{"product_id":"come-shining-essays-and-poems-on-writing-in-a-dark-time","title":"Come Shining: Essays and Poems on Writing in a Dark Time","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat is the duty of writers when the shared life of the nation turns toward darkness?\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the first days of the new presidency of January 2017, twelve writers met together in Portland, Oregon to share our sense of mute, useless outrage, and ask: What should we be doing, as the nation turns toward lying, racism, and hatred? During an unusually stormy Portland winter, we came to see that reading and writing were a virtual commons, a public space where citizenship was reclaimed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe sought and collected work from writers across the country, essays and poems that asked: \u003cem\u003eWhat is this darkness?\u003c\/em\u003e And - maybe more important - What is the quality of light? We gathered them together in this book which we mean to mark our moment and to bear witness: this is how it was to watch darkness coming and cry out in opposition. This is how it feels to be human in a dark time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn dark times, the first rule is to find each other. This book is the meeting-space where we worked on democracy. We learned that if we seek the truth, it will show us more than we bargained for. From the Czech playwright\/president Vaclav Havel we learned to see that hope was a state of mind, a commitment...and that every true word we wrote was an act of resistance. For all truth-telling is an affront to would-be dictators.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe learned to write in hope. For in these essays and poems we saw that dark and unpropitious times also contain miracles of beauty, kindness, selflessness, and joy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJill Elliott\u003c\/strong\u003e lives, writes, and gardens in a small town on the Oregon Coast with her husband. She's been published in The Sun, The Ink-Filled Page, and Places Like Home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAlison Towle Moore\u003c\/strong\u003e grew up a military brat but finally has deep roots in the Pacific Northwest. She writes essays and poetry, makes pottery and tries to be conscious and helpful. On Instagram\/alison.towle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c!----\u003e","brand":"Itasca Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54526371856659,"sku":"9780982783825","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0948\/3521\/2563\/files\/9780982783825ita.jpg?v=1785851942","url":"https:\/\/danuc.net\/products\/come-shining-essays-and-poems-on-writing-in-a-dark-time","provider":"Danu's Wardrobe","version":"1.0","type":"link"}