prompt support posts.. finally!
Announcement that I have started to share “prompt support posts” for the Read, Seed, Water, Feed reading challenge that I'm hosting on Storygraph.
This is a brief announcement that I have started to share what I’m calling “prompt support posts” for the Read, Seed, Water, Feed reading challenge that I’m hosting on Storygraph.
I initially created the reading challenge prompts out of my personal reading patterns and interests, and I have written more about this across a series of posts. I have been trying to find a way to share the books, in a way that applies and reflects what I've learned. I have needed to stretch my current understanding of how to create graphics, and along the way, I reflected on much more that I will write about separately.
At the beginning of each prompt support post, there is a section that outlines what to expect. I have copied it below.
Each prompt/topic will have a prompt support post. They can be viewed by selecting "Reading Challenge" from the menu.
about prompt support posts
All of the prompt support posts (those that begin with "2025: Book written by...", for example) are organized similar to each other.
Each of these posts was created to support the Read, Seed, Water Feed book challenge on Storygraph that I am hosting. They were also created to support learning outside of the university, collective educational efforts, finding new authors to read, finding books, and more.
For each book challenge prompt, I will share the following sections:
- one or more slides with books I have read or am currently reading that I recommend for the prompt
- a list of additional books from my TBR (to-be-read) list for the prompt
- a text listing of the books that I shared in the slides
I might share one or more of the following in addition, depending on capacity and other factors:
- other supportive text as appropriate, such as countries included
- some quotes, notes, and/or reflections about one or more of the books
- links to other posts on the site where I discuss the books or prompt in more detail
I did many things to minimize hierarchy within these posts, and there will still be some things that might feel odd, such as split galleries of slides, which was a choice made to address current limitations in how the galleries work.
Mostly, my goal for prompt support posts is to share books for each prompt, as suggestions and as examples. This section will be first on every post and may be skipped. More background on the prompts, other reflections, and bingo cards can be found at "Reading Challenge," listed in the site menu.
Thank you for reading.
explore..
The page below lists ONLY prompt support posts. You can also access the page at https://water.ghost.io/bookchallenge. To view other posts related to the reading challenge, select "Reading Challenge" in the menu. I have posted prompt support pages for 8 prompts, and will continue to add more over the next few weeks.
link to page that lists only the prompt support posts
Here's a link to the first prompt post. It is also one of the few posts in which quotes, notes, and reflections are shared.
Cead
link to first prompt support post
Join the reading challenge on Storygraph:
link to view or join reading challenge on Storygraph
Prompt support posts are posted in the order the prompts are listed on the bingo card, the organization of which was partly random.
Cead
link to bingo cards
a few notes
For me, this is beyond a book challenge, but part of learning outside of the media, outside of university, outside of state-sponsored propaganda, outside of much more.
So many of the books I share helped me along my own journey of brain recovery, of healing, and of isolation. They continue to help me in how I understand the world and what we need to do to create one that, in the words of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, is not "anti-people." Here, he described the Kenyan government's response to a community-wide effort to create community theater with, by, and for the people,
Later they were driven away, not by the rain, not by any natural disaster, but by the authoritarian measures of an anti-people regime. On 16 November 1977 the Kenya government banned any further public performances of Ngaahika Ndeenda by the simple act of withdrawing the licence for any public ‘gathering’ at the centre. I myself was arrested on 31 December 1977 and spent the whole of 1978 in a maximum security prison, detained without even the doubtful benefit of a trial. They were attempting to stop the emergence of an authentic language of Kenyan theatre.
But that was not the end of Kamĩrĩĩthũ’s search for an authentic language of African theatre in form and content. [1]
Art and writing cannot be neutral. I will write separately about choices I made in creating these posts.
books
At the end of each post, I will share books I referenced and recommend unless the post itself already contains recommendations with book covers or the book is not part of recommendations, but was related to a quote or passage I shared. Some books, I will touch on again, but in case that doesn't happen, I will try to include each.
Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1981) by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.
Get this book wherever you get your books.
Please support libraries however you can. Find out many ways to get involved in supporting libraries at Libraries for the People.
Please consider purchasing books when they are available from Workshops 4 Gaza's bookstore. When I share books that are available for purchase there, I will list them here after the link.
Thank you for reading.
notes
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986), 58.↩︎
