Friends, killjoys, troublemakers, I love the community I have found here and I am glad to read and to listen and to be read and heard. I just wanted you to know I am taking a break from writing new posts for about a month whilst I work on a new book Commonsense and its Others. There are some knots that will take time to untangle. I will still be reading and listening here. And yes, I will be screaming in solidarity with Palestine.

By the time I am back to writing my newsletter, No is Not a Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining will be almost out.

I will be glad to share the work with you soon - I will be mainly doing informal events working with queer, feminist and independent bookstores and libraries. I will think of each as a chance to say no together. To do it.

We have to keep saying it because they keep doing it.

But also:

We have to keep doing it because all they do is say it.

We know so much from doing it.

We know how institutions make it hard to say no in them or to them as evidenced by the increasing use of force against those who are protesting the genocide in Gaza.  However hard it is made to say no, saying it can be how we find others who say it. No can be how we share our refusal to accept a situation, clarify our projects, and find our people. 

Today I was sent some advance copies of the book, a pile of No’s. Thanks to everyone who has been piling on because of what goes on. May we pile and proliferate. xxx