Sunrise and a Wish
Dear Friends,
Welcome to December’s Substack.
In this holiday season I share some thoughts in my blog Sunrise and a Wish. I hope you’ll share yours in the comments section or on social media platforms where the Substack is shared.
The Writers at Risk section focuses on the four cases featured in PEN’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer campaign which launches mid November around the globe each year. This year highlights writers from Tibet, Crimea, Morocco, and Cuba. The article includes ways to take action.
In Books to Check Out I focus on a number of international political thrillers.
I continue meeting with book clubs and readers to discuss my novel Burning Distance as I prepare for the launch of my next novel The Far Side of the Desert March 5, 2024, along with the paperback of Burning Distance in February. Thank you to all who have shared their enthusiasm in reviews and word of mouth.
I hope you’ll enjoy this installment of “On the Yellow Brick Road,” share it and encourage friends to sign up. It’s free!
Warm regards,
Joanne
Burning Distance (Oceanview Publishing) has been honored in three categories of the Best Book Awards by American BookFest.
My latest novel, The Far Side of the Desert, will be published March 5, 2024 by Oceanview Publishers and is available now for pre-order!
“The Far Side of the Desert is a riveting thriller with richly nuanced characters and fast-paced action. The plot imaginatively taps into recent history to illustrate the human dimensions of terrorism—both the complex psyche of the perpetrators and the gnawing questions among those sucked into their vortex. I binged until the end.”
—Robin Wright, journalist and award-winning author, Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World, Sacred Rage, and Dreams and Shadows
The paperback of Burning Distance will be published February 20, 2024.
“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, Best-selling author of Bad, Bad Seymour Brown, It Takes One To Know One, and Compromising Positions
The Inner Loop Radio’s Creative Writing Podcast titled “Inspiration Takeover: The Writer’s Journey with Joanne Leedom-Ackerman”
Check out the episode at the links below, and be sure to subscribe to their podcast!
YouTube
Spotify
Soundcloud
Apple
Sunrise and a Wish
Sometimes I lose myself in the sunrise. I watch the earth’s slow motion as the sun creeps above the horizon, first as a streak of red light in the dark sky expanding into yellow-orange-pink and then the sun itself peeking above the horizon and breaking into a full orbed golden disc lighting up the landscape.
Knowing this same movement is witnessed around the world confers a kind of unity for the earth. When conflicts seem fraught and discourse harsh in politics and among citizens, when solutions appear elusive, I watch the sun rise and take comfort that it will do so day after day no matter what we on earth are doing. It symbolizes a larger force and deeper meanings we often miss, absorbed as we are in our own day to day.
Though I may not grasp the fuller meaning, I know it is there. I recognize the qualities that enable me to glimpse the outlines. An essential is gratitude. The season of Thanksgiving in the U.S. and a few other countries, of the holidays which celebrate the arrival of wisdom and wise men and women, be it Christmas, Hannukah, Eid, Kwanzaa, Diwali. Often these are celebrated with lights strung up to illumine the darker months. Light has long been the metaphor for wisdom as darkness flees before it because darkness can’t exist when light is present. Darkness is the absence of light.
As we head into this season, I hope to do so with a listening thought for the wisdom waiting and a regarding eye to see pathways that may yet appear and connect. Wishing for peace seems too facile, but perhaps wishing for an understanding heart and the way to defuse violence and meanness of spirit. Acknowledging that conflict may continue among people but seeking ways to take the violence out of it and to find ways to exist together, that seems more obtainable. May we stand in wonder as the sun rises wherever we are and may our thoughts let in the light and open outward.
Around the world writers and PEN centers have commemorated the Day of the Imprisoned Writer on or around November 15 by highlighting cases of writers in prison, at grave risk, or killed because of their writing in different regions. Since 1981 writers and PEN members have advocated on behalf of these colleagues and celebrated their work. This year four writers were featured along with suggested actions to take on their behalf.
(Source PEN International)
Go Sherab Gyatso, (known as Gosher), a Tibetan writer and educator, is serving a 10-year prison sentence after being detained by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), tried in secret and convicted of “suspicion of inciting succession.” Author of over ten books focused on Tibetan Buddhism, language, and culture, he has been critical of the government’s actions to restrict Tibetan children’s access to education in their mother tongue.
To Take Action:
Write to the PRC authorities, calling on them to:
• Release him immediately and unconditionally, and drop all charges against him;
• Pending his release, ensure that he has access to adequate medical care;
• Abide by their international human rights obligations and uphold the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.
Send appeals to:
President XI Jinping
Zhongnanhai
Xichang’anjie
Xichengqu Beijing Shi 10017
People’s Republic of China
Fax: +86 10 63070900
Email: english@mail.gov.cn
Salutation: Your Excellency
Ambassador CHEN Xu
Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland
11, Chemin de Surville 1213 Petit-Lancy, Geneva,
Switzerland
Email: chinamission_gva@mfa.gov.cn
Salutation: Dear Ambassador
Iryna Danylovych, citizen journalist in Crimea, disappeared in Crimea and was subsequently sentenced to seven years in prison and fined. Exposing problems with the Crimean health care system, she worked with independent media outlets and reported on politically motivated trials in Crimea and on trade union activities. Abducted and forcibly disappeared in Crimea, her house searched and her phone seized, she was eventually located by her lawyer who reported that she’d been tortured and forced to sign a confession without ever reading it. She was listed as a ‘foreign agent’ by the Russian Ministry of Justice and charged with “illegal purchase, transfer, storage and transportation of explosive substances or explosive devices.” She has been illegally transferred to Russia where she is held in prison. In March she went on a hunger strike to protest lack of medical care.
To Take Action:
Reach out to your Ministry of Foreign Affairs and diplomatic contacts, calling on them to:
• Raise Danylovych’s case in international fora, demanding her immediate and unconditional release and that, pending her release, she is urgently provided with adequate health care;
Raise awareness about Iryna Danylovych’s case on social media, using the hashtags #IrynaDanylovych #FreeDanylovych #ImprisonedWriter, and tagging @pen_int
Sooulaiman Raissouni, Moroccan journalist and former editor-in-chief of Akhbar al-Youm, sentenced to five years in prison and fined. Known for his editorials critical of Moroccan authorities, he was arrested on charges of “sexual assault” and “enforced confinement,” which he vehemently denies as politically motivated. According to his family, he was prevented from attending several pre-trial hearings in a prolonged pre-trial detention. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that his arrest and detention were arbitrary and raised serious concerns about his physical and psychological well-being. After the UN report, a campaign against his wife was launched in pro-government media because of her activism on his behalf. Authorities have denied him access to reading and writing materials for prolonged periods and have confiscated his diaries and novel.
To Take Action:
Write to the Moroccan authorities, calling on them to:
• Release Raissouni immediately and unconditionally and drop all charges against him.
• Ensure Raissouni is allowed to receive and send letters, has his confiscated writings returned, and receives adequate medical care, pending his release.
Send appeals to:
Cabinet royal
Palais Royal Touarga, Rabat
+212 5377-65400
**Send copies to the Embassy of Morocco in your own country.
María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez, Cuban poet and activist is serving a seven-year prison sentence, charged with “contempt,” “resistance,” “public disorder.” She has suffered multiple beatings. (For more information see her profile in my August Substack)
To Take Action:
Write to the Cuban authorities, calling on them to:
• Release Garrido immediately and unconditionally, and drop all charges against her;
• Pending her release, ensure that she is allowed regular communication with her family and adequate health care, and that she in not subjected to any form of ill-treatment;
• Abide by their international human rights obligations and uphold the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.
Send appeals to:
President Sr. Miguel Díaz-Canel:
Email: despacho@presidencia.gob.cu
Twitter: @DiazCanelB
Minister of Justice Oscar Silvera Martínez:
Email: apoblacion@minjus.gob.cu
Twitter: @CubaMinjus
Facebook: @MinisterioJusticiaCuba
Minister of Foreign Affairs (Minrex) Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla:
Email: dm@minrex.gob.cu
Twitter: @BrunoRguezP
Facebook: @CubaMINREX
Please send emails to the Embassy of the Republic of Cuba in your own country.
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
In this month’s SubStack I focus on international political thrillers, in part because that’s the category my two recent novels—Burning Distance and upcoming The Far Side of the Desert—are published and promoted in. I’ve been reading widely in this category ever since.
I’ve posted portions of some of these reviews already on Amazon and Goodreads where I’ve been leaving more short reviews lately. I’ve come to understand their importance for writers and their books. When certain numbers are reached, algorithms are triggered that help promote the title…or so I’m told. If the reviews are good—and I won’t leave a bad review; I just won’t write one—they also show appreciation for the author.
This spring I had the pleasure of sitting next to Christopher Bollen at the PEN Faulkner Awards dinner in Washington DC. His new novel The Lost Americans was published just a week after my novel Burning Distance. His story was set in Cairo where we both had spent time and where scenes from my next novel The Far Side of the Desert are set. I went straight home and ordered his book.
The Lost Americans (Harper Collins, 2023) is a taut mystery, an international thriller and a family story of brother and sister in a fractured home. When Cate Castle’s brother Eric, a senior technician for a major arms manufacturer, turns up dead in Cairo in an alleged suicide, Cate, who is disoriented in her own life, journeys to the scene and begins investigating for she doesn’t buy the suicide. In Cairo she enlists Omar, a gay Egyptian recently returned to Cairo with graduate credentials in finance who is looking for his own place in a country unfriendly and dangerous for him. Cate finds herself in the crosshairs of the American arms manufacturer, the Egyptian military and those at home who would rather leave well enough alone and accept compensation from the arms manufacturer for her brother’s death.
Bollen writes a textured, smart story that takes on complex issues of politics and the heart and keeps the reader turning pages till the end.
David McCloskey’s Damascus Station (W.W. Norton, 2022) draws the reader into the high-stakes and gritty world of CIA agent Sam Joseph on his perilous mission of extracting a colleague and later investigating and bringing to justice those responsible for her death. Along the way he recruits a beautiful, intelligent and formidable member of an elite family and the Palace staff. The consequences of failure for his mission are dire in one of the most fraught conflicts of our times in Syria. The details of the narrative—the methodology and geography—ring true as McCloskey spent his early years in the CIA in the Middle East. He evokes the scenes and dynamics of recruiting, turning, then trying to save the person who has agreed to work for US interests because of the political pain, corruption, and treatment of her country’s citizens. Sam and the senior Syrian official Miriam Haddad fall into a forbidden relationship as tension and danger escalate. Damascus Station lays out the forces at play and the characters’ internal struggles between loyalty, survival, and humanity. The novel is not for the faint of heart with a number of graphic scenes of torture and violence in the brutal battle for power.
James Grippando’s novel Code 6 (Harper, 2023) takes on the complex issue of megadata and its dangers in the wrong hands. The narrative focuses on the daughter of the CEO of a major technology company. The father in a troubled marriage has deep affection for his smart daughter who ultimately is central in unwinding the mysteries of both historical and present-day misuses of big data and the global implications. Murder, kidnapping and other plausible outcomes ensue as the reader races along with the characters and follows threads that go back to Nazi Germany and forward to today’s census. Code 6 locks in as an intelligent and compelling story.
Adam Sikes’ Landslide and William Maz’s The Bucharest Dossier and The Bucharest Legacy: The Rise of the Oligarchs from Oceanview Publishing plunge readers into history and into current dramas.
Sikes’ Landslide (Oceanview Publishing, 2022) races along a labyrinth of geography & events of post-war Iraq with US Marine veteran Mason Hackett who sees the face of a dead friend on television and receives a cryptic email about a mission gone bad. The mission which started in Iraq culminates in the fraught regions of today’s Ukrainian conflict. What Hackett uncovers in the world of arms trafficking threatens the future and also begs a sequel. Landslide won the 2022 American Fiction Award for Mystery/Suspense: Historical and was a National Indie Excellence Award Finalist. Sikes’ new novel The Underhanded will be published in April 2024.
William Maz’s The Bucharest Dossier (Oceanview Publishing), Chanticleer International Grand Prize winner as global thriller, reveals espionage behind Romania’s 1989 revolution with CIA analyst Bill Hefflin who readers meet again in the sequel The Bucharest Legacy: The Rise of the Oligarchs (Oceanview Publishing), which begins and ends at a dead drop and sweeps readers up in the aftermath of the 1989 Romanian Revolution with US, Russian and Eastern European spy craft and family dramas. Three years after the Romanian Revolution, Hefflin is brought back into CIA service in The Bucharest Legacy to uncover a mole in the Agency who threatens to expose secrets that will upend the flawed new order taking root as communism is toppled and imperfect capitalism is seizing the economic levers of power. The Bucharest Legacy leaves one’s head spinning but with an urge to pick up the novel and read it all over again.
As well-researched historical novels can both entertain and inform readers about historical periods, thoughtful political thrillers imagine and can illumine behind-the-scenes dynamics of global events.
In London this summer I visited settings from my novel Burning Distance and wanted to continue to share some new scenes, along with passages from the book.
(Over the years I’ve accumulated a running list of words I haven’t known from two main sources: WordDaily and WordGenius)
Bafflegab
/ˈbafəlˌɡab/
Part of speech: noun
1. Incomprehensible or pretentious verbiage, especially bureaucratic jargon.
Examples:
“The contract was full of so much bafflegab that I don't even know what I agreed to.”
“He spouted a bunch of bafflegab in the meeting, but I knew I would get a better explanation later from his colleague.”
Bombinate
/bomb buh neyt/
Part of speech: verb
1. Buzz, hum
Examples:
“My porch light has been bombinating and flickering, so I must change it.”
“The bombinating drone of the mosquitoes at dusk forced us inside.”
Blatherskite
/blatth er skahyt/
Part of speech: noun
1. A person who talks at great length without making much sense.
2. Foolish talk; nonsense
Examples:
“The professor had great insights in his books, but he was such a blatherskite that his students had trouble following his lectures.”
“Shakespeare’s play ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ features the character Dogberry, who is a bit of a blatherskite—he speaks in nonsense for much of his time on stage.”
This past month I’ve spoken to a university class, a book luncheon and a zoom book club and look forward to more ahead. I enjoy giving readings at bookstores, addressing audiences in many venues, and moderating discussions on a wide range of topics.
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.
Joanne, your steady advocacy on behalf of imprisoned writers is so valuable. We owe them not only our tangible support through government ministries and organizations like PEN, but also diligence in defending ourselves from discouragement and distraction. This is often the hardest part. As you imply at the start of your newsletter, where we’re coming from mentally is crucial to successful action. “Wishing for peace seems too facile, but perhaps wishing for an understanding heart and the way to defuse violence and meanness of spirit” -- this is where the toughest wars are fought, against our own facileness, violent thoughts and meanness of spirit, and where healing action for the world has to begin.
A beautiful piece Joanne, reconfirming faith in humanity and a higher being.