It's #PrisonBannedBooksWeek and we're inviting you to learn more about the oversized role that the US's oversized prison system plays in censoring and restricting book access—particularly for low income folks, people of color, queers, and others with criminalized identities.

📕 If you're on Facebook or Instagram, follow our friends at Asheville Prison Books (@avlprisonbooks) and Tranzmission Prison Project (@tranzmissionprisonproject), who are bringing an abolitionist lens to their work on the front lines of prison book access all year long! (Hopefully they'll join Mastodon soon 🥺)

📙 Buy a book from our co-op's Asheville Prison Books wishlist at https://firestorm.coop/ashevilleprisonbooks and an anonymous donor will match your purchase with funds for highly requested titles like legal dictionaries.

📗 Take action by demanding that Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller drop a new rule prohibiting ALL used books at the detention center! Read the top post on @avlprisonbooks's Instagram page for details and a simple call-in script. https://www.instagram.com/p/DAGlicNsCeU/

📘 Check out the article a member of our team wrote for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance at https://sibaweb.com/blogpost/1157249/504370/Banned-Books-Week-Firestorm-Books-Prison-Books-Program about the big impact indies can have when they support the prison book movement.

#PrisonBooks #BannedBooks #BooksNotBans #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

This weekend we're hosting something extremely cool! Following the monthly Asheville Prison Books packaging party on Sunday at 1pm, we'll be hosting an event for "Books Through Bars," a new book co-edited by APB founding member Mac Marquis, and featuring the writing of Firestorm team member Julie Schneyer! Composed of essays from prison book program participants themselves, this collection details how ordinary people are organizing and intervening in the largest system of incarceration the world has ever known.

This will be our first hybrid event, meaning you can join in-person or remotely! If you're planning to join online, register for free and grab a copy of the book at https://firestorm.coop/events/3157-the-prison-books-movement.html.

#PrisonBooks #PrisonAbolition #MassIncarceration #FreedomToRead #BooksThroughBars #FeministBookstore #AshevillePrisonBooks #FirestormCoop (- L)