T.J. Jourian 🍉

Check out @taleenvoskuni.bsky.social's work. All 3 of her romance books are centered around bi Armenian women characters

Hello Writing Community! We are delighted to announce our Second Official Bluesky *** #MSWL Day *** February 26, 2026. 🎉🎉🎉

Agents + editors can post what they ✨wish✨ they had in their inboxes; writers can find their next best fit for querying.

Learn more: manuscriptwishlist.com/2025/01/the-...

imagine being this oblivious

tomorrow: leaflets air-dropped over the Twin Cities inform residents that unless they evacuate to certain designated zones they and their families will be treated as enemy combatants by the most moral ICE in the world

Finding Your Flow Through Dis/Connection Saturday, January 10 | 10am PT/1pm ET The Butterfly Effect Free monthly gathering QTBIPOC community Collective wisdom Details + RSVP bravespaceleadership.com/chrysalis

What's one practice that helps you connect when life pulls you off course?

🦋Saturday, January 10
🦋10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET
🦋Virtual and free

Whether you're navigating a crossroads or just need a community that gets it, pull up a chair. We'd love to see what kind of flow we can create together.

Details + RSVP: bravespaceleadership.com/chrysalis

💬What elements create "the zone" for you?
💬What pulls you away from it?
💬How can we reclaim interconnectedness with our higher selves?

No presentations or sales pitches. Just facilitated conversation where your wisdom matters & you leave with more clarity about the connections you want to cultivate

But our endless to-do lists and obsession with productivity pull us away from that flow. This Saturday @drbrianarao.bsky.social and I are holding space to explore dis/connection together in our FREE monthly gathering for QTBIPOC - The Butterfly Effect.

Real talk: The beginning of the new year can feel less like a fresh start and more like pressure to disconnect from what you actually need.

You know that feeling when you're so connected to your purpose, your work, your people, that everything just flows? That's the sweet spot.

Democrats Are Doing What They Do Best on Venezuela: Nothing Donald Trump staged an illegal coup. Chuck Schumer’s response? Empty words and meaningless parliamentary maneuvers.

What are the Democrats doing to call out the rapaciousness and the self-dealing hypocrisy of the Republican ruling caste in the wake of the Venezuelan coup? So far, as little as possible.
https://bit.ly/49oU9gy

If you're going into Zohran's term thinking he's going to "give you what you want" and not thinking of this time as one in which it'll be easier to organize for what you want. . .

I'm afraid you will find yourself very disappointed

Donate to Help save the Church, organized by Kale Gonzalez HELP THE CHURCH FIGHT ONGOING GENTRIFICATION: PLEASE READ Unfortunately, we have re… Kale Gonzalez needs your support for Help save the Church

FKA Church, one of LA's last DIY underground punk scenes which is currently housing several trans musicians, is in danger of being evicted if they don't raise another ~5k in the next day or so. Please donate or share this fundraiser if you can't!

www.gofundme.com/f/6r2je-help...

The Refaat Alareer Camp - by The Sameer Project The Sameer Project, a mutual aid organization led by three Palestinians in the diaspora, are the proud directors and funders of a tent encampment in Central Gaza that provides shelter and specialized ...

You know what to do! chuffed.org/project/1133...

Donations and attention to Palestinians always drop off during the holidays, and we're approaching a really long one. Use the time w/your loved ones to educate them about the fictitious 'ceasefire,' ongoing settler colonial genocide, and life-saving nature of mutual aid.

chuffed.org/project/1491...

Bari Weiss Praised El Salvador’s Dictator Before Spiking '60 Minutes' Story on His Torture Prison Weiss touted El Salvador’s brutal leader while her blog published jokes about Trump sending immigrants to the CECOT prison.

New: Months before Bari Weiss pulled the 60 Minutes segment on CECOT, her outlet The Free Press was joking about the megaprison Trump has lawlessly deported people to.

"The hottest campaign spot…the new Jeffrey Epstein jet…the place to see and be seen."

@andrewperez.bsky.social @swin24.bsky.social

I don’t ever want to hear anyone say “the raids aren't as bad.” this is the last 2 days.

lataco.com/daily-memo-d...

The U.S. Has Killed More than 100 People in Boat Strikes. We're Tracking Them All. The Intercept is keeping count of all publicly declared U.S. attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and the number of civilians killed.

THE U.S. HAS KILLED MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE IN BOAT STRIKES. WE’RE TRACKING THEM ALL.

The Intercept is keeping count of all publicly declared U.S. attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

theintercept.com/2025/11/17/t...

makes sense that a politician who has been flirting with anti-LGBTQ+ positions all year would embrace Regan (who infamously ignored the AIDS crisis during the 1980s)

ah yes, all workers should have the right to hurl racial slurs at black customers

Five Frames By T.J. Jourian/ Nonfiction /        I’m not sure what to make of this group yet.  It’s my first time meeting these dozen or so he/hims and they/thems, some with names I recognize from seeing them in ...

Five Frames is about 5 moments in my life marked by the variability with which masculinity has shown up - as violent, as prescriptive, as fun, as liberatory, as expansive.

Read it, enjoy it, hate it, decipher it, deconstruct it - talk to me about it!

www.theplentitudes.com/piece/five-f...

Five Frames By T.J. Jourian/ Nonfiction /        I’m not sure what to make of this group yet.  It’s my first time meeting these dozen or so he/hims and they/thems, some with names I recognize from seeing them in ...

I was def NOT expecting to have not 1, but 2 pieces published within days of each other - the 2nd in the late fall iss of The Plentitudes, a quarterly int'l literary journal, & also written in
@meganstielstra.bsky.social's Essay Collection in a Year course.

www.theplentitudes.com/piece/five-f...

"If politics is a dirty business, then there is no place for principle or sincerity. These qualities merely get in the way of what pragmatists routinely defeated by power like to call “winning.” “

“What does it mean to be pure in the political arena, which is universally considered dirty? It means nothing, which is the point of the accusation. It is a way of expunging anti-Zionism from the moral calculus of electoralism..." (cont.)

Palestine and the Politics of Purity - Steve Salaita Accusing anti-Zionists of “purity politics” is a lazy rhetorical evasion.

Salaita’s latest on thrusting “purist” to shut any dissent or criticism coming from the left is just [chef’s kiss].

stevesalaita.com/palestine-an...

She shouldn't have to keep doing this by herself. She is supposedly a member of a political party and every single one of her *colleagues* should be BLASTING the fascist in chief. ALL OF THEM. Where is the solidarity???

Federal authorities plan operation in Minnesota focusing on Somali immigrants, AP source says Federal authorities are preparing an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota, focusing on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S.

Officials prepare immigration operation in Minnesota that would focus on Somali immigrants, source tells AP, as Trump says he doesn't want Somalis in U.S.

ICE Sent 600 Immigrant Kids to Detention in Federal Shelters This Year. It’s a New Record. Under a zero tolerance policy, the first Trump administration separated immigrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. New data suggests separations are happening all over the count...

Some 600 immigrant kids have been sent to federal custody by ICE this year.

A 17-year-old was detained at a traffic stop because officers couldn’t make contact with his dad, who is deaf.

Another kid ended up in a shelter after making a wrong turn.

⭕️ Breaking: Israel kills again in Gaza, recycling the same excuse it used to defend killing kids over the weekend Israeli forces — which in the past week murdered two men in the West Bank after they had already surrendered (killings caught on video), and killed two children, ages 8 and 10, in Gaza while they collected firewood, later insisting the boys were “terrorists” who posed an “immediate threat” — now say they have killed another “terrorist” today in central Gaza. Israel claims the man crossed the “Yellow Line” into an Israeli-controlled area and again alleges he posed an “immediate threat” to its troops. As usual, Israel offered no evidence for any of these claims. 📷 Photo: Fadi and Jumaa’ Tamer Abu Asi, 8 and 10 years old, killed last week.

📷 Photo: Fadi and Jumaa’ Tamer Abu Asi, 8 and 10 years old, killed last week.

⭕️ Israel kills again in Gaza, recycling the same excuse it used to defend killing kids over the weekend

Israeli forces — which in the past week murdered 2 men in the West Bank after they had already surrendered (killings caught on video), & killed 2 children, ages 8 & 10, in Gaza while they...

Issue 52 ​*   Managing Editor: Edward Ahern    * *   Associate Editor: Alison McBain    * *    Special Features Editor: Matthew P.S. Salinas    * *    Poetry Editor: Mary Keating   * ​...

This is a micro version of that piece, of an evening in February that put me on the path to begin healing from a decade-long bout with crushing loneliness and fear of real intimacy. Thank you for loving me, habibti.

Enjoy! www.fairfieldscribes.com/issue-52.html

Thank you to Vanessa Mártir who facilitated the draft generator session on writing place (rest in power Dorothy Allison) that seeded “Stay or Go” and to @meganstielstra.bsky.social & Essay Collection in a Year (@storystudiochicago.bsky.social) cohort for helping me refine the fuller version.