Snapshots of day 1 of the 3-day anarchist holiday called the @ACABookfaire—with few accompanying words, because I’m tired in that good kind of way where you feel full and nourished from being around so many friendly, unpretentious folks putting their hearts into practicing other possible worlds in the here and now. It’s making me fall in love all over again with what anarchism should and can be, especially in terms of mutual aid, solidarity, and communal care.

Photo 1. The good type of flags flying proudly outside Firestorm Books.

Photo 2. The start of an altar to mourn the dead and remember them well so as to better fight for the living (please add to it this weekend), also outside Firestorm Books.

Photos 3-4. Asheville’s own anarchist bingo, times two—apparently already in the works even before my post the other day about bingo at this year’s Salon du livre anarchiste de Montréal | Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, and with its own regional flair.

#AlwaysCarryABook
#TryAnarchismForLife
#BingoNotBorders

https://acabookfair.noblogs.org/

I’m in Asheville, NC, as of this afternoon (til Aug 16). Hit me up if you want to hang out and/cowork outside at a cafe!!

Also, one of the first things I did was check out the exterior of the INCREDIBLE soon-to-be new, owned home of @firestorm! Here’s my video sneak-peek! Overjoyed I’ll be here to see the new Firestorm Books space come to life (and pitch in a tiny bit to make that happen), including for the #AnotherCarolinaAnarchistBookfair (or #ACAB for short)!

Creating a stable home for an anarchist bookstore and community space is no small feat, and among other things, Firestorm could use some extra (generous) donations right about now! You can also become a monthly sustainer—like me! (I might have even been the first sustainer or close to it.)

Here’s the link:
https://www.patreon.com/firestormcoop

#AlwaysCarryABook

How rad to be side by side with @margaretkilljoy for this early May Day celebration—at least in spirit via our books, both published by the equally rad Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness collective!

And while our anarchist holiday thankfully doesn’t revolve around shopping, anarchist books have a long, storied history in educating, agitating, and being the inspiration for all sorts of good troublemaking. They also make for good bedtime reading given that they’re filled with the stuff of sweet dreams. Plus in this case, you can get both our new books through May 7, so you can focus fully and freely on May 1.

That said, I hope you do decide to snag copies of my “Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle” and Margaret’s “Escape from Incel Island.” I also hope that my book encourages you to remember some of the many beautiful reasons we’re in the streets, forests, cities, and elsewhere, not merely fighting for a better world, but already living as if it were here.

May Day and books—and who we are and what we put into this world—are crucial carriers of the flames of liberation and freedom, especially in a time that feels and is so antithetical to all we strive for and try hard to prefigure. We need our blessed flames more than ever as the gloom and doom of fascism descends.

So write, read, and rebel, knowing that words can shape and transform lives, that words can be our weapon and collective defense, that words can keep us going and lend comfort and joy to each other. Words can sabotage the current social order by sharing stories of what’s possible instead.

Plus both our books, in this specific instance, are fun to read.

To order, see www.tangledwilderness.org

Use the promo code: MAYDAY.

#TryAnarchismForLife
#BeautyOfOurCircle
#ReadWriteRebel
#AlwaysCarryABook
#AnarchistsCareAboutBooks
#HappyMayDay

(photo features the covers of the two books—Margaret’s with a drawing of swords and palm trees sticking out of an island, and mine sporting a big, bright pink circle A with a simple floral pattern in it surrounded by a spring-green background)

There are countless spaces of state and fascist violence, systematic brutality and unnecessary loss, these traumatizing days. So it’s extra worth celebrating each and every space of possibility that we ourselves carve out. It’s worth jumping for joy when our collective efforts feel good. When they hold out delicious promise, if only for the much-needed nourishment of a big, quirky, beautiful anarchist family reunion—aka the 2023 Montreal Anarchist Bookfair.

It’s extra worth proudly sharing a delightful peek at some of the rebellious beauty that’s emerging from our hours of collective organizing toward that the said bookfair. And tonight that means excitedly sharing the freshly done artwork and poster design by @pendracocomics.

As this marvelous poster declares, “Anarchists Care about Books,” and this year’s Salon du livre anarchiste will feature almost 100 tablers, over 2 dozen workshops, a kidzone along with a KidsKlez music show, anarchist fun and games, an interactive grief and remembrance space, a display of historical anarchist posters, live theater piece, live-streamed panel, late-night show, care space, and more. Maybe most important, it will bring together more anarchists than any other bookfair in North America for schmoozing, socializing, and reconnecting, for meeting old friends and making new ones, for reinspiring and refreshing ourselves—for all of those times that aren’t so pleasurable yet demand that we stick by each other for the long haul.

So if you’re not already planning to come to the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, May 27-28, whatcha waiting for? Clear your calendar and join in the magic!

#AnarchistsCareAboutBooks
#AlwaysCarryABook
#AutonomousCommunitiesAreBeautful
#ACAB
#ReadWriteRebel

www.salonanarchiste.ca
www.anarchistbookfair.ca

(Artwork features two anarchist folks reading books, and two animals, atop a smashed-up Montreal police car with flowers and grass growing out of it)

This little bookish anarcho-kitty wants to remind you that tabling applications and event proposals are due this Wednesday, March 15, 2023, for the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair / salon du livre anarchiste Montréal!

By events, it can be anything from a talk, panel, structured debate, or facilitated conversation to a performance, skills share, hands-on activity, or kids-oriented workshop—in French, English, Spanish, and/or a combination. Events by engaged authors and organizers are highly encouraged, including intro to anarchism workshops as well as ones on relevant, provocative, or playful topics relevant to the hellscape we inhabit and the world we dream of (and already prefigure).

The bookfair itself, one of (if not the) largest in North America, happens during the “Month of Anarchy” on the weekend of May 27-28, 2023.

To apply, see:

http://www.anarchistbookfair.ca (English)
http://www.salonanarchiste.ca (French)

#AlwaysCarryABook
#ReadWriteRebel
#EducatingOurselvesForFreedom

(photo: sticker for Bibliothèque DIRA as spotted on the streets of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal on a wintery day—keeping most cats indoors to catch up on their reading)

I’m delighted to announce the dates for the next Salon du livre anarchiste de Montréal | Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, started almost 25 years ago and still going strong: May 27–28, 2023.

Its longevity speaks to many decades of often-imaginative anarchist(ic) resistance and many generations of anarchists here in Tio’tia:ke, not to mention far more continuity between people, projects, spaces, uprisings, strikes, and so on than in most North American cities. Plus the bookfair is always like an enormous anarchist family reunion, filled with all sorts of events as part of the “Month of Anarchy” here, including the Festival International de Théâtre Anarchiste de Montréal | International Anarchist Theater Festival. And Montreal in May is rebelliously romantic!

So here’s my encouragement, as a collective member who has a longtime diasporic and loving relationship with Montreal, to apply to table at this large, beautiful two-day bookfair and/or propose an event (talks, panels, debates, skill share, care or kidz zone offerings, music, art, performance…). Or *simply* plan to come to the bookfair that weekend! I don’t know about you, but after three pandemic years of too much isolation and fragmentation, the more that a whole bunch of us can gather, socialize, grieve, process, gossip, laugh, play, learn, and so much else together in joyous spaces of our own making, the better!

For tabling and event applications, see www.salonanarchiste.ca (French-language version) or www.anarchistbookfair.ca (English-language version). Deadline for applications is March 15, 2023.

You’ll find other info at our bilingual website too, including that we’re asking everyone to mask up when indoors at the bookfair—because #AllCOVIDsAreBad and #AllCaretakersAreBeautiful.

I’d also greatly appreciate it if you’d circulate these infographics, via my post or by making your own, on your Instagram, other social media, email lists, Signal chats, and other places.

Hope to see many, many, many of your faces (and masks) there!

#AlwaysCarryABook
#AutonomousCommunitiesAreBeautiful
#ReadWriteRebel
#MontrealAnarchistBookfair

Last call for my mini-fundraiser for @ratzonpgh and @pinkpeacock—while my dwindling supplies of these four books last.

Yesterday, I tried to mail two packages of some of these titles to two kind contributors to this sliding-scale funder. I walked through a downtown bedecked in red-and-green Xmas decorations while the Muzak lyrics of “Christ the savior is born” blared out of public loudspeakers at me until I finally reached the post office, only to find that Monday was a “legal holiday.” All that not only underscored the need for an ongoing “war on Christmas”—even after it’s allegedly over—and its Christian (fascistic) hegemony but also, in counterpoint, the need for illegal or at least subversive holidays and spaces that embody dreamy-queer, anarchistic-liberatory lifeways. Like Ratzon, a center for healing and resistance in Pittsburgh, and Pink Peacock, a pay-what-you-can-down-to-nothing Yiddish anarchist café and infoshop in Glasgow—both self-organized and collectively rebellious projects.

Hence my second round of this fundraiser: because such spaces are precious and fragile. They show us a glimpse of the world to come in the here and now. And especially because the here and now is so absurdly difficult, making many of us feel all-too-fragile, even the idea that such spaces are doable and possible and beautiful—even if one isn’t in Pittsburgh or Glasgow—is heartening.

And if nothing else, I hope this pretty arrangement of the books on offer warms up your day a bit.

All proceeds, minus my actual costs, will be divided between these two projects. So, decide which book(s) you want, DM me and name your price from the range below, I’ll let you know the media mail cost ($3-5), and soon the books will be on their way to you.

Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief (AK Press): $9-16

Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Democracy (AK Press): $9-15

Anarchism and Its Aspirations (AK Press): $6-9

Try Anarchism for Life (Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness): $8-15

(Note: All of these books, and others by me, are always available at akpress.org, including ebook versions)

#AbolishXmas
#BeGayDoIllegalHolidays
#BooksNotBorders
#AlwaysCarryABook

I haven’t seen the moon in ages. Gray days blur into overcast night skies. Instead, I relied on written pages to tell me what I want to trust is out there this Hanukkah eve: the new moon, and thus a new month, Tevet 5783.

That, in turn, meant turning the page on my @radicaljewishcalendar to find the art of my friend @alias_alice, who’s across oceans, but lighting candles under the same moon that’s hard to see and so from the looks of this drawing is relying on books too.

That makes sense. Jews are “people of the book,” and some believe that the book preceded the creation of the world and was written in fire. Books can shape, reimagine, and transform the world, and make new ones. Books can save lives in this one.

Many, many new moons ago, when the pandemic was new, I felt beyond lifeless. Each morning, I woke startled anew, wondering why I was still here, and only wanting to sleep again. And walk, obsessively, for hours. For some reason, one day I tucked a big book of speculative fiction under my arm and set off on foot. I’d never read the genre, and as it was, my broken heart had no ability to read at all. Yet I sat by a lake and somehow got through one chapter. Then another chapter the next day, and so on, until I had something to look forward to, even if I still couldn’t clearly see it. I got lost in trusting the written fire of the other worlds and other moons created in this book.

Perhaps we Jews light candles with such ritual persistence because colonialism, christianization, and capitalism have stolen the moon—our illumination—ripping apart our lunisolar calendar, bloating out the skies with climate catastrophe, letting trillionaires like Musk make it their playground. Perhaps we write and read books as our weapon against them, and fiery promise of other worlds to and for each other.

So while we have to trust, hopeless as that feels these fascist-gray days, that the moon will reappear, new and maybe even whole, let’s always carry a book of our rebel wisdom and use its fire to the fullest.

Come, watch the moon with me, even if we can only imagine its guiding light, now obscured by all that pains us.

(photos: my night 7 candles in front of a drawing of a book, set against a pink floral background, with a 1940 Walter Benjamin quote, “The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule” and the words #AlwaysCarryABook, or #ACAB; red spray-painted outline of a heart on a gray wall with the tagged words inside it, “If you want, we can watch the moon?!,” spotted in an alley in Montreal, May 2022)

#WeMustOutliveThem
#RitualAsResistance
#AllChanukkahsAreBeautiful
#TryAnarchismForLife

Chanuka/Hanukkah/Janucá/Khanike/Xanuqa (etc.) fundraiser for two Jewish anarchist spaces that are near and dear and queer to my heart: @ratzonpgh and @dirozevepave!

Because it’s that time of year when I want to #AbolishXmas (along with capitalism, cops, christian fascism, and so much) and lean into the time-space of eight nights of much-needed light, illuminating resistance and resilience. And because I have some brand-new copies of six of my books “leftover” from a few events that got cut short by me sadly catching COVID this fall, after 2.5 years of being communally careful.

So rather than these titles getting lonely in boxes on my floor—I can always get more when I have the delight of trying again to do book-related events (DM or email me if you ever want to host one)—I’m turning them into this modest fundraiser!

Whether you’re Jewish or not, whether you hate Xmas or not, join in raising some gelt. I’ll donate anything over the material cost to me of each book to the two projects above.

DM or email (cbmilstein at yahoo) me if you want any of the following titles, sliding scale (or more) plus media mail ($3-5 per book) via my PayPal, while supplies last (alas, only for shipping in the US):

Anarchism and Its Aspirations, $6-9

Taking Sides: Revolutionary Solidarity and the Poverty of Liberalism, $6-9

Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief, $9-16

Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy, $9-15

There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists, $10-19

Try Anarchism for Life, $8-15

(photos, featuring the covers of all six books, borrowed from @camasbooks, @cryptotaenia.plant.sanctuary, and @scottcampbell, with much appreciation; all these books are also available from @akpressdistro, with #TryAnarchismForLife at @tangled_wilderness too)

#AlwaysCarryABook
#AllChanukkahsAreBeautiful

That weird and wonderful moment when your “baby” is born—nestled in a cardboard box that reached your doorstep today—and you can finally hold it in your hands. And the friends who saw it before you were right: it looks much more gorgeous in person than in this photo. But don’t all proud parents say that? (Pick up a copy and see for yourself!)

In celebration, I’ll likely be sharing a series of “baby photos” over the coming week or so, with bonus pictures of circle A photos taken in the wild that have been filling up my phone-camera.

For now, I’ll probably stare at my newborn way too much this evening, trying to get used to it now truly being in my life.

Available from its publisher/coparent, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, at www.tangledwilderness.org, or its chosen kin, AK Press at www.akpress.org, and/or awesome anarchistic bookstores.

(photo: #TryAnarchismForLife, showing the book’s pretty green-and-pink face designed by @eff_charm, smiling up at me with its circle A by @landonsheely)

#TheBeautyOfOurCircle
#AlwaysCarryABook
#TryAnarchismForLove

“Old news,” because this issue of the dope DOPE newspaper published by the equally dope @dogsectionpress came put over a month ago, but this rad, gorgeous periodical (whose main purpose in life is to support folks without homes) never gets old! And in this issue, besides incredible art—including a poster—I happily have an excerpt from my forthcoming book #TryAnarchismForLife (@tangledwild), and am joined on the pages by amazing friends/folks like @nobonzo, @PeterGelderloos, @surmise_cc, and many more!

You can read it for free via dogsection.org, where you’ll find 19 issues of DOPE, many books that make you want to #AlwaysCarryABook, and anarchist merch.

Alt text: red and black poster on the cover of DOPE magazine that reads “Already against the next war.”

#MakeMediaMakeTrouble