Josiah Neufeld

Why I Risked Arrest to Protest the Giller Prize’s Blood Money On November 13th 2023, a little over month into Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, the Giller Prize held its annual televised gala to award Canada’s biggest fiction prize. The broadcast was di…

"It is not that the police couldn’t find me. It’s that they chose instead to embark on a harassment campaign."

Finally Rachelle can tell her story about her role in the Giller protest and her harassment by police, details I've left out of my reporting until now.

lithub.com/why-i-risked...

Call your MP and ask them to oppose Bill C-5. It's a gift to the fossil fuel industry and a violation of Indigenous rights.

Inside the campaign that upended CanLit’s ties to Scotiabank and Israeli arms ⋆ The Breach The grassroots campaign that took on the Giller for its ties to the genocide in Gaza forced a broader reckoning in the Canadian literary community

These principled artists have worked hard and put a lot on the line to protest Canadian wealth that funds both the arming of a genocide and feel-good prestige arts awards. Arts philanthropy looks good, bombing people does not. We are lucky to have these people. breachmedia.ca/scotiabank-i...

"We can throw a wrench into the war machine": Why pro-Palestine Canadian authors are boycotting the Giller Prize - Toronto Life Comics artist and illustrator Michael DeForge, an organizer with CanLit Responds and No Arms in the Arts, on protesting the award's lead sponsor's stake in...

Hi Dora, many writers I've talked to have voiced similar feelings of ambivalence. I think this interview with Michael DeForge answers some of those questions really succinctly and clearly. I'm also happy to continue this conversation in DMs if you want. torontolife.com/culture/canl...

I'm grateful to all the tireless organizers who spoke to me for this piece.

If you live in Winnipeg Centre, I'd encourage you to get out today and vote for @leahgazan.bsky.social, an amazing champion for this neighbourhood, anti-poverty, rent control, 2SLGBTQ rights, MMIWG, Gaza, and climate justice. Few politicians I could support this wholeheartedly.

We lost the only true moral leader on the world stage.

It's immense.

But Pope Francis led by listening to the grassroots, lifting up the people's demands.

He put "ecological debt" in the climate encyclical, a concept that emerged in Ecuador's oil-poisoned jungle.

Millions of leaders remain.

Giller Foundation, lead sponsor Scotiabank end partnership The foundation that administers the Giller Prize didn’t say why the partnership ended, but the sponsorship has recently come under fire over a Scotiabank subsidiary’s investment in an Israeli arms com...

Giller Foundation cuts ties with Scotiabank—bravo, finally. Congratulations to the activists who lead the campaign to compel this change, and hoping it leads banks to yet further divestment from weapons-makers.

www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/a...

!!!!

Looking forward to this!

The Politics of “Common Sense” Is Making Us Meaner | The Walrus Cutting services is treated like conventional wisdom. But it has led to a world that fails many of us

"Austerity is self-perpetuating. The reluctance to invest what’s needed in public programs means that those programs often disappoint, creating a vicious circle—underfunded programs don’t deliver the services we need, our trust in government is undermined." thewalrus.ca/common-sense...

As Europe did in wake of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, we need to rapidly make ourselves less dependent on oil & gas. These fuels are poison, not only to the earth but to democracy; the more reliant we are, the more it serves the petro-oligarchs and their political servants like Putin & Trump...

How Prairie Mennonites took on a uranium refinery in the 1970s and won | Broadview Magazine Near Warman, Sask., a young philosophy student helped start a movement that halted the project

And finally, one from 2023. I collaborated with the brilliant Jonathan Dyck for this work of comics journalism that won gold at the @canadamediaawards.bsky.social. broadview.org/eldorado-ura...

How the Giller Prize Became Associated with Genocide | The Walrus Scotiabank’s military investments have tainted one of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards

Literary prizes should cut ties with companies building weapons being used to kill children, Omar El Akkad told me when I talked to him for this piece. thewalrus.ca/giller-prize...

Exploring the new wave of 'cli-fi,' where climate catastrophe meets fiction | Broadview Magazine Billionaires play the villains in two recent Canadian novels

My best sentence of 2024 included the term "bad-boy billionaire" and appeared in this double book review. broadview.org/exploring-th...

Why child poverty is rising in Canada again | Broadview Magazine Pandemic CERB payments helped lift thousands of kids out of poverty. But the effect was short-lived

In March I published this piece about what the pandemic showed us about how we could end child poverty. broadview.org/child-povert...

A person in a sweater and scarf standing outside in the snow holding a book titled The Temple at the End of the Universe.

Ok, now that I've joined the masses migrating to a site not owned by an oligarchic billionaire, let me introduce myself with a thread of some of my writing from 2024.

What @creeclayton.bsky.social points out👇 is starkly visible in this documentary: gem.cbc.ca/yintah. Everyone should watch it.

Scott Gillingham on CBC lying about why he’s cutting library services at Millennium. Management, librarians, and advocates have all told him many times that the Community Connections space is a library service, answering the same questions people already asked, but in a low-barrier, supportive space

Hand holding proof copy of Is A River Alive?, with blue meanders over neon green background as design.

Received the first bound proof/ARC of Is A River Alive? today, 3.5 yrs after starting work on it.
Always an exciting waymark in a book’s journey.
Neon-zing meander art by @stanleydonwood.bsky.social
Lovely to hold it in hand: it exists!
Out 1 May next year: dedicated to the rivers & their guardians.

Deeply thoughtful interview with David Bergen.

Read Jody Chan’s Boycott Giller Speech On Monday night, the gala for the Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious literary award, took place at Toronto’s Park Hyatt hotel. The Giller Foundation has been dogged by controversy …

Read poet and organizer Jody Chan’s Giller Prize boycott speech: “Here, today, we throw our labour into the gears of the death machine.”

How the Giller Prize Became Associated with Genocide | The Walrus Scotiabank’s military investments have tainted one of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards

Some context: thewalrus.ca/giller-prize...

Person in a grey cardigan, black t-shirt and maroon pants reading from a book of poetry by Lee Maracle.

Nowhere I'd rather be on the night of the Giller Prize than in a room full of friends and writers reading aloud the work of Palestinian and Indigenous poets. Here I'm reading "Remembering Mahmoud 1976" from Lee Maracle's gorgeous book Talking to the Diaspora.

Hey Bluesky, I am excited by all the energy coalescing on this platform. It seems like a place for strategic thinking, which we badly need.

A few initial thoughts:

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