now

When the first crocuses appeared this year, I thought to myself, “We made it!” as though winter were a battle that we had survived. Now it’s April. The daffodils are blooming in Morningside Park, and the ornamental cherries are flaring their pink skirts along Central Park’s reservoir. I have never been a fan of practical jokes, hoaxes, or pranks, so April Fool’s Day is not a custom that I observe. April 1^st was, however, my Armenian grandmother’s chosen birthday. As an orphaned genocide survivor whose birthdate was inscribed in a lost family Bible, she knew neither the day nor the year of her birth. April brings spring showers, spring flowers, and in Armenian the word abril (ապրիլ) is both this month and the verb to live.

How do we live in this dystopian moment when mere minutes of reading the headlines is like sprinting through a raging fire? While walking down the avenue, I am struck by how normal and peaceful everything appears even as I am carrying with me the knowledge of the mass murder of schoolgirls in Iran, the targeting of journalists, medics, and other civilians in Lebanon, and the ongoing genocide against the people of Palestine. And then there are the domestic horrors. So, after I register all of this, I must find something doable and I must do it. I know you have heard this from me before, but I literally repeat these phrases in my head each day, sometimes more than once: The only recognizable feature of hope is action (Grace Paley); Choose your lane, find your people (Mariame Kaba); Freedom is a constant struggle (Angela Davis).

My WANN mentee Nadera wrote a beautiful, sad piece about celebrating Ramadan before and after the genocide. I’ve been going to weekly meetings of our neighborhood deportation defense rapid response (DDRR) group. I have also been working with the DSA-NYC Immigrant Justice Working Group and its efforts with the Purge Palantir coalition. I did some preliminary campaign research on Palantir—truly the stuff of nightmares. (If you want to see my draft research document, let me know and I’ll send it to you, but in the meantime, check out Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s latest shenanigans.) There was some good news this week as the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation announced they would not be renewing their contact with Palantir when it comes to an end in October. On another front, I’m collaborating with an autonomous group of fierce and clever writers on a campaign to hold a major cultural institution to account. We are finding moments of satisfaction, and, dare I say, joy in our work together.

Gathering in the real world with friends and family is another way of fostering light in dark times. James and I recently hosted a launch party for our friend Tim Mitchell’s brilliant new book The Alibi of Capital. In February, we restarted our old tradition of a monthly Sunday brunch. At our second gathering in March, as I looked around the table at our friends, I remembered lines from The Elder Edda (as translated from the Icelandic by Paul B. Taylor and W.H. Auden):

If you know a friend you can truly trust,

And wish for his good will,

Exchange thoughts, exchange gifts,

Go often to his house.

Finding these moments of connection make the work possible.

Yours in struggle,

Nancy

READ, LISTEN, LOOK

On March 13, The Burning Heart of the World was knocked out in the first round the Tournament of Books, but the judge’s reasoning and the conversation below were interesting. On March 27, I lost in the Zombie round, but there was some laudatory commentary.

In the good news department, a federal court has found that Columbia University may have acted as a government instrument to suppress Palestinian advocacy in violation of the First Amendment. This finding means the suit will go to discovery and all those emails between the craven trustees and their sketchy congressional partners will become public.

Via Mondoweiss Psychoanalysts are Resigning from the International Psychoanalytical Association over Its Anti-Palestinian Double Standard. Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou, a New York analyst and theorist, named something rarely spoken publicly: that the IPA’s silence has ‘created a permissive professional atmosphere in which Zionist analysts feel entitled to eruptions — saying racist and discriminatory things to their patients and supervisees — both in the consulting room and on our email lists.’

Arundhati Roy on the war against Iran: Any regimes that need changing, including the US, Israel, and ours, need to be changed by the people, not by some bloated, lying, cheating, greedy, resource-grabbing, bomb-dropping imperial power and its allies who are trying to bully the whole world into submission.

We Live in a Time of Monsters—a message from Beirut by Lina Mounzer: But we have learned from Gaza that there is no rule of law, and there are no repercussions for the crimes of the powerful.

Listen to the brilliant Aslı Ü. Bâli via Jewish Currents’ On the Nose Podcast.

Via Instagram. Enjoy these Heated Rivalry themed posters from 28 March No Kings Day. And take the Heated Rivalry Quiz (should I be proud or embarrassed to say that I knew all the answers?).

Nancy Kricorian

January was a tumultuous and disturbing month: field executions in the streets of Minneapolis; ICE and CBP running amok in Minnesota, Maine, and elsewhere; the continuing retail slaughter in Gaza; and Jared Kushner’s hideous plans for the same, to name just a few of the outrages. I forced myself to take my news in small doses so as not to be stewing around the clock with grief and rage.

Fortunately, I was able to distract myself with knitting, which is a form of meditation for me. There is something about the steady and repetitive motion of hands and needles that calms my central nervous system. There is also satisfaction in completing a project that results in a useful item of clothing. A friend of mine had a baby right after Christmas, and I knit her an Easy Peasy Baby jacket.

Another much-needed distraction was a rather steamy six-part series on HBO Max based on a series of popular novels about gay hockey players. If you somehow have managed not to hear about it, Heated Rivalry has spawned a frenzy of social media posts, memes, jokes, analyses, and even look-alike contests. I know people who have watched all six episodes two or more times. The show’s stars, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, were presenters at the Golden Globes, appeared at fashion shows in Milan and Paris, and carried the Olympic torch in Italy. And they are just getting started. Storrie is set to host Saturday Night Live on February 28. My interest in—shall we say obsession with—Heated Rivalry has resulted in a domestic ban on my talking about it. Luckily for me I have a few friends who are equally obsessed, and there are tens of thousands of others in the same situation so there’s plenty of information, images, and comic material to consume. If I had to pick one word to encapsulate the show’s draw, I would say it is not actually the sex, but the YEARNING. (Akin to the PG-rated teen yearning in another series I loved the first season of: Heartstopper.) If you have watched Heated Rivalry or do watch it, drop me a line. I’d love to know what you think. At the very least it will take your mind off the political dumpster fire we are living through for an hour or more.

And back to that dumpster, the Department of Justice’s release 3 of million new documents from the Epstein files at the end of last week has resulted in the resignation of David A. Ross, the chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Program. His exchanges with the late convicted sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein were truly repellent. The whole trove of documents opens up a ghastly vision of rich and powerful people, primarily white men, swimming in a swill of impunity, self-congratulation, and patriarchal entitlement. It was grim to see Noam Chomsky’s chummy emails to Epstein as part of this. I do hope someone will do a deep dive investigative piece on Epstein’s purported links to the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad. The saddest aspect for me is to think about all the girls—children as young as fourteen years old—who were lured by Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their collaborators and then abused by this network of creeps who until now have not been held accountable for their crimes.

These details about Epstein and Company are giving me nightmares and making me feel like we’re living either in an episode of Law and Order SVU or in the 2008 BBC production of Henning Mankell’s Sidetracked.

Time to start knitting. Yesterday I bought the yarn I need to make this Melt The Ice Hat and I’m going to cast on the first stitches tonight.

Yours,

Nancy K

P.S.

If you’re in Los Angeles, I will be reading with Randa Jarrar on the evening of Friday, 27 February at Watermelon Books. It’s a brand new bookseller devoted to Palestine that has a sister location in Amman, Jordan. Randa and I will be featured at their inaugural public event in L.A.. The link to register is here.

My novel The Burning Heart of the World in included in Mizna’s favorite SWANA books of 2025

On February 3^rd, The Nation hosted an online “Day for Gaza,” turning their website over to stories from Gaza and its people.

Listen to this great podcast interview with Corey Doctorow and Lina Khan discussing his book Enshittification.

As 2025 draws to a close, I wanted to recommend a few of the best books I have recently read.

Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer. Neige Sinno tells the story of being sexually abused by her stepfather from the age of seven to thirteen, and examines literary, psychological, and cultural portrayals of and reactions to child sexual abuse and incest. I read this memoir in two days and was completely bowled over by its fierce intelligence. Words Without Borders published a fascinating interview with Sinno and her English translator.

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy. A profound and moving memoir by internationally acclaimed writer Arundhati Roy, whose mother was a feminist icon in India as well as a difficult and at times abusive parent. It is a double portrait of mother and daughter that is honest and infused with unexpected grace. Listen to Mehdi Hasan’s great podcast interview with Arundhati.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. First published in 1855, Gaskell’s novel about the differences between the rural south and the industrial north of England was described by one recent reader as “Pride and Prejudice for Socialists.” The conflict and inevitable romance between proud and idealistic Margaret Hale and hard-nosed industrialist John Thornton made the pages fly by. I also loved the 2004 BBC adaptation (despite the corny ending—the novel’s final lines were so much better).

Counterpunch’s Joshua Frank included my novel in his own Favorites of 2025 list! I’m still thrilled about its having been selected for the Tournament of Books shortlist—and the mention here on BookRiot. And if you’re on Goodreads and have read The Burning Heart of the World, please do leave a review or a rating. It helps increase awareness of the book. The same applies to LibraryThing and The StoryGraph.

As the genocide in Gaza grinds on through a blockade that leaves people in flooded and collapsing tents during winter storms, while hunger and lack of medicine continue to weaken and kill the most vulnerable, and Israel’s campaign of retail (rather than wholesale) murder rolls on, my friend and mentee Nadera has sent me a fundraising appeal for her family. “This money will help my family with living expenses: school and university fees for myself and my five siblings, rent for our apartment, clothes for all of us, water, electricity, food, and so on. As you know, the war stole everything from us, even my dad’s work. Thank you for your understanding!” If you would like to donate, please message me and I will give you the PayPal information for her cousin, who is collecting funds on Nadera’s behalf.

In early December, I spoke with Tamar Shirinian and Milena Abrahamyan on their Other Armenias podcast. We talked about my novels, writing, and solidarity. And Rebecca Evans wrote about our interview on the December episode of the Writer-To-Writer show on Radio Boise. It was actually a delight to speak with Rebecca and her co-host Ken Rodgers.

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but as Grace Paley put it, “The only recognizable feature of hope is action.” To wit, I have recently rejoined the Immigrant Justice Working Group of DSA NYC. May we create more light and more justice in 2026.

Sirov,

Nancy

Nancy Kricorian, December 2025

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends, I to my own heart, I to seek among phrases and fragments something unbroken…

 ~ Virginia Woolf, The Waves

For the past two years, when people ask me how I am doing, I have found myself saying, “Genocide, climate catastrophe, and fascist takeover aside, on a personal level, I am okay.” But a quick perusal of newspaper headlines or the update from WTF Just Happened Today undoes that sense of feeling okay. Rather than asking people how they are, I now tend to greet them with, “I’m so happy to see you!” Because in this dystopian time, being together with loved ones, comrades, and like-minded friends is the best balm for the spirit.

Where do you go for solace? A Palestinian friend of mine who lives in Ramallah says working in her garden is the only thing that keeps her sane. Another friend has taken up quilting. Lately, to distract myself, I have been reading 19^th Century English novels and then watching their BBC adaptations. I very much enjoyed Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and the 1996 television serial.

I also wanted to share some information with you about Alphabet/Google—and specifically Gmail—and what you need to do to protect your information. Without alerting users, Alphabet has defaulted Gmail settings so that its Gemini AI program can scrape data from your account, including all emails and attachments, for training purposes. A lawsuit against the company and its Gemini practices has been filed in California. You can read about how to disable Gemini and its scraping of your data, whereby the company is effectively spying on everything you do within Alphabet’s various apps and platforms. When you disable Gemini, you lose its tools, such as spellcheck and the sorting of emails into categories, but this seems like a small price to pay to protect your data and privacy.

Wishing you as much comfort and light as possible this holiday season and in the new year. May our daily practices of kindness and resistance make the world a little brighter.

Fond regards,

Nancy

READ AND LISTEN

An interesting piece by Adam Tooze on Zohran Mamdani’s win and the way forward

The former chair of Africana Studies at Bowdoin College via LitHub on why he would prefer not to talk to the New York Times about Zohran Mamdani.

Hamza Salha’s piece in the Limerick Voice: ‘When I saw Ireland, I Cried’: Palestinian Students Escape War to Study at UL.

Spencer Ackerman blasts a former Obama speechwriter’s viral video from the Jewish Federation conference: Sarah Hurwitz Profanes the Holocaust

PalFest Podcast episode “A choice between extermination and justice”: Ta-Nahisi Coates interviews Tareq Baconi.

International Armenian Literary Association (IALA) holiday book guide (with my latest novel at the top of the list).

Nancy Kricorian

I have known Zohran Mamdani and his parents since he was eight years old and in the same third grade classroom with our elder child at the Bank Street School. We have been friends of the family since that time. My spouse James and Zohran’s dad Mahmoud were founding faculty members of Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies. James was the studio executive at Focus Features who greenlit his mother Mira Nair’s film adaptation of Vanity Fair. It’s almost surreal to have witnessed Zohran’s meteoric rise in the past six months. Last night as our family watched the elections returns—Noah and I were in Morningside Heights, James was on a trip to Los Angeles, and Djuna joined a thousand DSAMembers at the Masonic Temple in Fort Greene, Brooklyn—we were texting each other photos, memes, and updates and then sharing our jubilation when the election was called on his behalf.

James said to me this morning, Now they know the only way to stay in power is a fascist putsch, so it’s going to be dangerous. But, as my friend Rebecca put it, at least the fight is on. And we won’t only be fighting the horsemen of the apocalypse (as I call the current administration) but the Democratic “centrists” who seem to be more afraid of the left wing of their party and anti-genocide protesters than they are of the authoritarian, grifting racists they are putatively in opposition to.

Let’s take a moment to celebrate Zohran’s inspiring and historic win. And then let’s get back to work.

Fond regards,

Nancy