Changing Latitudes, Chasing the Sun, Voting with Consequence
Dear Friends,
Welcome to December’s Substack.
I hope you’ll enjoy this month’s blog Changing Latitudes, Chasing the Sun, Voting with Consequence. 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, appearances, awards, and interviews on my latest novels Burning Distance and The Far Side of the Desert.
The Writer at Risk section this month focuses on four writers featured in PEN International’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer campaign: Algerian Mohamed Tadjadit, Venezuelan Rory Branker, Georgian Mzia Amaglobeli, and Chinese Uyghur Yalqun Rozi.
The Books to Check Out features Favorite Five for ‘25, my top reads of the year, four novels and a memoir—Lawrence Wright’s The Human Scale, Elliot Ackerman’s Sheepdogs, James Lee Burke’s Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie, Joseph Finder’s The Oligarch’s Daughter, and Peter Godwin’s Exit Wounds.
In the Scene section you’ll find a photo, along with text, from my novel The Far Side of the Desert , and 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 novels Burning Distance and The Far Side of the Desert. 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!
Changing Latitudes, Chasing the Sun, Voting with Consequence
Geese are starting to fly South, squawking over the river in formation. At least I think theirs is a southward journey. It might just be a Saturday morning field trip, but I haven’t seen any flying in the opposite direction. It is not yet winter, and as I sit by the river this morning facing east with the rising sun in my face, I am pleasantly warm in only a bulky sweatshirt and pants but am told by the weather forecasters that an arctic wind is on its way. The geese are honking all around the river so I think they already know it is time to hit the road or the air.
I began this column in early November on the Eastern Shore of Maryland but won’t post till December. My intent is to offer more than a weather report and subtly—is it subtle?—to speak on larger issues. By the end of the month I will have moved South to Florida. I will vote there in the next election, and for the first time in 30 years my vote may have consequence for in the District of Columbia where I have been a resident for the past decades, the voter has no national representation—no Senators and only one Representative who doesn’t have voting rights in the Congress. The city is heavily one party so a single vote has slight impact. Not that one vote has profound impact anywhere, except that it does. Over these last decades we have learned that one vote, two votes, each citizen’s voice can make a difference. I will find out.
I will still toggle between north and south, but having landed in the state of sunshine and palm trees, I am looking forward to this change of latitude. I am now watching the sun rise on the terrace of a restaurant that doesn’t open till dinner, looking out over cars on the road and a beach just beyond with freighters on the horizon. The geese haven’t gotten this far south yet. I don’t know if they ever arrive in Florida. I will find out. There are occasional sea gulls. I will miss the geese and ducks but will see them again in the spring and summer when we both return, and meanwhile starting next year, I will vote again, perhaps with more consequence.
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!
“A thoroughly enjoyable read. I hesitate to call The Far Side of the Desert a page turner, but only because it’s so much more, with characters that will stay with you long after you finish.”
--James Grippando, New York Times best-selling novelist,The Big Lie and Code 6
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.
“Burning Distance opens with a mystery, glides into a love story, and unfolds into a political thriller. Set against the backdrop of 1980s and 90s global politics, readers will be up way past their bedtimes eagerly turning pages to discover what happens to Lizzy and Adil. A story of war, family, history, politics, and passion. Joanne Leedom-Ackerman’s evocation of the era is pitch-perfect. A great read!”
📘 Susan Isaacs, New York Times best-selling author of It Takes One To Know One
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
PEN INTERNATIONAL’S DAY OF THE IMPRISONED WRITER
Sources: PEN International, Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Amnesty International
“Across the world, writers continue to pay a heavy price for speaking truth. Rory Branker, Yalqun Rozi, Mohamed Tadjadit, and Mzia Amaglobeli remind us that words can shake the powerful — and that courage endures even when their freedom is taken away. Their persecution is a wound to justice and humanity itself. We must not rest until they are free.” Burhan Sonmez, PEN International President
Each year on PEN’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer, November 15, PEN International spotlights writers who are unjustly detained or persecuted for their words. From November 15 to Human Rights Day December 10 writers around the world feature these colleagues who speak truth in the face of repression. PEN’s focus this year is on Rory Branker (Venezuela), Yalqun Rozi (China), Mohamed Tadjadit (Algeria), and Mzia Amaglobeli (Georgia).
#DayoftheImprisonedWriter #MohamedTadjadit #YalqunRozi #MziaAmaglobeli #RoryBranker
Note to editors:
• For media queries, please contact Sabrina Tucci, Communications and Campaigns Manager at PEN International: sabrina.tucci@pen-international.org
ALGERIA
Name: Mohamed Tadjadit
Occupation: Poet, activist
Situation: Imprisoned
#MohamedTadjadit #DayoftheImprisonedWriter
Algerian poet and activist Mohamed Tadjadit, known as “the poet of the Hirak”, was sentenced on 11 November 2025 to five years in prison, on top of the one-year sentence he was already serving, on baseless terrorism-related charges linked to his expression and peaceful activism. He also continues to face prosecution in another case for his online posts. A leading voice of Algeria’s 2019 pro-democracy Hirak movement, he has endured years of harassment, arbitrary arrests, and imprisonment for his poetry and activism. PEN International calls on the Algerian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Mohamed Tadjadit and drop all charges against him.
To Take Action:
Click here to send a message to Mohamed Tadjadit.
Send your appeals urging the Algerian authorities to:
Release Mohamed Tadjadit immediately and unconditionally.
Drop all charges against him.
Stop prosecuting government critics for their peaceful expression, online or otherwise.
Send your appeals to:
President of the Republic of Algeria
Abdelmadjid Tebboune
Presidence de la Republique
Place Mohammed Seddik Benyahiya, El Mouradia
Alger 16000 Algérie
Fax: +213 (0) 21 69 15 95
Email: President@el-mouradia.dz and contact@el-mouradia.dz
Website: https://el-mouradia.dz/ar/president/biography
Please also send a message to the Embassy of Algeria in your country.
VENEZUELA
Name: Rory Daniel Branker
Occupation: Journalist, Editor, Columnist
Situation: Arbitrary Detention
#RoryBranker #DayoftheImprisonedWriter
Venezuelan journalist Rory Branker from news site La Padilla is the ninth journalist arrested since July 2024 and is being held in arbitrary detention in Caracas. His home was raided, two laptops confiscated, and he was forcibly disappeared for more than 200 days. He has been denied judicial guarantees and access to independent legal counsel.
PEN International calls for his immediate and unconditional release, and for his physical and psychological integrity to be safeguarded.
To Take Action:
Click here to send a message to Rory Branker.
Send your appeals urging the Venezuelan authorities to:
Release Rory Branker immediately and unconditionally.
Provide immediate access to independent legal counsel and contact with his family.
Respect his right to a fair trial and full legal defence.
Send your appeals to:
Tarek William Saab
Attorney General of Venezuela
Email: cooperación.internacional@mp.gob.ve; asuntosinternacionales.mp.ve@gmail.com
Alfredo José Ruiz Angulo
Ombudsman of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Email: contacto@defensoria.gob.ve
Please also send electronic copies to the Embassy of Venezuela in your country. Embassy addresses may be found here.
GEORGIA
Name: Mzia Amaglobeli
Occupation: Journalist
Situation: Imprisoned
#MziaAmaglobeli #DayoftheImprisonedWriter
Journalist and founder of independent media outlets in Georgia, Mzia Amaglobeli is serving a two-year prison sentence on what are reportedly politically motivated grounds when she resisted authorities during a peaceful pro-European protest.
Journalist organizations around the world have condemned her arrest as part of a broader assault on media freedom in Georgia. The European Parliament passed a resolution demanding her immediate release and denouncing the attacks on independent media.
Amaglobeli’s right to a fair trial should be upheld, her allegations of ill-treatment by police investigated, and her immediate release expedited.
To Take Action:
Click here to send a message to Mzia Amaglobeli.
Send your appeals to:
Mikheil Kavelashvili
President of Georgia
1 Abdushelishvili St,
Tbilisi 0103, Georgia
Email: info@president.ge
Irakli Kobakhidze
Prime Minister of Georgia
7 Ingorokva St,
Tbilisi 0114, Georgia
Website: https://www.facebook.com/KobakhidzeOfficial/
Email: pressoffice@gov.ge
Levan Ioseliani
Public Defender (Ombudsman) of Georgia
Irakli Paghava Street N6. Avlabari,
Tbilisi 0144, Georgia
Email: info@ombudsman.ge
Please send electronic copies to the Embassy of Georgia in your own country. Embassy addresses may be found here.
CHINA/ JINJIANG
Name: Yalqun Rozi
Occupation: Writer, Journalist, Editor, Publisher, Literary Critic
Situation: Imprisoned
#YalqunRozi #DayoftheImprisonedWriter
Uyghur writer and literary critic Yalqun Rozi is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Xinjiang, China, for “inciting subversion of state power” and inciting separatism. Arrested in 2016, he had long promoted Uyghur language and culture through literature and education and was chief editor compiling and editing Uyghur literature in textbooks. PEN International and others call on the Chinese authorities to release Yalqun Rozi immediately and unconditionally, and to end its practice of systematic cultural erasure in Xinjiang.
To Take Action:
Click here to send a message to Yalqun Rozi.
Send your appeals urging the Chinese authorities to:
Release Yalqun Rozi immediately and unconditionally.
End its practice of systematic cultural erasure in Xinjiang.
Respect and protect cultural and linguistic diversity in Xinjiang.
Send your appeals to:
Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations
Ambassador Fu Cong
350 East 35th Street
New York, NY 10016
Email: chinesemission@yahoo.com
Website: https://un.china-mission.gov.cn/eng/
Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland
Ambassador Chen Xu
11, Chemin de Surville 1213 Petit-Lancy,
Geneva
Email: chinamission_gva@mfa.gov.cn
Website: https://geneva.china-mission.gov.cn/eng/
Please also send a message to the Chinese Embassy in your country.
French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal pardoned
Source: BBC
“Almost a year to the day since French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal (see case in August 2025 Substack) was arrested on arrival at Algiers airport, the Algerian president has pardoned him and allowed him to leave the country.
Sansal, 81, has been at the centre of a bitter diplomatic row between Paris and Algiers and President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s decision came in response to a direct approach from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The writer arrived in Germany on a military plane on Wednesday evening and was taken to hospital.”
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
Favorite Five for ‘25 are drawn from the many excellent books I read this year, often featured in this column. Each book represents its own world and the dedication of the writers who committed countless hours of thought, research and imagination to render that world either in fiction or nonfiction or some combination. Always difficult to choose, I offer these four novels and a memoir and urge the reader to check out other compelling books featured in this column during the year.
Lawrence Wright, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his brilliant nonfiction book The Looming Tower about the events leading up to 9/11, brings the same intelligence and skill to his novel The Human Scale. A natural storyteller, Wright takes the reader into the heart of the Israeli and Palestinian struggle and the ultimate October 7 massacre through complex and heartfelt characters who navigate the present and insistent history that holds them.
In The Human Scale American Palestinian FBI agent Anthony Malik and Israeli detective Yossi Ben-Gal team up to solve the murder of the Israeli police chief in Gaza only to discover that nothing is as it appears. The Human Scale unfurls the conflicts and the multiple points of views of characters whose life experiences and histories have shadowed each other and resulted in a kind of mirror image that shatters upon encounter with the other. The reader is left with understanding and sympathy for these different life experiences and points of view, none more tragic than the noble souls who believe there can be peace among the corrupt scenarios in the region.
The locale is the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, particularly Hebron, with characters moving around this beloved yet forsaken landscape. If one is looking for a compelling read that will leave you wiser, educated but also perhaps despairing, The Human Scale is well worth the plunge into its 448 pages…
Full review in April 2025 Substack
(Disclosure, Elliot Ackerman is my son.) Now a recognized and respected writer, he continually impresses me with his breadth of knowledge and his story-telling talent. To allow some arms-length objectivity in the summary of Sheepdogs, I quote here from another:
“Two Misfits. One Mission. Zero Back-Up. • When a high-stakes heist goes wrong, an ex-CIA operative and a special operations pilot find themselves in the middle of a game of espionage and survival as they navigate a treacherous web of deception and shifting loyalties in a globe-spanning, action-packed thriller…
Skwerl and Cheese are down on their luck and about to find themselves tangled in the heist of their lives. Skwerl, once an elite member of the CIA’s paramilitary unit, was cast out after a raid gone wrong in Afghanistan. Big Cheese Aziz, a former Afghan pilot of legendary skill, now works the graveyard shift at a gas station.
Recruited into a shadowy network of ‘sheepdogs,’ they embark on a mission to repossess a multi-million-dollar private jet stranded on a remote African airfield. But as they wind through a labyrinth of lies and hidden agendas, they discover that nothing is as it seems….With the stakes skyrocketing and the women in their lives drawn into the fray, this unlikely spy duo find themselves deep in the underbelly of modern war and intelligence…”
Full Review in July 2025 Substack
The 14-year-old Bessie Holland who narrates James Lee Burke’s new novel Don’t Forget Me, Little Bessie announces herself with the honest, straight-talking charm, wisdom and confidence of the best of youthful narrators—a loner, an outsider, but optimistic, a clear-eyed Holden Caulfield of pre-World War I Texas that is on the cusp of the new century. A World War, the discovery of oil, post-slavery Jim Crow turning into a civil rights movement, women claiming their own voice—the changing world of the twentieth century shimmers in the background and in the foreground of this “whammeroo” story.
Bessie is the daughter of famed Texas Ranger Hackberry Holland, featured in several of Burke’s novels as well as related to Texas attorney Billy Bob Holland and Weldon Avery Holland. I haven’t read the full family tree, but the voice of Bessie celebrates the best, according to Burke—the grit, integrity and plain stubbornness of the family and the land she grew up in. The story is filled with intrigue and conflict befitting the times, with complex, evil villains, conflicted heroes and one almost-spirit. Bessie’s journey includes an excursion to New York City which widens her perspective and friends and hones her character and determination…
Full Review in July 2025 Substack
Joseph Finder’s The Oligarch’s Daughter is a novel hard to put down. I read it in a day and a half, setting aside other work to finish it. The characters seduce; the action takes off, and the story compels with its twists and turns and multiple identities for the main character. What are the consequences of falling in love with the beloved daughter of a multi-billionaire Russian oligarch embroiled in international espionage? Not an everyman’s dilemma, but in fact the story and its characters beg questions of identity, family fidelity, and patriotic loyalty.
As a good thriller does, The Oligarch’s Daughter unfolds with twists and turns and surprises at the end. The novel will likely make it to the screen. It has the pace of John Grisham’s The Firm, which is referenced in the book, and of Finder’s own High Crimes. Finder is a Russian scholar and his details and knowledge of Russia and its current history lend credibility to the characters and story as does his knowledge of the FBI, the CIA, survivalist living and New York City society. The Oligarch’s Daughter delivers…
Full Review in February 2025 Substack
I sometimes recommend listening to a book as well as reading it on the page. Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss, and Occasional Wars, read by its author, is such a book—a memorable experience in both print and audio. Among its themes, the book explores language and its role in establishing class and place. Peter Godwin is able to render the nuances of words, both in inflections of his voice and in the alliteration and rhythm of words on the page.
Exit Wounds tells a dramatic and heartfelt story of a boy and man’s journey through life, bookended by women—his mother and his wife—and explores themes of belonging, war, marriage, parenting, career, all wrapped around the age-old question of identity. His ambivalent relationship with his mother, who is at the end of her life, and his ultimate divorce from his professional and society wife after 18 years are poignant, witty, and compelling to the reader who has joined his journey of seeking— if not peace, at least some enlightenment.
Because of security issues where his parents lived in Zimbabwe and where his mother was a doctor serving anyone who came to her, Godwin was sent to a nearby boarding school at the age of six. Living through the turmoil of his nation’s fight for independence from Britain, his own service in the Rhodesian army as a young man “on the wrong side of a losing war,” his decade as a correspondent covering wars, his work as a human rights lawyer and as an award-winning author (When a Crocodile Eats the Sun), his pleasure as a parent, Godwin takes readers along on this intimate trip and leaves us if not wiser, at least aware of a larger world and grateful for the skill and craft of our guide…
Full Review in May 2025 Substack
Images and passage of text from my novel The Far Side of the Desert:
At the moment I’m being questioned by the police,” Samantha answered.
“Where are you?”
“In the Rabat police station.”
“Shit!” She hung up. She quickly took the batteries out of both phones.
Monkeys scurried along the fence beside her and on the rocks watching for signs of food. She kept her hands out of her pockets lest the monkeys jump on her shoulders. They weren’t vicious, but they were entirely self-interested.
Over the years I’ve accumulated a running list of words I haven’t known from two main sources: WordDaily and WordGenius.
Agrestic
[uh-gres-tik]
Part off speech: adjective
rural; rustic.
unpolished; awkward.
Examples:
“The fact that the Cherumans, who are agrestic serfs, play a leading part in some of the festivals which have just been described, is significant.”
“Cowley retreated into solitude, where he found none of the agrestic charms of the landscapes of his muse.”
Obloquy
[ob-luh-kwee]
Part of speech: noun
censure, blame, or abusive language aimed at a person or thing, especially by numerous persons or by the general public.
discredit, disgrace, or bad repute resulting from public blame, abuse, or denunciation.
Examples:
“That’s a shame, because the airline’s 11 outside directors are arguably the guiltiest of the guilty parties in the company’s recent fiasco, the most deserving of obloquy.”
“Moreover, their statements came after they had sustained public obloquy for their silence.”
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.
