For #BannedBooksWeek we're doing a limited run of shirts with one of our favorite designs of all time! The "Trash Fascism, Not Books" possum was created by artist Des Revol for our 2023/24 campaign to send thousands of banned books back to Florida kids. Since then, we've had so many people reach out asking for the image on stickers and apparel.

We hope that these shirts will also help to raise awareness for Des, who is facing years in prison and possible deportation over allegedly transporting "subversive" literature in his car. The fact that zines exactly like those you can can find at Firestorm (and countless other radical bookstores) are being used as evidence of criminality is a reminder that fascism isn't just coming for your TBR pile—it's coming for us all, unless we trash it! http://freedes.net

We're only taking shirt orders through Bonfire until Saturday, October 18th, so check out the full details at https://www.bonfire.com/store/firestorm 🔥

#TrashFascismNotBooks #ZinesAreNotACrime #FreeDesRevol #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy (AK Press)

Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief (AK Press)

If you’d like to snag one or more of these books, email at cbmilstein [at] yahoo to work out the simple details.

#TrashFascismNotBooks
#ReadWriteRebel
#EducatingOurselvesForFreedom
#AnarchistHoliday
#HonoringOurDead
#FightingForOurAncestors
#FightingForTheLiving

It’s been such a special experience to collaborate with @firestormcoop on dreaming up #BannedBooksBack and then engaging in months of work to make sure that many thousands of books removed from Florida classrooms are put directly back into many thousands of kiddos’ hands into that not-so-sunshiny state. So few antifascist actions these days feel successful, much less heartwarming, but our #TrashFascismNotBooks has been both!

Indeed, I could (and someday, maybe should) share countless stories of all the sweetness that Banned Books Back has generated, from the cutest and queerest Girl Scout troop eagerly helping to package up books, to community members drawing adorable pictures on the book bundle packages that we then shipped as #SolidarityBeyondBorders across state lines, to being reminded by so many folks in Florida that they are (and were) resisting book bans and all the ways such “book burning” ends up burning ideas, spaces, and people. (This is just a tiny sampler!)

And while it’s not a “contest” over which moment in the Banned Books Back saga has been the tenderest, I’m feeling especially proud, in a #BeGayDoCrime sort of way, of our latest creative scheme for our second-to-last volunteer book packaging party: #PledgeAgainstPrisons. In partnership with @BlueRidgeABC and @tranzmissionprisonproject, we’re connecting the dots between book bans in prisons and schools, and how fascism harms people in both, by encouraging folks—near and far—to make a pledge per book bundle packaged (up to 250 bundles) on June 11, the International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. (See @june11 and @supportmariusmason.)

Come in person to Firestorm to learn about June 11 and the anarchist freedom fighters who are incarcerated, eat some yummy free food, and package a bunch of books! And/or no matter where you live, pledge 5 cents, 25 cents, a dollar, etc. per book bundle sent, and we’ll donate all funds raised to anarchist prisoners.

See pledge form at http://bit.ly/j11-pledge

Free minds, free them all, until all are free!

#EducatingOurselvesForFreedom
#BooksNotBombs
#BooksNotBars
#AlwaysCarryABooks

You asked for ‘em, and now we’ve got ‘em:
#TrashFascismNotBooks shirts!

All sales benefit the #BannedBooksBack project, sending free bundles of books that were removed by fash-y types from Florida classrooms back to kids in Florida! Poetic justice! Or in this case, possum justice!

Because our ungovernable possums love to read “subversive” books and, of course, are sometimes antisocial, but always antifascist.

Be the cool kid who sports one of our T-shirts, pullover hoodies, or sweatshirts, and know that you’re also supporting this warm-and-fuzzy @firestorm project (https://firestorm.coop/bannedbooks.html).

To order shirts, scurry over to:
https://www.bonfire.com/bannedbooksback/

(Possum art+design by @des.tattooart)

Trash Fascism, Not Books! 🗑️

This benefit sticker supports our Banned Books Back! campaign to return books banned by Duval County Public Schools to kids! All proceeds go to cover postage, packaging materials, printing, and related campaign costs.

Printed by Off Color Decals on high-quality vinyl with eco-solvent inks, this kiss-cut sticker features an adorable antifascist possum illustration by Des. The removable 3" sticker is waterproof and safe for outdoor use. It is also scratch and UV fade resistant for up to 5 years of extreme cuteification of your car, laptop, or water bottle!

We’re almost 80% funded! Help us get all the way by heading to https://firestorm.coop/products/21029-banned-books-back-benefit-sticker.html

#BannedBooksBack #TrashFascismNotBooks #FreedomToRead #BannedBooks #MutualAid #DuvalCounty #DuvalCountyPublicSchools #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (-Esmé).

Join our first Banned Books Back! packaging party and help us send books removed from Florida public schools back to kids in Florida! On Sunday, January 28th from 11am - 2pm ET we'll be packaging free picture books and chapter books along with zines and stickers. No experience is necessary, we'll show you how it's done! 🫡

For the past few weeks we've been collecting requests from kids and their advocates in Florida and at we've got a backlog of hundreds of orders to fulfill! Do you read the news about the rise in book-banning in our region and want to do something about it? Now is your chance!

Invite your friends of all ages! https://firestorm.coop/events/3139-banned-books-back-packaging-party.html

#BannedBooksBack #TrashFascismNotBooks #FreedomToRead #BannedBooks #MutualAid #DuvalCounty #DuvalCountyPublicSchools #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (Esme)

We just passed the halfway point of our fundraising goal for Banned Books Back! Moms for Liberty, eat your hearts out! 😏

To recap, our collective received a serendipitous donation of children's books that had been removed from Florida schools as part of an ongoing effort to censor titles depicting queer joy, civil rights history, immigrant stories, and more. Right now, our collective is harboring dozens of boxes of these "dangerous" titles — but not for long. Later this month, we'll be calling on our local community to help package bundles and send these Banned Books... Back!

Thank you so much to the folks who have boosted this effort, including but not limited to Autostraddle, The Washington Post, LGBTQ Nation, so many rad bookseller buddies, and the 270+ folks who've donated. 💓

You can still help by contributing to the crowdfunding campaign (https://givebutter.com/bannedbooksback), or request a book package directly if you're a kid or for a kiddo in your life through https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/XYzGVoEYnT+hkblrTJy2D8aYzHb295vmVgyJc0NTz+0

Keep reading dangerously, kids! If it didn't matter, they wouldn't try so hard to stop you 👀

#BannedBooksBack #TrashFascismNotBooks #FreedomToRead #BannedBooks #MutualAid #DuvalCounty #DuvalCountyPublicSchools #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (Esme)

I’d say this possum is “cute as a button,” but it’s actually a sticker—and yeah, cute too!

Now you can take our antifascist critter home, plus not have to worry about it scratching up your furniture, although it is scratch and UV fade resistant for up to 5 years. (And fascist resistant for as long as it takes.)

Our ungovernable and gender-nonconforming possum is always up for good mischief, such as playing A-team mascot for our Banned Books Back project (“our” as in @firestormcoop with me as collaborator), which will return 22,500 books back to kids after a mean-spirited school district in Florida tried to trash these titles because of their “dangerous” content. Read: stories that revolve around queer, trans, Indigenous, Black, Brown, and other people that fascists tend not to like.

But our possum proudly and loudly proclaims, “Trash Fascism, Not Books!” Because as every smart creature knows, dumping/burning/disappearing books and their ideas goes hand in hand (or paw in paw) with doing the same to people.

You can read lots more about Banned Books Back in the links in my bio, and from there, also kick into our fundraiser and/or fill out our encrypted request form (kids, we’re looking at you!) for a free book bundle—either for picture books or chapter books. And please help us spread the word to kiddos and adults in Florida, because that’s where our first 500 book bundles are going so as to re-home these books to the un-sunshiny state that attempted to ban them.

Back to our possum, though!

If you want to scoop up this cuddly character and support Banned Books Back, $10 gets you this limited edition “kiss-cut” sticker printed by the rad folks at @offcolordecals, using our logo art by the equally rad @des.tattooart! Just high tail it to:

https://firestorm.coop/products/21029-banned-books-back-benefit-sticker.html

Order soon, order often (the more possums, the more mayhem)!

love+solidarity 🖤

#BannedBooksBack
#TrashFascismNotBooks
#AllCrittersAreBeautiful

In this dumpster fire of a world, it feels especially sweet to share some heartwarming news!

Today, a project I’ve been collaborating on behind the scenes with @firestormcoop for the past couple months is ready to go public: Banned Books Back! And I get to unveil its adorable A-team mascot: our “Trash Fascism, Not Books” possum (lovingly created by my talented friend Des at @des.tattooart or https://www.dallastattoo.net/).

What makes Banned Books Back such good news is that your friendly anarchist bookshop—Firestorm—gets to take 22,500 brand-new children’s books that were about to be “trashed” by a narrow-minded Florida school district and gift them back to kiddos, starting with young folks in Florida!

This isn’t simply poetic justice—though it’s that too. We see this act of solidarity as a form of resistance against fascism, which seeks to erase ideas as a precursor to erasing people.

It’s no coincidence that Florida, which leads the United States in book bans, decided to dump lots of LGBTQ titles and is equally at the forefront of violent attacks on queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming people. Or that these kids books—exploring topics ranging from racism and colonialism to radical history and visionary organizing—were banished from one of Florida’s most racially diverse counties.

As Banned Books Back unfolds, we’ll share other ways that our fight against fascism—as anarchistic folks—weaves its way into this whole project. For now, here’s an example. In each free package of 5-6 kids books we send out, we’ll include a sticker version of our playful possum printed by the good folks at Off Color Decals at @offcolordecals or https://linktr.ee/offcolordecals, which self-describes as “fuck fash, ACAB, love your comrades, … support direct action and mutual aid efforts,” and a copy of the fabulously cute and fiesty zine “I Am a Unicorn and I Like to Fight: A Kid’s Guide to Standing Up to Fascism and Bullies,” thanks to Eternia Press at @eterniapress or https://www.etsy.com/shop/EterniaPress for letting us borrow the PDF.

Alas, shipping free books is expensive! We need your generous help!

Donate to and share our fundraiser: https://givebutter.com/bannedbooksback (& read our fun FAQ there)!

Share our “book request” form with Florida kids and others: https://firestorm.coop/bannedbooks.html

#TrashFascismNotBooks

We've been sitting on something exciting... and we're finally ready to share! In 2023, our focus was on building a new home for Firestorm. Well, our next big project will launch in January, reaching far beyond our local community: with your support, we're going to send thousands of books pulled from schools and classrooms in Duval County, Florida, back to the kids they were intended for!

It's kind of a wild story! Last winter our co-op was unexpectedly entrusted with 22,500 books for grades K-5 that would otherwise have been destroyed. More than half feature queer characters or history, and many revolve around Indigenous, Black, Brown, and Asian protagonists. That's 11,000 pounds of titles that right-wing politicians and small-minded school administrators conspired to keep out of the hands of young folks in one of Florida's most racially diverse counties.

We love giving away free books, but this project is a little complex because we're committed to getting as many of the books as possible to kids in Florida, and Duval County in particular. Packaging and delivering thousands of titles across state lines will take serious resources, so today we're launching a crowdfunding campaign to support the effort. Will you help us?

Visit https://givebutter.com/bannedbooksback to learn more, make a donation, and share our call to action!

#BannedBooksBack #TrashFascismNotBooks #FreedomToRead #BannedBooks #MutualAid #DuvalCounty #DuvalCountyPublicSchools #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop