(On March 14, 2016, we announced that more than eighty writers had come together to endorse Bernie Sanders for President. As of May 7, we have doubled our numbers, with the list still growing.)

The recently-formed Writers for Bernie includes Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley and National Book Critics’ Circle Award winner Jonathan Lethem; Julia Alvarez, author of the bestsellers How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies; Laila Lalami, Pulitizer Prize finalist; novelist Steve Yarbrough, Richard Wright Award winner; Susan Power, PEN/Hemingway Award winner; and Robert Cohen, Whiting Writers Award winner and Guggenheim Fellow, in addition to a wide variety of poets, short-story writers, playwrights, screenwriters, essayists, journalists and historians.

Spearheaded by novelists Marie Myung-Ok Lee and Holly LeCraw, the effort was conceived just three weeks ago. “The response has been fantastic,” LeCraw said, “but, frankly, not surprising. People are passionate about Bernie. For all of us, as for so many voters, there’s this palpable sense of relief at having a candidate we can wholeheartedly support.”

According to Lee, even though authors are still signing on, the group wanted to publicize its support ahead of Super Tuesday. “We’re building a website as we speak, and will definitely continue to take endorsements. It’s hit a tipping point, and now we’re hearing from writers from all over the country. We’re just at the beginning of this effort, and we’d like to help Senator Sanders in any way we can by fundraising and, of course, writing.” Lee, in fact, published a piece yesterday in Salon entitled “My feminist Sanders fixation: I’m a woman of color, my candidate is a white man.”

LeCraw notes, “Our tagline is, ‘Words matter.’ It’s the reason so many of us came to Bernie in the first place: his words are consistent, compassionate, and above all honest. He says what he means and means what he says, which is practically unheard of in politics.”

Our endorsement is below.