Event Details

Schedule:

Wednesday 10/29 (virtual event)

7:00 – 8:30 (EST): Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis

Saturday 11/1

12:30-1:30 How to Resist a Grand Jury
1:45-2:45 The Anarchism of Lucy Parsons
3:00-4:00 Abolition Write Now: Human Connection, Pen-pals, and Liberation
4:15-5:15 Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help book discussion

Sunday 11/2
12:30-1:30 What the Health?!
1:45-2:45 Intro to Political Education
3:00-4:30 Bookfair closing party with music from Songs of Liberation by Evan Greer

Workshop Descriptions:

Saturday 11/1

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM: How to Resist a Grand Jury
Grand juries are a purposely secret part of the US (in)justice system. What are they, and how do they work? In this workshop we’ll discuss who receives grand jury subpoenas, your options if you get one, and how to resist the court’s demands to snitch on your friends. NOW is the time to know your rights, before an agent knocks at your door or approaches you on the street. Includes multiple success stories of people who resisted in the past year!

1:45 PM – 2:45 PM: The Anarchism of Lucy Parsons
A presentation on some of the insurrectionary anarchist tendencies in Lucy Parsons’ political thought, in relation to current events and the broader transnational history of anarchist movements.

Huey Hewitt is a multi-disciplinary historian of black life and black politics. He is currently completing his doctorate at Harvard University in the Department of African and African American Studies. His research is on black anarchism in the United States from the advent of modern anarchism in the 1870s through the end of the Black Power era. When he is not reading, writing, or organizing, Huey enjoys meditating, lifting weights, hiking, and watching trash TV.

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Abolition Write Now: Human Connection, Pen-pals, and Liberation
This workshop will offer an opportunity to hear from and make friends with incarcerated people in MA. Drawing on centuries of anarchist solidarity with incarcerated people, we will discuss the importance of direct connection to bringing about a world free from prisons and police. Incarcerated speakers will lead conversations on a topic of their choice.

Abolitionist Mail Project fosters meaningful, life-affirming connections between people behind and beyond prison walls by creating penpal friendships between incarcerated people in Massachusetts and non-incarcerated people

4:15 PM – 5:15 PM: Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help book discussion
Join us in celebrating this long-awaited collection by Chicago author and agitator Jarrod Shanahan, who will appear in discussion with Maud Umlaut. Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help (PM Press, 2025) collects a decade of reflections on recent US struggles—Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the George Floyd Rebellion—alongside accounts of the rise of Trumpism, the alt-right, and an apocalyptic shift in popular culture, to paint a dense and complex portrait of a decade of protracted social crisis.

Jarrod Shanahan reports from the ground. On the streets in 2014, from the depths of the Rikers Island penal complex, inside the alt-right underground and the carnival of Trump rallies, and in the line of fire in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020, among other scenes that Shanahan accessed not as a credentialed observer but an active participant: prisoner, infiltrator, activist. The resulting essays outline the pitfalls and opportunities facing those seeking to reverse the suicidal course of capitalist society and build a liberated world.

Jarrod Shanahan is the author of Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage (Verso, 2022) and co-author of States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform and America’s Punishment System (Field Notes/Reaktion, 2022), City Time: On Being Sentenced to Rikers Island (NYU Press, 2025) and Skyscraper Jails: The Abolitionist Fight Against Jail Expansion in New York City (Haymarket, 2025).

Maud Umlaut is an anarchist.

Sunday November 2nd

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM: What the Health?!
Dialogue, conversation, and educational content regarding the political construction of health in this particular moment. Trigger warnings: MAHA, ableism, pathologization, criminalization, and institutionalization.

Ashlie is an anarchist healthcare worker.

1:45 PM – 2:45 PM: Intro to Political Education
The workshop will help participants to think about the role of political education in the revolutionary transformation of society. We will discuss multiple fun, effective, and non- coercive means of helping people develop political consciousness and motivation to take action, rooted in popular education. After sharing some best practices, we will help participants improve their political ed chops with minizines, presentations, book group discussions, and one on one conversations. We will use the topic of rent as the theme for these activities. If possible, read Abolish Rent by Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis published by Haymarket Book before the workshop and bring it with you.

Led by Cora and Jeremy, former and current paid educators, who are passionate about helping people of all ages figure shit out

3:00 PM – 4:30 PM: Bookfair closing party with music from Songs of Liberation by Evan Greer
Songs of Liberation is a Boston-based protest folk band, fronted by Palestinian American Juliet Salameh and dedicated to liberation in Falastine and liberation for ALL. They know another world is possible and will dream it into existence through music, including original and vintage protest songs. Their spirally violin textures and tender vocal harmonies are filled with love for the people, the planet, and the movements that serve life. Their music is healing, uplifting, tender to community, while fearlessly resistant to empire, capitalism, and bigotry of any kind. Evan Greer is a queer anti-authoritarian musician, activist, and writer based in Boston. Her new album AMAB/ACAB is out everywhere now via Get Better Records. Howard Zinn once called Greer an “eloquent and energetic writer.” Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine calls her a “heck of a guitarist.” Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace called her a “mentally ill man in a dress” before having her thrown out of an event in Washington, DC.

Wednesday 10/29

7:00 – 8:30 (EST): Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis
Virtual book release event with editor Kelly Hayes, presented by the Boston Anarchist Bookfair

RSVP here

Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis is a book of letters to activists and organizers on the frontlines in catastrophic times, edited by Let This Radicalize You co-author Kelly Hayes. Join Kelly for a virtual book release event as part of the programming of this year’s Boston Anarchist Bookfair.

In social movements, some heartbreaks are all but inevitable. Campaigns will be lost. Mental health crises will occur. Social ills, like gender-based violence, will manifest themselves in movement spaces. People will experience profound personal losses. Grief, alienation, and despair can grind us under. Sometimes, we need accompaniment. Sometimes, we need to be met where we’re at by a caring voice of experience. Read This When Things Fall Apart is a care package for activists and organizers building power under fascistic, demoralizing conditions. It’s an outstretched hand, offering history lessons, personal anecdotes, and practical advice about how to navigate the woes of justice work. A survival guide for the heart, this is a book for activists to keep close, and to share with co-strugglers in need.

Personal, reflective, and hopeful, Read This When Things Fall Apart harnesses the writers; individual moments of despair into living, breathing wisdom that chips away at the supposed inevitability of fascist life. Restorative like a letter from a trusted friend and invigorating like a
story from a mentor, the book is an indispensable companion for all of us navigating challenging times. Featuring letters from Mariame Kaba, Ashon Crawley, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Eman Abdelhadi, Brian Merchant, and more.

Kelly Hayes is a Menominee Native author, photographer, organizer, and movement educator. They are the host of Truthout’s podcast, Movement Memos, and the co-author of Let This Radicalize You with Mariame Kaba. Kelly’s written work can also be found in a variety of publications and anthology collections. Kelly has trained thousands of people around the country in direct action and protest tactics.