At her door the women shed their chadors and spent the next hour(s) discussing life and literature—Austen, Bronte, Fitzgerald, Twain, Poe, and Nabokov, particularly the banned novel Lolita. The portraits of these women and their lives and aspirations as well as Azar’s is a compelling story of the human spirit searching and finding friendship and appreciation even in the diversity of their lives, even in a society that for the most part doesn’t recognize them.
Reading Lolita in Tehran is beautifully written. I appreciated it at the time, had the pleasure of meeting Azar soon after she had come to the U.S. for her final and permanent time. I was among those friends who encouraged her to write the book. We have had a friendship for over 25 years, but I only just re-read this memoir. I had forgotten how extraordinary it is. It has survived the test of decades, and I predict and hope it will still be on shelves among classic memoirs for decades to come.
From Reading Lolita in Tehran:
In the fall of 1995, after resigning from my last academic post, I decided to indulge myself and fulfill a dream. I chose seven of my best and most committed students and invited them to come to my home every Thursday morning to discuss literature. They were all women—to teach a mixed class in the privacy of my home was too risky, even if we were discussing harmless works of fiction. One persistent male student, although barred from our class, insisted on his rights. So he, Nima, read the assigned material, and on special days he would come to my house to talk about the books we were reading.
I often teasingly reminded my students of Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and asked, Which one of you will finally betray me? For I am a pessimist by nature and I was sure at least one would turn against me. Nassrin once responded mischievously, You yourself told us that in the final analysis we are our own betrayers, playing Judas to our own Christ. Manna pointed out that I was no Miss Brodie, and they, well, they were what they were. She reminded me of a warning I was fond of repeating: do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.
Image and passage of text from my novel Burning Distance:
“As we walked mute through Holland Park, I determined someday I would know what to do. Someday I would not simply yield.”
Over the years I’ve accumulated a running list of words I haven’t known from two main sources: WordDaily and WordGenius and from the books I read.
Noctambulate
/nok-TAM-byoo-late/
Part of speech: Verb
To walk about at night.
To sleepwalk.
Example:
“After dinner, he loved to noctambulate and watch the stars come out.”
“The best part of living in the city is that you’ll never noctambulate alone.”
Preprandial
/prē ˈpran dēəl/
Part of speech: Adjective
Done or taken before dinner or lunch.
Occurring or done before a meal.
Examples:
"He liked to fit in several preprandial workouts throughout the week."
"If I take a preprandial nap, I'll be able to stay up late for the concert tonight."
I’ve spoken at bookstores, university classes, book luncheons and in-person and zoom book clubs and look forward to more ahead. I enjoy giving readings and addressing audiences in many venues and moderating discussions on a wide range of topics and most of all meeting readers.
Click here for a list of future and past public events.
Or fill out the speaking request form to schedule an event.
I like engaging with readers so if you are in a Reading Group or Book Club and read one of my books, I’m glad to be in touch by email, zoom, or when possible in person. I can also suggest discussion topics.
Fill out the reading group form here to schedule a meeting.
