At the recent So Cal chapter meeting, about 25 people gathered in member David Trujillo’s lovely Los Angeles backyard with its fruitful orange tree and bubbling Buddha fountain. National Writers Union members present included Trujillo, Ismael Parra, September Williams (No Cal), Dan McCrory, Eric Gordon, Elle Febbo, Marilyn Grunwald and myself. Everyone was encouraged to […]
Cool Kids Rock Netroots 2016
All the cool kids attended the recent Netroots Nation 2016 in St. Louis. It was the perfect place to be trans, a reproductive rights advocate, pushing the climate change conversation, advancing a pro-labor agenda, or leading a march through the streets of the city chanting “Black Lives Matter!” So, of course, the National Writers Union […]
President’s Report ~ December 2015
2015 In Review We may look back on 2015 as a watershed year for the NWU: We made difficult decisions and long-needed changes that could give our union a new lease on life. For example, this year the national office cut expenses by more than $60,000, while our delegates approved a modest dues increase for […]
NWU Meets the Zhejiang Provincial Writers Association
New York, January 13 – Today was the second and final meeting between NWU and visiting writers and playwrights from the Zhejiang Provincial Writers Association of China. Today’s meeting was hosted by the CUNY Murphy Institute’s US-China Exchange Project. It was an insightful sharing, where in the advent of globalization, the Chinese people and government […]
NWU Attends UAW Civil and Human Rights Conference
“Remembering Our Past, Building Our Future!” served as the theme of the recent 31st United Auto Workers (UAW) Annual Civil and Human Rights Conference. About 300 of us attended the August 30-September 4 event at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Michigan. It was an idyllic setting with verdant trees, a […]
NWU Picnic a Breeze
Nineteen people attended the National Writers Union, New York Chapter’s annual picnic on Saturday, August 23, at Riverside Park in Manhattan. The ambiance was perfect. The Hudson River, shimmering blue like Apache jewelry, offered bountiful breeze, and the trees, limbs stretched out like tents and dressed in grand, garden-green, served as shade from the sun; […]
The Passions of Eleanor: NWU member book and chapter-hosted play spotlight Eleanor Roosevelt
From 1933 to 1945, labor supporter Eleanor Roosevelt was First Lady of the United States. A recent book by NWU Member, Brigid O’Farrell, and an upcoming play hosted by SoCal NWU members explore the longest-serving First Lady’s passions. On the Stage: On Saturday, Nov. 22, SoCal NWU and & SoCal Arbeter Ring present the […]
The UAW and the Women’s Movement
In a September, 2014, keynote address, Brigid O’Farrell of the NWU Bay Area celebrated union women who were active in both the labor movement, and the second wave feminist movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. “To say the movement was all elite white women is to silence the voices of working class women and women […]
STAND WITH CHARLESTON
The massacre of parishioners and their pastor in an historic African-American church in Charleston, SC, is just the most recent example of growing racist terror in this country. It brings to mind the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, in 1963. Then, grown men planted a bomb that killed four young […]