We started SASS as a reaction to the rise of fascism. Now that fascism is here, we want to know how we can continue to be here for you. This March we’ll be having a one-year anniversary meeting for the community to gather feedback and get together. We’ll also be moving to quarterly newsletters, so look for the next one around May 1, where among other things, we’ll discuss a book drive for Orlando in August! In the meantime check out the Facebook group for more info, events, and writing sessions.

• Writing session with Kris Bryant Saturday, February 21st at 10 am CT

News Roundup

By Cindy Rizzo

Starting Off With the Good News

The organization We Need Diverse Books has formed the Unbanned Book Network, which will donate books by authors who have been banned and select Author Ambassadors for school districts facing bans. WNDB plans to start with 20 “under-resourced” schools in states where bans are most prevalent, including Texas and Florida.

Publishers and free expression advocates have responded with numerous initiatives, including a “Banned Wagon Tour” by Penguin Random House and the coalition United Against Book Bans, with partners ranging from the publishers HarperCollins and Hachette Book Group to the library association and the Authors Guild. Publishers also have initiated or supported anti-banning legal action in Utah, Iowa, and other states.

Unfortunately, Here’s the Bad

• The anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-trans agenda of the current administration is having a tangible effect on publishing. Fewer LGBTQ+ books are being acquired and published as a direct result.

• Bridget Ziegler, one of the original Moms for Liberty founders (and yes, the one embroiled in a sex scandal) and now chair of the Sarasota School Board, has made it clear that the district should collaborate with ICE. This week, they voted to collaborate with ICE and other law enforcement agencies. This is a direct call to harm marginalized young people and their families in Sarasota. It isn’t the books. It’s the people represented by those books that are deemed ban-worthy. Worth noting here that students protested the move, but as has become crystal clear, those impacted by cruel school policies don’t actually get their voices heard.

• A great editorial about what’s happening in Florida censorship by Stephana Ferrell, leader of the Florida Freedom to Read Project.

  • And, another look at Florida from Pen America: Florida Is Doubling Down on Book Bans. Help Us Fight Back. - PEN America

• For the 2026 legislative session, state legislators have introduced bills that would drive the state’s book-banning crisis to unimaginable heights. Prohibiting the freedom to read remains a priority of the Florida government, all to the detriment of Florida students, parents, educators, librarians, and community members

• A Texas A&M University professor was told to remove Plato from their class syllabus, due to anti-DEI, anti-"gender ideology" laws. Here’s a piece about the long history of sexuality and Plato.

• Arkansas will ban all physical books, magazines, and newspapers coming into prisons for individuals starting February 1 . This is the strictest ban on sending reading material to prisons in the country. Advocates worry this will launch similar efforts nationwide.

• Alamo Heights ISD (TX) canceled an author visit by Chris Barton because his nonfiction book about the history of glitter mentions LGBTQ+ people. Please also read this piece from Barton about the experience.

• Conroe Independent School District (TX) has banned from elementary schools the children’s picture book biography I Am Billie Jean King because there is a reference to the fact–the fact–that King was in a same sex relationship.

Writing for Good

by Anna Burke

I’ve been thinking a lot about Renee Good. ICE has killed 8 people in 2026 alone, including Renee, and all of them deserve remembrance. In 2025, 32 people died in ICE custody. I’ve been thinking about Renee in particular because she was a queer poet, and therefore a member of our community--a writer who believed in kindness and hope, two things I’ve personally been struggling to hold onto, both personally and in my own work.

Renee’s wife, Becca, released a statement to the media that I’ve included below. In it, she says, Renee believed “we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.” This resonated with me because if there is one thing I can say about our sapphic literary community, it is that we are committed to being here for one another, whether we’re raising money for members of our community hit by tragedy and health catastrophes, raising awareness about social issues, or even just providing each other with the simple, unbelievably powerful comfort of friendship. Renee stood for that, and her death is a devastating loss.

In graduate school I took a class on twentieth century poets. A shocking number of them were put to death by various fascist regimes, because poetry has always been dangerous to would-be-dictators. Poetry cuts to the heart of the truth. My professor liked to say that it is the poet’s duty to bear witness. Renee wasn’t targeted because she was a poet, but she was killed for a poet’s beliefs: she died bearing witness to the horrors happening in her hometown, and she died because the powers that be couldn’t bear to hear the truth--that we don’t hate each other the way they want us to. That we’re “not mad” at them in the divisive way they’re counting on.

As writers, it falls on us to take in what is happening to the extent we are able--to bear witness to the cruelty of this moment and the beauty of our resistance. 

Here is Becca Good’s full statement:

“First, I want to extend my gratitude to all the people who have reached out from across the country and around the world to support our family.

This kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her.

Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.

Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.

Like people have done across place and time, we moved to make a better life for ourselves. We chose Minnesota to make our home. Our whole extended road trip here, we held hands in the car while our son drew all over the windows to pass the time and the miles.

What we found when we got here was a vibrant and welcoming community, we made friends and spread joy. And while any place we were together was home, there was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever.

We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.

On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.

Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father. I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.

We thank you for the privacy you are granting our family as we grieve. We thank you for ensuring that Renee’s legacy is one of kindness and love. We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.”

You can read her poem, “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs” here.

Action Item

Here’s a good list of places where you can support the resistance in Minneapolis/St. Paul, including helping queer-owned bookshops and other queer-owned businesses: https://www.autostraddle.com/how-to-do-something-for-ice-occupied-minneapolis/

Is Writing Romance Resistance?

by Anna Burke

America has always been a little fascist. They don’t teach us this explicitly in school, but it’s there between the lines, and people of color and indigenous folks have been pointing this out for generations. As a society we’re pretty damn good at rounding people up and putting them in camps, so good, in fact, that we’ve inspired other world leaders to do the same--Hitler was particularly enthralled by our past experiments. The uniforms change, but the evil remains the same. Yet there’s also always been a strong and vibrant resistance to this fascist tendency, which we know from the stories of resistance fighters, orators, faith leaders, and writers. America is both.

But where does writing romance fall under “resistance?” Romance is a genre often belittled by critics, (notably because it is a genre consumed, statistically, by women, and sexism is alive and well) and sometimes that criticism creeps into my subconscious. That, however, is fascism at its most insidious. Is there anything more radical these days than human connection? The war on empathy would have us all at each other’s throats, and romance does the opposite--it celebrates people coming together against the odds.

That being said, I’m hardly in a romantic mood these days. It’s hard to focus on things like stomach butterflies and that heady, first kiss feeling when I want to punch a literal nazi. Nothing screams “falling in love” like watching toddlers taken into ICE custody. Yet when I’m feeling overwhelmed and in need of comfort, where do I turn?

Books. Always books. And those stories of human connection refill my well. So I remind myself again and again that if books bring me comfort, then by writing I can bring comfort to others. Stories of love and resistance can empower us. But how, I keep asking myself, do I muster the emotional energy required to write? I’m angry about so many things, but chief among them is the way this regime keeps stealing my hope. I didn’t realize how important hope was to my writing process, but it makes sense. Writing is an act of creation, and creation implies hope for a future they are actively trying to destroy for many of us.

I recently came across a quote from Ursula K LeGuin’s 1982 novel The Princess.

“There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May all of you shine very bright and steady, today and always.”

It reminded me that this has always been the writer’s fight: to bring light to our readers despite the forces against us. Today, I am granting myself permission to be as brave as the characters I write, and to hold on to hope despite the seductive call of despair. I invite you to join me.

The SASS newsletter provides our community with information, analysis, resources, and even short sapphic fiction to keep us informed, mobilized, and connected. By working together to defend our community, our literature and our livelihoods, we can surmount the obstacles placed in our path and thrive!