In a reflective piece published on Literary Hub, a narrative medicine educator and speculative fiction author grapples with the challenges of continuing to write amid violence against artists and healers in America. Drawing on historical and literary figures, the essay emphasizes the role of storytelling in healing and resistance. It invokes Toni Morrison's words to argue that artists must work precisely during times of fear and uncertainty.
The essay, titled 'How Do We Keep Writing When They are Killing Poets?', was published on February 24, 2026, on Literary Hub. The author, who trained as a doctor and teaches narrative medicine, expresses personal anxiety over recent events, including the killing of poets and healers in American streets. She describes promising herself to avoid the news cycle but failing to do so, leading to constant fear and horror.
In her classrooms, she tells students that their work at the 'intersection of the stethoscope and the pen' can change the world, citing writers like Galeano, Cortázar, Allende, and Rushdie as dangerous to dictators. However, recent violence makes these lessons feel theoretical. The author questions how to write amid rapid chaos, feeling it selfish to seek metaphors or plot when others' lives are lost.
Quoting Toni Morrison's 2015 essay, the piece recalls a friend's admonition: 'No! No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!' Morrison urged refusing despair, speaking, writing, and using language to heal civilizations. The author extends this to counter harmful narratives, like the slogan 'make America great again,' which she sees as a violent story enabling violence against the marginalized.
Referencing the 1989 film 'Field of Dreams' starring Kevin Costner, the essay critiques nostalgia that razes diverse identities for a singular past. Instead, it advocates imagining new futures, quoting Morrison from 'The Source of Self-Regard': 'dream a little before you think.' It also draws on Arundhati Roy's 'The Pandemic is a Portal,' suggesting the COVID-19 era was a rehearsal for current struggles, and Walidah Imarisha's view that organizing is science fiction, freeing imaginations to challenge the status quo.
The author, who writes Bengali-inspired speculative fiction like the Kiranmala series ('The Serpent’s Secret') and 'Fire Queen' series, urges writers to use stories as tools for truth and community. Citing Ursula K. Le Guin on words leading to truth and freedom, and Nancy Mairs on shared experiences forming a chorus, the essay calls for radical imagination to seed a better world, even in dread.
