Going to Hedgebrook was a transformative experience for me. I was already a published author before I went, but the experience of going to Hedgebrook… - Sarah Ladipo Manyika

There are some in this book, like Michelle Obama, for example, who used the platforms they were given to effect change while others, such as Evan Mawarire, created a movement from the bottom up to speak truth to power. The twelve featured are a tiny subset of many others doing extraordinary things. My hope is that Between Starshine and Clay will inspire more writers to capture such stories and histories.

I’m thinking a lot about the fraught state of our world including the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza. I’ve just started reading The Ukraine by writer Artem Chapeye, who is currently fighting for his country, as well as The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi. I’m also re-reading David Grossman’s To the End of the Land.

I wonder if I should explain that it’s not that I don’t want to make love, only that after a long day of attending to others I’m craving space.