Writing to Inspire

 

 

At the start of every new week, I try to select the “right” book to promote next. Sometimes I will pick a book to promote if its “book birthday” is coming up, or I’ll select a book if it has a character or theme that matches a certain day coming up (like the children’s book A Million Doughnuts for National Doughnut Day).

 

But this week, I knew what book to promote without having to think about it.

 

On January 7, 2026, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Macklin Good, an unarmed 37-year-old mother of three. This murder sent shockwaves and anger throughout the country. Many people took to social media to share their outrage over this killing.

 

I was affected by this on a personal level.

 

That a woman was murdered by ICE.

 

That a mother was murdered by ICE.

 

That a poet was murdered by ICE.

 

That a member of the LGBTQ community was murdered by ICE.

 

THAT AN UNARMED AMERICAN CITIZEN WAS MURDERED BY ICE.

 

An American citizen.

 

Not an undocumented immigrant. Not a terrorist. Not someone pointing a gun or posing a threat with a weapon to anyone.

 

An American citizen.

 

And like many other poets responding to this outrage, I wrote my own poem about this incident. A poem I did not share online, because it’s going into a poetry book that I am writing. But I responded to it by writing a poem.

 

Just as I have responded to many other things by writing a poem. In fact, my poetry book, Other, contains poems I have written in response to things: Religious extremism, women’s fight for equality, disability rights, and LGBTQ rights.

 

I wrote those poems all in support of those rights, and I hoped that the poems would inspire people during this time of darkness that this country is in, when the war against the LGBTQ community is still going on and women are STILL fighting for their rights – reproductive rights among them.

 

So I promoted Other this week. I hoped that these poems would inspire people in those communities, who I wrote these poems for. (Well, as a disabled asexual woman, some of those poems were personal). It has gotten a good response from a few people. I know this book won’t create the kind of change I want to see happen in this country, but I hope that it can, at least, empower the readers who are in those groups and give them the strength to keep up the fight.

 

Hopefully one day, we won’t have to keep fighting.

 

Rest in peace, Renee.