When I reached out to the queer- and trans-owned feminist @roomofonesownbooks in Madison, WI, stolen Ho-Chunk lands, about doing an event related to my latest edited anthology, the bookstore folks suggested that I, in turn, ask someone to join me in conversation. That felt delightfully in the spirit of this project, focusing on what anarcha-feminism looks like in practice—which for one thing (among many), makes space for many liberatory voices.

I’m especially overjoyed that my friend and fellow Jewish anarchist Autumn Miller agreed to be that person, not only for Autumn’s insights and ethics, but the deep care that Autumn lives by, and from what I’ve experienced, routinely lives by. For instance, Autumn suggested that we use this talk+conversation as also a fundraiser for two local folks facing @stopcopcity RICO charges—and of course, I and the bookstore eagerly agreed!

The book itself is a fundraiser too, or what I call a “labor of love” from me and every contributor to it: all proceeds from #ConstellationsOfCare: #AnarchaFeminismInPractice” (@plutopress, with bold and badass cover design by @eff_charm) will go to anarcha-feminist projects in various rebellious corners of the globe, to be decided with each round of “royalties.”

But the book is more than mere vehicle for redistributing funds. As someone named Martyna wrote in Polish (likely from a home base in Poland) on Goodreads recently:

“An inspiring book about a whole range of anarcha-feminist initiatives around the world, from street medics and Food Not Bombs to the Abortion Dream Team. … It can help people who are opposed to the ideas of anarchism to understand what it’s really about, and for me and other anarchists, this book can become a support—a reminds that there are plenty of people in the world who think [and directly act] like us.”

For at this point in whatever is left of human history, I’m far more concerned about how people practice forms of freedom, and model what it means to collectively nurture and sustain life, than how folks too often mouth words while upholding the murderous status quo.

Hope to see some of you in person, July 24, 6 pm!

#CareNotCops (as seen in photo 3 by contributor @sugarbombingworld

Mini, grassroots “review” of my latest, big edited anthology, “Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice” (@plutopress, with gorgeous cover design by @eff_charm), thanks to someone named Hannah!

Always grateful for the do-it-ourselves ways we think and act—and write—thereby educating ourselves together for freedom. So rather than assuming that book reviews need to come from on high (penned by academics, professional experts, and others), it’s joy to see readers themselves share their thoughts. And in the case of this particular collective—filled with many dozens or even well over a hundred voices bravely telling their own stories of forms of feministic self-organization that too often get overlooked or undervalued—it’s extra sweet when someone finds their own power to voice their perspective. (Because yes, *even* in anarchistic circles, patriarchy too often informs who gets to hold the reins of publishing power.)

So thank you, Hannah, for this compact review of #ConstellationsOfCare:

“Wonderfully expansive conversations, recollections, reflections, and creations from different anarcha-feminists groups across the world. I loved the varied backgrounds of the movements, how they came to be, and their struggles and victories. I was fascinated by the conversations on safe spaces, conflict, grief, and medicine. All chapters were very accessible, and each author wrote without defense but [instead] complete openness.

“‘Love is not keeping your hands clean; Love is courage’ [quoting from contributor @tlalcihuatlx].”

Appreciation, too, to the good folks at @rubicundbooks for this photo. I always also love seeing my books in the wild, including in such rad bookstores.

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare/

#AnarchaFeminismInPractice
#WriteReadRebel
#TryAnarchismForLife

On this last day of the month of January, I took my last look at the last of the page proofs for my next edited anthology: the cover. Then in an email, I gave Pluto Press the go-ahead to send the book to the printer. Then I felt a weird mix of relief, nervousness, disorientation, and melancholy.

It’s no small thing to end a 2.5-year labor-of-love project with a mere press of a “send” button on a computer. “Anticlimactic” is one descriptor.

Of course, it’s not really the end. The printed book will be birthed in April, and then I’ll both hold this next “baby” of mine in my hands and simultaneously let it go out into the world (books grow up fast and run off to live a life of their own).

Still, one suddenly doesn’t have to think about this huge task day in and day out, and equally suddenly, one needs to find the oomph to turn to another book project. That creates a sort of letdown, because there’s really no fanfare involved in sending off page proofs, and no traditions per se around how to “celebrate” or even mark that quiet, simple act.

So I went about the humdrum of my workday, making some money doing my freelance copyediting of someone else’s book. Then I went to a small but sweet film screening about Appalachians fighting to protect the land and lives they love from pipelines. Then I stood under a star-filled sky, breathing in the crisp wintery air, and thought for a moment about the preciousness of life, grief that knows no borders on this imperiled earth, and all the collective care, love, and solidarity that encircle us even if on many days we don’t see or feel them, because like the moon that I couldn’t see this evening, they are there, especially within the world-building we do with and for each other.

Then to put a wrap on this day, I pulled up the page proofs that I last looked at this morning, the front and back covers, and let my eyes and heart take in the brilliance of the colors, boldness of the type, and badass-ness of background image—and felt joy. Or rather, felt gratitude overflow to my dear friend @eff_charm for yet again designing a cover that speaks volumes to anarchic promise, even in the bleakest of times.

For more on the book or to preorder, see:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice

(Note: I couldn’t figure out how to post vertical cover images, so had to add black bands on either side, but they won’t appear on the final book.)

The last piece in “Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice” (Pluto Press, April 2024)—or “part 2” of extending (my) solidarity and love beyond borders—was the first contribution I got for this project. Its author, in Helsinki, has been incredibly patient for some two years waiting to see their rebellious “love letter” come out in print. I’ve read it dozens of times in prepping this book and it still makes me teary-eyed in the best of tender ways.

“Do You Feel the Same?” by Vilja Saarinen

“As friends have pointed out, we’re like a mix of magnificent things that those working against us have difficulty understanding. They can’t imagine fierceness and care inhabiting the same person, much less a social body that fights to dismantle hierarchies according to ethical principles of shared power. Love is not keeping your hands clean; love is courage.

“When an event with people with strollers and walkers gets attacked, anyone who rushes to absorb the first blows and actively defend them, despite the consequences that might continue for one, two, four, seven, or even ten years, is defending love.

“Anyone who dances Kurdish halay to keep up spirits and calm their friends while the police search their bus, home, or squat do so with an air of elegant resistance. Zap, zap, zapê!

“I am secretly impressed by the determination of the schoolgirl who sat alone in front of the Parliament to protest climate change until she wasn’t alone anymore, and hundreds of thousands of kids and teenagers all around the world joined her. I love all the kids who got inspired, especially the five-year-olds in Tampere, carrying picket signs of animals facing extinction, depicting animals the same size as them. I love each and every one of you!

“And I get a warm feeling thinking of Nelli throwing the ripe tomato—with the proficiency of someone who has done nothing but throw tomatoes all of her life—that hit the Nazi leader on the head at the perfect second in front of a big crowd in Turku.

“That is why I am writing to you, from the many places where I know it to be true. From the moments and movements where I have experienced and felt it to be true. Love as a constant practice.“

For more info on this book or to preorder it, see:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice

I persisted in my proofing of some 435 pages of what will soon be “Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice” (Pluto Press, April 2024), and here are the final two excerpts, both extending (my) solidarity and love beyond borders—stretched across two posts.

“How We Persisted as a New Anarcha Group in ljubljana” by črne mačke:

“Through the process of writing this reflection [on our anarcha group in slovenia], a lot has changed for us.

“We were confronted by our younger comrades about what they feel are generational hierarchies based on experience. We were challenged about various aspects of being gatekeepers of a space we tried to make and keep open for our sisters. We struggled with dynamics within our own collective and in connection with other collectives. We fought our declining mental health—some of us together, and others on their own.

“We traveled and met people, and hosted groups and individuals here in our space that inspired us. We organized assemblies, protests, and direct actions on different topics. We failed to find the time and energy to keep new initiatives and projects going, and neglected care work. We made mistakes and tried to fix them. We left projects that frustrated us and moved away from struggles that overwhelmed us. We connected with groups that fell apart. We lost contacts, saw networks dying and could not find the energy to maintain them, and yet also formed new connections.

“We felt excited. We got tired and burned out. We got arrested. We put ourselves and others in danger. We were sometimes depressed, and at other times manic. We were happy, and in other moments, disappointed. We hosted parties and concerts. We felt alive. We felt like our organizing was pointless. We hosted a big international event. We opened a new squat for our comrades from different territories and found space to connect again. We gave and felt love. We saw the point again. We reflected. We retaliated.

“We persisted.”

For more info on this book or to preorder it, see:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare

(photo: messy-beautiful page proof against a messy-beautiful circle A seen spray painted on a brick wall)

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice

Continuing on with “part 2” of the trans joyful contributions to my forthcoming edited anthology “Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice” (Pluto Press, April 2024) is a piece that feels dreamily in keeping with Tu Bishvat, the Jewish “new year of the trees” that just happened—a ritual that can aid us, like this piece, in not merely imagining but also inhabiting liberatory, queer, and ecological worlds.

“Movement Midwifery” by Vicky Osterweil:

“The most beautiful thing I ever saw does not, to my knowledge, have any photographic record. It was early in the morning, some weekday in mid-July 2018. It was an hour before my shift doing data entry in a big office building in Center City, Philadelphia, giving me time to check in with the OccupyICE encampment outside City Hall. When I arrived that morning, however, I didn’t find the mess of police barricades, improvised kitchen equipment, propaganda and handwritten signs, plastic totes, and trash bags as well as bedding arranged underneath the massive, dumpstered billboards we used as canopy.

“Instead, I saw a forest.

“The night before, the city had done some landscaping around City Hall, and the activists who were occupying full time had gathered branches and other refuse, then lovingly arranged them on, inside, and across the city’s traffic barricades, in and through the tents, poles, and tables.

“In the shadow of the enormous monument to state power that is Philadelphia City Hall, under a jerry-rigged awning made from the city’s garbage and offcuts, the ‘disposable’ and dispossessed had built a grove, a space of clean air, beauty, safety, and love; they had transformed thirty feet of pavement into a garden for deep sleep. I started to cry. I knew that we could win.

“Trans anarchic feminism takes the offcuts, prunings, and refuse of this world, and makes a beautiful forest for our flourishing, pleasure, rest, and joy.”

For more info on the book or to preorder, see:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare/

(The sticker in the photo reads, “Nice shit for everybody”)

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice

The next two pieces in my forthcoming edited anthology “Constellations of Care” (Pluto Press, April 2024) revolve around some of the prefigurative joy embodied in trans “anarcha-feminism in practice.” But to really give you a full sense of the life-giving character of each contribution, I’m sharing longer excerpts—meaning transitioning from one to the other over two posts.

“Transition and Autonomy” by Scott/Shuli Branson:

“As anarchists, the way we do things—bottom up, not top down—is about living: how we choose to relate to each other, how we choose love and relationships over individualized endeavor and competition, how we choose to care even when that means working in the cracks and gray areas. It is a crucial form of direct action, just as militant and risky as confronting police, fascists, and other coercive infrastructure in the streets.

“In the current context, such direct action looks like informal networks of trans communities that get people hormones and take them to clinics, or regional abortion funds and doula collectives that get people abortions either at home or in a clinic. It’s not merely direct action because these groups typically operate within the gray areas of the law, and not simply because the work is in confrontation with the current arms of the state trying to end bodily autonomy for trans people and pregnant people—though these are both good reasons to name it as such. Even more, this care work is direct action because it’s operating outside the structures of the state in a prefigurative manner.

“With DIY hormones, anyone can transition whenever they want. This means you can experiment. It means you can stop. It means transition can become multiple, plural, and deindividualized. Not only can you access hormones in community with other trans people, but you can find more people and networks to run your questions by, or organize communal shot-taking events with. When trans existence is under such extensive threat, these collective moments of transition are in themselves a direct action against the world that wants to erase us.”

For more info on the book or to preorder, see:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare/

(The sticker in the photo reads, “All trans bodies are beautiful”)

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice

Likely no anthology on “anarcha-feminism in practice” would be complete without at least one piece on abortion, especially given the fascist landscape these days. Here’s a glimpse at two contributions on self-determined access, as I continue to finish up the proofs for “Constellations of Care” (Pluto Press, April 2024).

“Collectively Funding Abortion” by Bayla (aka Bay) Ostrach:

“The feminist abortion clinic administration, a hundred miles or so up the freeway, had shut down the only independent abortion clinic between Northern California and Portland and terminated all of its staff without consulting the medical director. In that first twelve hours, we coalesced into a collective; (now ex) clinic workers, volunteers, and former staff who rushed to be at our sides all organically mobilized together with shared purpose. …

“While we did not explicitly discuss, to my memory, a guiding political principle on which to found our [new] sexual and reproductive health organization along with the referral network and fund that it would administer, … the ethos and practical processes we used followed the fundamental anarchist feminist ethics of collective care and informed consent. Having ourselves lost not only a key means of income but also social connection, we channeled our frustration as well as our concern for those who would have been our patients into an unprecedented mutual aid project in the region: the Network for Reproductive Options.”

“Abortion without Borders” by Megan McGee:

“While those who trust in states and politicians call for legislative measures to protect reproductive freedom, a network of organizations in Europe has taken a more direct approach, effectively demonstrating feminist anarchist ethics by creating an infrastructure of communal care. Like its name makes clear, Abortion without Borders stretches across nation-state lines. …

“‘For me, this is actually the feminist revolution,’” says Asia.

“Adrianna maintains that creating networks is critical to this struggle. ‘I think in groups, we have power. You are not fighting alone. Even as an activist, I feel safer and that I have more possibilities when I’m in this network.’”

For more info on the book or to preorder, see:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare/

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice

If you’ve been following along in my series—aka, my ritual—of sharing excerpts from every contribution in my next edited anthology as I proof its pages, I’m making a slight departure. Instead of pairing two essays, here’s just one … because silly me, there’s an odd number of stories in “Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice” (Pluto Press, April 2024), which somehow befits a queer project. And because given the hardness of the current world, it seems a fitting time for …

“An Experiment in Addressing Intraorganizational Violence” by Benji Hart:

“What would it actually take to end sexual violence in grassroots social movements? How do we dismantle massive and entrenched institutions while simultaneously confronting the ways that we as individuals have internalized those institutions’ harmful practices? If our movements are only as strong as our communities, how do we build up both in ways that are committed to fighting gender-based violence for the long haul? How do we make concrete commitments to collective care with the understanding that the apparatuses of the state—including war and militarism—are themselves a source of sexual violence and not the answer to it?

“These were some of the key questions I asked alongside a small group of organizers as we attempted to plot out the policies and procedures around addressing sexual violence for a new configuration, Dissenters. We did so with the intent of imagining new structures to hold our movements—ones created through a feminist anarchist lens—that centered the needs of the most marginalized members of our communities and made fighting sexual violence a high priority instead of an afterthought. …

“More than any policy or procedure, it is our social relationships that determine our sense of security. It is the nature of our relationships and the commitments we actively foster therein that either maintain cultures of harm or generate structures of safety. … So much of changing [our] internal culture is actually not about promising perfect communities [but] the ways we respond when violence takes place.”

For more info on the book or to preorder, see:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice

The next two contributions to my “Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice” (Pluto Press, April 2024) anthology could be misread as being *simply* about cooking, relegating women and queers to the proverbial kitchen. Yet they revolve around relationality as the key ingredient in both surviving and thriving.

“Communitarian Kitchens: Stoking the Flames of Memory and Rebellion” by Vilma Rocío Almendra Quiguanás, translated by @susurros:

“Our relationship with our territories is woven into the tulpas, the millennia-old fires of encounters, legacies, flavors, and knowledges. … In the uprisings, strikes, revolts, marches, encampments, popular assemblies, blockades, land recuperations, communal congresses, appropriation of factories, roadblocks, and popular tribunals, and on pickets and barricades, fire has always been present. … Communitarian kitchens and fire are a necessary couple. They have been present and vital in feeding the dignified rebellions that denounce and question the state, transnationals, and all the other powers that have always oppressed us. … [They] have sustained struggles against hunger, for land and water, as a life practice and central axis for collective nourishment.”

“Supporting the Revolution, One Stew at a Time” by Aleh Stankova and Fenya Fischler:

“The relationships we formed through our organizing were a big part of what allowed us to sustain this group for so long (to our knowledge, we’re the longest-running Food Not Bombs chapter to have ever existed in London!). Centering relationships also meant being clear about the types of networks we wanted to build: reciprocal, horizontal, caring, and supportive. We truly believe that our group survived despite the odds because of the intentionality with which we built up our political practice, aligning with feminist and anarchist values that saw us resisting engrained hierarchies and patriarchal organizing patterns, and how that manifested in the way we looked out for each other. … In short, care (including food), which is so often devalued and gendered, is in fact the invisible fuel that sustains us in the struggle.“

For more info on the book or to preorder:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice