Say It Like a Prayer: Sacred Words for Liberation, Hope, and Healing, edited by Dori Midnight, with a foreword by adrienne maree brown. The anthology includes two of my prayers.
I’m honored to share that two of my prayers: Blessed Are The Freaks and Prayer For Chosen Family are included in Say It Like a Prayer: Sacred Words for Liberation, Hope, and Healing.
Say It Like a Prayer is a bold anthology for navigating crisis and collapse, sustaining resistance, and imagining a liberatory and liberated future. Full of words for starting and ending the day, cultivating courage before an action, and inviting in creative energy. Blessings for children, seasons, and tactics of resistance. Lamentations for Gaza, grieving the loss of a loved one, prayers for loving between prison walls and prayers for abolition. Incantations for healing, breaking old patterns and becoming ever new, and summoning and seeding a new world. Drawing from multiple traditions and lineages, Say It Like a Prayer is a call to practice and a companion for collective struggle.
These are “prayers that are also poems, blessings that are also spells”: words meant to be lived with, spoken aloud, returned to, and shared. Open this book at protests and vigils, celebrations and memorials, rallies and rituals. Dog-ear its pages. Keep it on your kitchen table or by your bed. Gift it to loved ones, slide it into your tote bag or go bag, hold it in your hands to remind you of what you belong to, what you are in service to, what you believe in, and what you are fighting for.
The book will be released on March 16, 2027 and is available for preorder.
"A bold and life-giving curation of missives sent into the ether to save and repair, which is, to my mind, the oldest and most formidable use of language. How lucky to be reminded of its power here, both on the page and inside these dire hours."
Ocean Vuong, NYT bestselling author
"Say It Like a Prayer is a deep well filled with soul-quenching and heart-expanding wisdom. It is that rare book destined to become an intimate, life-long companion, accompanying and fortifying us as we face the roiling seas of now. A gift of immense tenderness, beauty and generosity”
Naomi Klein, NYT bestselling author of End Times Fascism
"The need for prayer has never been more clear. Thankfully Dori Midnight’s Say It Like a Prayer generously delivers prayer in abundance: prayer for troubles and prayer for pleasure and prayer for power. Say It Like a Prayer guides the reader towards a keener awareness and appreciation of the real spiritual connections underpinning our lives while urging us to act from that same place of spiritual power. You don’t need to believe in prayer to enjoy this blessed collection, Say It Like a Prayer deeply believes in you."
Tourmaline, artist and activist
FULL LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
adrienne maree brown
aesha rasheed
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Andrea Lawlor
anna k. blaedel
Aurora Levins Morales
Autumn Brown
Azura Tyabji
Bernadine Mellis
brontë velez
CAConrad
Cameron Awkward Rich
Cara Page
Chani Nicholas
Chiara Francesca Galimberti
Cindy Barukh Milstein
Cody Cook Parrott
Cole Krawitz
Danez Smith
Dean Spade
Donika Kelly
Dori Midnight
Durga Sreenivasan
Edgar Fabián Frías
Elliot Kukla
Elliot batTzedek
Endjah Sunlei
Fariha Róisín
Fatimah Asghar
George Abraham
Hala Alyan
hannah baer
J. Wortham
Jai Dulani
Jessica Rosenberg
Joy Harjo
Kai Cheng Thom
Kim Crutcher
Kritee Kanko
Lama Rod Owens
Leah Manaema Avene
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Lis Goldschmidt
Lubna Masarwa
Lyla June
M. Kaiser
Mahmoud Darwish
Mónica Gomery
Morgan Bassichis
Naima Penniman
Naomi Ortiz
Naomi Shihab Nye
Nichola Torbett
Norma Ryūkō Kaewlokū Wong
Prentis Hemphill
Rajiv Mohabir
Rev. Michiko Bown-Kai
Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart
Safiya Randera
Sam Sax
Sharon Bridgforth
Shelby Handler
Smokii Sumac
Sonya Renee Taylor
Susan Raffo
Tamiko Beyer
Tricia Hersey
Viva Ruiz
Yaffa
Yesenia Montilla
Yumi Sakugawa