A Call to Action in New Hampshire

We as Writers for Democratic Action understand that the 2024 election is one of the most critical elections in the history of our state, our nation, and the world. The urgent defense of democracy falls to the American people, and to each of us as informed New Hampshire voters, who must vote in numbers never seen before. Please join us in protecting representative government with the most powerful tool we still have: the VOTE.

See the New Hampshire Secretary of State website and VOTE 411 for 2024 Elections and New Hampshire Voting Information.

Become a New Hampshire Poll Worker!

We, as New Hampshire Writers for Democratic Action, understand BOOK BANNING to be a strategy of authoritarian governments to restrict personal freedoms, a strategy preliminary to what we witnessed in totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. We are grateful to partner with New Hampshire bookstores and libraries in their efforts to provide access to titles that have been banned across our state. “To allow a group of people or any individual, no matter how powerful or loud, to become the decision-maker about what books we can read or whether libraries exist is to place all of our rights and liberties in jeopardy” (Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom).

Let us act now, while we can, to protect our democracy, our books, and our right to read what we choose!

In the fall of 2023, NH WDA Steering Committee Chair Katherine Towler published an editorial, “The Overwhelming Cost of Book Banning,” with Sy Montgomery and Peter Bromberg of Every Library in the Manchester Union Leader and the Concord Monitor. In the current legislative session, HB 1419, an “obscene materials” bill designed to control the books schools and libraries can make available, was defeated. A smilier bill, SB 523, is still pending in the Senate. A Freedom to Read bill, HB 1311, passed the House and is headed for a vote in the NH Senate. Contact your NH Senators to urge them to support the Freedom to Read bill and to vote no on SB 523.