Zarina Dara

The Women's List The Women’s List is a non-profit organization created by a volunteer group of WGA writers, DGA directors, and SAG actors, among others. Our goal is to make The Women’s List the go-to resource for over...

@thewomenslist.bsky.social are opening up their 2025 screenwriting search on Feb 13th. I say search, rather than contest because their mission is different. They are looking to promote production ready scripts written by women. In 2024 they selected 39. #scriptsky #womenwriters www.thewomenslist.org

I ran across this on FB... @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social - true, very true!!

people say “you need to start living in the real world” but they forget that the real world includes lupines and lightning bugs and ginger beer and starlight and sea coasts and Renoir paintings and Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos and fog banks and foxes playing in snow.

I mention this all the time in conversations and no one I speak to seems to have heard about it. theconversation.com/ai-is-a-mult...

the leaves fall and the woods fill with the sound of machines

Mel Nichols

Hundreds of authors have signed an open letter in support of Lisa Ko. Maxine Hong Kingston, Alexander Chee, Alissa Nutting, David Henry Hwang, Eugene Lim, Rachel Khong, Susan Abulhawa, Susan Bernofsky, Laura van den Berg, R. O. Kwon, Bryan Washington, Danzy Senna, an…

Hundreds of authors, including @vietthanhnguyen.bsky.social, @alexanderchee.bsky.social and @rokwon.bsky.social, call on NY State Writers Institute and PEN America to "issue a full correction" after vilifying Lisa Ko and Aisha Abdel Gawad for opposing war and genocide

lithub.com/hundreds-of-...

World Central Kitchen workers killed by Israeli airstrike, Gaza health ministry says An Israeli airstrike hit a car in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing five people, including at least three employees with the food aid charity. World Central Kitchen said that it was "urgently seeking more details."

An Israeli airstrike hit a car in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing five people, including at least three employees with the food aid charity. World Central Kitchen said that it was "urgently seeking more details."

Image reads Talking to Grief Ah, grief, I should not treat you like a homeless dog who comes to the back door for a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you. I should coax you into the house and give you your own corner, a worn mat to lie on, your own water dish.

Image reads You think I don’t know you’ve been living under my porch. You long for your real place to be readied before winter comes. You need your name, your collar and tag. You need the right to warn off intruders, to consider my house your own and me your person and yourself my own dog. — Denise Levertov

I first needed this Denise Levertov poem in the months after my father-in-law died. I've realized I also need it now.

I added a few more people, lovely Palestinians in Gaza.

Looking forward to adding more brilliant voices when they join

Come to Bluesky, please :)
Wizard Bisan, Susan Abulhawa, Mohammed el-Kurd, Yousef Munayyer, Noura Erakat, Makdisi brothers, Ramy Abdu, Mariam Barghouti
bsky.app/starter-pack...

On the VPN question, the department is suggesting that if someone uses a VPN to sign up, then the platforms would be expected to check their posts on social media to see if they're actually based where the VPN says they are.

Rennick asks the department what it will mean for young people with rare diseases to find each other.

Dept said: All that information should be on the internet so they can still go and google that disease and find someone with the disease.

Says people could then connect via messaging.

At the outset, however, we would like to record our concern with respect to the unreasonably short timeframe of one day that was given to interested parties to review, digest and collate submissions on this very significant legislative proposal. Correspondingly, our observations as set out in this letter are our initial, high-level, observations only, and should not be construed as a waiver of any of our legal rights or remedies, which are fully and expressly reserved. Further, we have serious concerns as to the lawfulness of the Bill, including its compatibility with other regulations and laws, including international human rights treaties to which Australia is a signatory, as further detailed below. Our mission at X is to promote and protect the public conversation. We believe X users have the right to express their opinions and ideas without fear of censorship. We also believe it is our responsibility to keep users on our platform safe from content that violates our Rules. Violence, harassment, and other similar types of behavior discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. X, as a platform, is not widely used by minors, currently has no lines of business that actively target minors, and does not allow advertisers to target minors. In line with our requirement that users must be 13 years of age to access the platform, we are currently examining dierent age assurance options, while carefully considering the legal global implications and privacy by design principles. While X agrees that robust strategies for mitigating the risk of harm to children are fundamental, we advocate for a balanced approach which protects children without compromising user privacy and freedom of expression. Implementing these strategies eectively requires global collaboration between regulators, industry, and child protection experts.

About 73 of the 15,000 social media ban submissions have been published so far. X questions the lawfulness of the bill

A restaurant board sign that reads: “we are not all in the same boat. We are in the same storm. Some have yachts. Some have canoes. And some are drowning. Just be kind and help when you can.

I love this.

Holding a grudge – is it a petty character flaw or a desire for justice in an unjust world? | First Dog on the Moon Who better to ask than corvids

Crows! What can they teach us about justice? More than you think (unless you are a crow reading this in which case hello) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Prairie Dawn, a tiny hot pink Muppet with blonde hair and a blue dress, reading Orlando by Virginia Wolfe.

Prairie Dawn, a tiny hot pink Muppet with blonde hair and a blue dress, holding The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Prairie Dawn, a tiny hot pink Muppet with blonde hair and a blue dress, reading A Room Of Ones Own by Virginia Wolfe.

Prairie Dawn, a tiny hot pink Muppet with blonde hair and a blue dress, reading The Bell Jar.

Did you know The Bell Jar, The Handmaid's Tale, The Feminine Mystique, and more all appeared on Sesame Street in the 90s?

The @muppetwiki.bsky.social team finally created a page for my favorite little-known running gag: Prairie Dawn's Feminist Literature collection muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Prairie...

The Pillars of Creation taken by JWST

Rising up.
My cartoon in today's The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

Poem published in Appalachian Review 50.1, Winter 2022

"Rain is falling on large areas in the #Gaza Strip while people are in dilapidated tents, no heating, no clothes, not even food, and we have very cold days ahead of us." #Palestine Photography: Osama Al-Kahlout An aerial picture of a displacement camp during the rains this morning. The rain should ease the next few days, but it will be a few very cold days ahead.

"Rain is falling on large areas in the #Gaza Strip while people are in dilapidated tents, no heating, no clothes, not even food, and we have very cold days ahead of us."

#Palestine

Photography: Osama Al-Kahlout

pro tip: don’t call something a “debate” when one side is just trying to defend their human rights and the other is trying to punish their existence.

I’ve had so many students in the past 2 weeks get slurs hurled at them and all of them said “It’s okay. I’m used to it.” And my retort is “you shouldn’t ever have to be used to it.”

Last night I found myself saying the same thing in relation to myself and… I’ve rarely felt a bigger whiplash.

Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 [Provisions] On 21 November 2024, the Senate referred the provisions of the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for report by 26...

ICYMI! Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 Inquiry established today. Submissions close tomorrow. Have your say! #auspol

A screenshot of a parliamentary committee website for the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024, allowing for submissions within the window of 24 hours.

as if this whole farce wasn't already deeply unserious, the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill has been referred to committee today, with a report due on November 26, leaving just a 24 hour window for the public to make submissions. www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

The government has introduced laws for its social media ban. But key details are still missing The ban will affect platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. But the bill is vague about how exactly these platforms must comply.

Some quick insight from me on the social media ban from me. In writing this I will also say hats off to @crikeynews.bsky.social, they are clearly one of the only news outlets that have done any real journalism around this awful policy and the road we've travelled. theconversation.com/the-governme...

Snapchat will not escape the government's proposed social media ban for under 16s The government will introduce its bill to parliament to ban under 16s from social media sites including X and TikTok, with hefty fines for flouting rules.

curious that the government have dropped so many of the details of the social media age verification bill ahead of its tabling in parliament, but not... its definition of social media

www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11...

Labor’s Social Media Ban for kids bill is a masterclass in incompetence.

The bill tells social media companies to take ‘reasonable steps’ to determine age without ever defining what that means.

That’s not governance, that’s a dereliction of duty.

Look at some of this mess.👇

Tweet that says if your concern with trans women is that men might claim to self-ID as trans to gain access to women’s spaces and assault them, then your problem is actually with predatory men and not trans women.

All of this.

YouTube video by Literary House A Poetry Workshop on Mental Health with Diane Seuss

I missed last night's reading & poetry workshop on mental health with Diane Seuss (@dseuss.bsky.social) Find it on YouTube: youtu.be/Run-qb_RM8c?...

A cartoon of NZ PM Chris Luxon in a blue suits with a white shirt and dark blue tie standing in front of a colourful protest crowd saying, “A review of Treaty principles, scrapping the Māori Health Authority, removing reference to The Treaty from laws, returning public sector names to English, opposing co-governance, Winston Peters claiming Māori aren’t indigenous to NZ, repealing the Fair Pay Agreement and smoke-free legislation… “What’s race-baiting about that?”

Bloody good work there, @rodemmerson.bsky.social