Peterson Toscano

"I’d love to share a writing exercise I learned from a scientist I consulted with often while writing Held. This is an exercise a biology teacher once gave her, and she now gives her students."
Kathryn shares a reading exercise that I will try today (even though it is -11 C today 🥶 )

Congratulations. Thanks for letting the world know about the world of writers!

This ep not only reveals some of the mysteries of Quaker worship, but it also provides a template for creating a seeker-friendly worship experience.
Oh, and Ted Lasso, Dorothy Gale, and Gumby make cameo appearances!

Listen to Quakers Today wherever you get podcasts.
Or visit quakerstoday.org

Gravitational Pull: From Period Products to Our New North Star Every once in a while, the universe gives you a tug. Not a gentle tap on the shoulder—a full-on gravitational yank that pulls you out of wha...

The new episode of the Bubble & Squeak podcast spans period poverty, climate poetry, and an interplanetary ritual for Earth’s next North Star.
It’s a journey.
Gravitational Pull: From Period Products to Our New North Star
p2sontoscano.blogspot.com/2025/12/grav...

Please welcome Eliot S. Ku, who brings a short story, “Any Way That The Damage Doesn’t Show,” about one hellish night for an ER doctor facing an embarrassment of patients at unlikelystories.org/content/any-... #fiction #smallpress #litmag

"I'm gonna get through this world, I'm gonna work in this world, I'm gonna walk in this world, I am gonna talk in this world, I'm gonna clean up this world, I'm gonna leave this world behind, the best I can." ~ Woody Guthrie

He also described as "blatant misinformation" Trump's repeated claims that South Africa was committing "genocide against Afrikaners" - descendants of Dutch settlers - and confiscating land from white citizens.

Graphic for World AIDS Day 2025 showing a Black woman standing on a higher red ledge reaching down to pull up a Black man on a lower red ledge, with the words ‘World AIDS Day | 2025’ on the bottom.

No one can take that away from us, nor the forty-plus years of organizing, demanding, and caring for each other when institutions would not.

No one can erase World AIDS Day or our collective efforts to end the epidemic

#WAD2025

December 1. 2025. World AIDS Day. For those gone and for those who fought so the rest of us could live. We remember you.

Be fruity and submit!

spongebob squarepants is sitting at a table in a diner holding a cup of coffee . ALT: spongebob squarepants is sitting at a table in a diner holding a cup of coffee .

So it is an existential question

Is it comedy, tragedy, or performance art?

Why, yes, we publish on holidays, and have something very cool to share with you today. R.S. Nelson is back, with her essay on living in fear, fighting for change and America as an abused spouse, “My Mother’s America,” at unlikelystories.org/content/my-m... #Thanksgiving #America #smallpress #litmag

Thanks!

cite your source

And thank You!

Throughout history, people have tried to frighten the masses into believing the world will end, plunging us all into eternal torment. In Christian circles, this is often associated with "the Rapture."

Quakers (usually) don't get caught up in these panics—why not?

quaker.org/2025/11/24/y...

"M and L are products of the Age of Anxiety, and commensurately insufferable because of it. They are the type of liberals that conservatives love to mock, because their contradictions outweigh their certainties by a factor of hilariousness. But as annoying as they may be, they are relatable."

The conference marked an unprecedented moment in the history of international organisations — the US, as a nation central to an organisation’s creation, had declined to participate in its deliberations.

After a wrongful detention, 33 days behind bars, a judge’s fateful intervention and a community-wide campaign to secure his release, Ruperto was free.

He was shot in the head and body with pepper balls as he was praying outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Broadview, Illinois, in September, according to a video captured that day.

Lili Wood
Pres de La Chapelle, 2022
Gouache on paper
20 x 26 cm

Have you sat in silent worship and had your mind spin out of control? I can totally relate. Centering is not always peaceful; sticking with it has enriched me. Listen to Quakers Today podcast as we demystify the internal experience of "waiting worship."
www.quakerstoday.org
@friendsjournal.org

a cartoon drawing of a phone with a cassette tape on it that says b voicemail ALT: a cartoon drawing of a phone with a cassette tape on it that says b voicemail

What do you believe now that you didn't believe before encountering Quakerism?
(our latest Quakers Today monthly question!)
Share a comment or leave a voicemail: 317-QUAKERS (317-782-5377)
www.quakerstoday.org

Surendra Tamang was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease while doing construction in Qatar. He spent 6 years toiling in temps as high as 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Today, he spends 12 hours a week in the clinic for his dialysis treatment. “I would like to work,” he said, “but it’s not possible.”

Longtime Unlikely contributor John Grey is back, with two poems on speckled ducks, falling angels, and Laos in 1986 at unlikelystories.org/content/ange... #poetry #litmag #smallpress

YouTube video by Friends Journal Quakers Writing as Contemplation

Writing is essential to helping me think clearly.
Hear the entire conversation youtu.be/qpUE0lK033g?...

youtube.com/shorts/vURHc...
@friendsjournal.org

We cover a lot of ground on this episode and help demystify the Quaker worship experience

"Thank you, Butterball Turkey,

for the word, butterball, which I repeat all day butterball,
butterball, butterball because it helps me swallow the bones

of genocide. Thank you, dark meat, for being so juicy
(no offense, dry and fragile white meat, you matter too). "

youtu.be/UNu4KTmKKts?...

Thanksgiving in the Plantationocene by Craig Santos Perez
A Reading by the Author
youtu.be/UNu4KTmKKts?...