Notices by Firestorm Books & Coffee (firestorm@kolektiva.social)

How many banned books can a room of dedicated volunteers pack in an hour? Yesterday we found out! 💪📦

At our first Banned Books Back! packaging party, community members turned out in droves to sort through dozens of cartons of books removed from Duval County Public Schools in Florida. Together we prepped 642 chapter books and 936 picture books to return to young readers. Despite the chill in the air—and the Christofascism in the political system—the mood was festive. Participants jumped in, swapping tips and innovating strategies to ensure that each box was lovingly assembled, filled with beautiful stories, and addressed to a child in Florida.

As the pugilistic unicorn puts it in our fave kids zine: "Not everyone fights how I fight, but all unicorns fight because we are magical creatures and as magical creatures we believe in a better world." Yesterday we fought by sending banned books back to kids, because we're also magical creatures who believe in a better world!

Find more about our campaign at https://firestorm.coop/bannedbooks.html.

#BannedBooksBack #AntiFacism #BannedBooks #DuvalCounty #FeministBookstore #Firestorm Coop (- L)

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).

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)

Tonight at 7pm ET we're hosting organizer and filmmaker Marisa Holmes in conversation with media studies scholar @ntnsndr! In "Organizing Occupy Wall Street," Holmes analyzes the movement as a core organizer involved from start to finish. She reveals how #OWS organized in practice, which experiments were most successful, and what future generations can learn.

Register for this free event at https://firestorm.coop/events/3097-marisa-holmes-on-organizing-occupy-wall-street.html (link in bio), where you can also pick up a copy of “Organizing Occupy Wall Street." Can't make the event? No worries! Register and we'll send you a recording once it's posted to our YouTube channel.

"[M]ovement history at its best: meticulous, direct, and expansive in revolutionary scope. Providing a crucial corrective to all too many reductive Occupy narratives, Holmes emphasizes the movement's context in international struggles and centers it's all-too-overlooked form as a horizontalist, richly lived radical experiment. This is the Occupy we need to remember; these are the practices we must carry forward."
—Natasha Lennard, author of "Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life"

#OccupyWallStreet #WeAreThe99Percent #AnarchistHistory #FeministBookstore #OrganizingOccupyWallStreet #FirestormCoop (- L)

Twelve years ago a mass movement shaped by the ideas and practices of anarchism erupted out of New York City's Zuccotti Park. Taking inspiration from the Arab Spring, the Green Wave of Iran, and the Indignados Movement of Spain, participants in Occupy Wall Street boldly experimented with participatory democracy and mutual aid in public spaces.

Next week we're excited to host Marisa Holmes, one of the originators of Occupy Wall Street, for a conversation about her new book on the movement, "Organizing Occupy Wall Street: This is Just Practice." She'll be joined by author and media studies scholar @ntnsndr for a lively discussion of Occupy's experimental structure and the lessons we can learn looking back on its successes and failures.

Register for free and grab the book at https://firestorm.coop/events/3097-marisa-holmes-on-organizing-occupy-wall-street.html. Not sure if you can make the event? Sign up anyway and you'll receive a link to the recorded conversation when we post it!

We're donating sales at our bookstore today to Palestinian mutual aid organizers. Order a book or make a direct donation to house and care for deported Gazan workers! https://firestorm.coop/news/palestinian-mutual-aid.html

This Sunday (10/15) and next Sunday (10/22), Firestorm will be donating net proceeds from ALL sales, online and in-store, to mutual aid relief efforts in Palestine.

Our hearts are heavy with grief for the dead, and our heads are spinning with rage as we watch openly genocidal rhetoric and rampant disinformation pave the way for escalated atrocities against two million Palestinians trapped in Gaza. As anarchists, we oppose oppression in all forms and resonate with the words of Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: "People have a human right to exist. States and borders do not."

We are grateful to have been connected with trusted folks able to receive funds for humanitarian relief by a Palestinian friend. The Hebron International Resource Network (HIRN) is an organization based in the West Bank that is working to house Gazan workers deported to the West Bank by Israeli forces. HIRN will be providing clothes, food and medicine to them. Donations can be made at https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/hirn_partner.

Please spread the word, encourage others to donate, and keep an eye out for a forthcoming announcement of a Q&A event at Firestorm with local Palestinian, Jewish, and Muslim comrades 🖤 #FreePalestine #GazaUnderAttack #StandWithPalestine #FeministBoosktore #FirestormCoop

Members of our community should be able to walk down a public street or visit a queer bookstore without being subject to arbitrary harassment and surveillance by police. A statement on the conspicuous surveillance of Firestorm's grand opening https://firestorm.coop/news/grand-opening-surveillance.html 📡

Today is the International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners! We're donating net proceeds from ALL sales—in-store & online—to support nine individuals serving extended sentences for their political activism. https://firestorm.coop/news/j11-fundraiser.html

Last year we donated $500—we'd love to double that! Money raised will support survival needs and/or legal fees for Bill Dunne, Daniel Baker, Jennifer Amelia Rose, Malik Muhammad, Marius Mason, Michael Kimble, Noah “Kado” Coffin, Sean Swain & Xinachtli 🏴