Having so much fun at our book signing at Facing Race Conference, Nov. 17 in Baltimore

Here is Maegan La Mala Ortiz and I at our book signing @ the PM PRESS TABLE. It felt great being able to sign books and talk about the issues with everyone. Maegan was also interviewed for this radio segment on Facing Race: and is in the last 5 minutes talking about childcare, access & DLYFB. Way to go! She wrote a book review about DLYFB as well. I hope I can meet and read with all of the contributors eventually (It was so great to meet so many of you on the "magical midwest book tour") and we can all have our special "book moments" together.

Don't Leave Your Friends Behind review in Truthout

Writer, teacher and feminist activist Eleanor J. Bader reviewed Don't Leave Your Friends Behind for the news website Truthout:

In many ways, the two kids I helped raise had great childhoods. There were four adults who loved them - a mom and stepmom, a dad and stepdad - and they were surrounded by role models who were engaged in efforts to improve their communities and world. They learned early that different people have different strengths and grew to appreciate variation in both style and substance. That said, regardless of which house they were living in on a particular day, they always bristled when they were dropped off in activist-sponsored child care or dragged to demonstrations. "It's boring," they'd whine. "There's nothing for us to do."

More often than not, they were right.

Activist mothers Victoria Law and China Martens have compiled an anthology aimed at changing this. Fifty-one essays offer practical ideas - outlining specific ways to integrate kids into conferences, rallies and meetings and ensure that babies and toddlers are well tended. The goal? To enable exhausted parents and caregivers to participate in movements for social justice by offering concrete support to them and their offspring. What's more, several contributors address caring for parents and other elders and highlight how best to bolster comrades and friends when they are grieving. Furthermore, the importance of maintaining one's own mental and physical health is spotlighted as a political imperative.

For the full review, click here.

Don't Leave Your Friends Behind in Seattle & PDX!

Looking for details about China's Magical Midwest Book Tour? Click here.

While China Martens travels the magical midwest, her co-editor Vikki Law will be in Seattle & PDX to celebrate the book (and the impending all-ages revolution)!

Seattle Book Launch
 
Fri. Nov 9, 7 pm

Garden House
2336 15^th Ave S., Seattle, WA 98144

How do we create new, non-hierarchical structures of support and mutual aid and include all ages in the struggle for social justice? Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is a collection of concrete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes. Let's build an all-ages, inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind. 

Join co-editor Victoria Law and Seattle-area contributors Andrea Givens and Simon Knaphus for a reading, discussion and celebration of ways to support families in social justice movements and communities. Let's build an all-ages, all-inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind! 

This is an event for all ages; bring your children!!

PDX Book Release!

Sunday, November 11th, 2 to 4 pm

Reading Frenzy 

921 SW Oak St. PDX

Join us to welcome editor/author Vikki Law and to celebrate the release of Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements & Communities (PM Press, 2012) a collection of concrete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes. Let's build an all-ages, inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind.

Vikki Law is a mother, writer and photographer. She is a co-founder of Books Through Bars--NYC, the editor of Tenacious: Art & Writings from Women in Prison, and the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women (winner of the 2009 PASS Award).

Jason Gonzales lives with his partner and two children in the big trees and wildness of Oregon's Coast Range. Recently, their family's activism is geared to forest defense, and creating multi-generational spaces and family supportive behaviors in the various fights to save the ancient giants of the Pacific Northwest.

 

Hope to see you there!!

China's Magic Mini-Midwest Book Tour

China at Don't Leave Your Friends Behind launch party,
Normals Bookstore, Baltimore, MD

Oct. 27 Minneapolis, MN 
Oct. 30 Chicago, IL
Nov. 3 Denver, CO
Nov. 5 Albuequerque, NM
Nov. 11 New Orleans, LA

How do we create new, non-hierarchical structures of support and mutual aid and include all ages in the struggle for social justice? Don't Leave Your Friends Behind is a collection of con

crete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes.

OCTOBER 27 - MINNEAPOLIS, MN
Boneshaker Books, 7 pm
2305 25th Ave. S. Minneapolis
http://www.boneshakerbooks.com/dont-leave-your-friends-behind-oct-27

Join co-editor China Martens, 7-hour away (Grand Junction, North Dakota) contributor Heather Joy Jackson, and the Minneapolis Childcare Collective for a reading, discussion and celebration of ways to support families in social justice movements and communities. Let's build an all-ages, all-inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind!

Childcare Provided!

OCTOBER 30 - CHICAGO, IL
Read/Write Library, 7 pm
914 N. California, Walton Entrance
https://www.facebook.com/events/433984646662413/

Join co-editor China Martens and Chicago-area contributors Rozalinda Borcilă, young activists Daniela and Maria, former Whittier students and La Casita librarians, Darran White Tilghman, and The Chicago Childcare Collective (ChiChiCo) for a reading, discussion and celebration of ways to support families in social justice movements and communities. Let's build an all-ages, all-inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind!

Childcare Provided!

- If you're bringing your child(ren), please e-mail Gilad ahead of time so we can get a kid count - giladshanan@gmail.com
- Read/Write Library is wheelchair accessible

NOVEMBER 3 - DENVER, CO
Denver Zine Library, 6:30 pm
2727 West 27th Avenue, Denver CO
https://www.facebook.com/events/162296653894180/

Join co-editor China Martens and Denver contributor Clayton Dewey for a reading, discussion and celebration of ways to support families in social justice movements and communities. Let's build an all-ages, all-inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind!

Potluck and activities for children - all ages community event!

NOVEMBER 5 - ALBUQUERQUE, NM
Bookworks, 7pm
4022 Rio Grande Blvd NW
http://www.bkwrks.com/event/amanda-rich-and-china-martens-their-new-book-dont-leave-your-friends-behind

Join co-editor China Martens, Albuquerque contributors Micaela Cadena/Young Woman United, Jessica Mills (author of "My Mother Wears Combat Boots"), and Amanda Rich for a reading, discussion and celebration of ways to support families in social justice movements and communities. Let's build an all-ages, all-inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind!

Bring your children! This is an event for all ages!!

NOVEMBER 11 - NEW ORLEANS, LA
Fair Grinds Coffeehouse, 6pm
3133 Ponce de Leon, New Orleans, LA
http://fairgrinds.com/

Join co-editor China Martens and New Orlean contributor Coleen Murphy, Crescent City Childcare Collective, and local Mamaphiles (mama and papa zine collaboration) for a reading, discussion and celebration of ways to support families in social justice movements and communities. Let's build an all-ages, all-inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind!

Lively, Festive, Fun (Book party) - maybe a puppet show among other things - Bring your children!

*please feel free to share this*

for more info about the book: https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=502

Baltimore and Hudson Valley events

BALTIMORE 

Waverly library reading this Wednesday (October 17th, 6 pm)

China Martens w/ local contributors Oluko Dyson Brown, Sine Hwang Jensen, and Harriet Moon 

Take part in local discussion about our communities, how we support families in our communities, how we are supported, and how we wish we were!

It IS child-friendly, bring your children and we will all entertain them together ♥ http://www.prattlibrary.org/calendar/atpratt.aspx?id=75478


and 

HUDSON VALLEY (NY) on Saturday, October 20th, 2 pm

Join us at

Inquiring Minds Bookstore
65 Partition St, Saugerties, NY
http://www.inquiringbooks.com/node/5 

Saturday, October 20th, 2 pm
How do we create new, non-hierarchical structures of support and mutual aid and include all ages in the struggle for social justice? 

Join Victoria Law, coeditor of the new book Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities, and contributors Traci Picard and 
Jennifer Silverman for a reading and discussion about ways to support families in social justice movements and communities. Let's build an all-ages, all-inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind!

Vikki Law is a writer, photographer, and mother. She is the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, which won the 2009 PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award and the zine Tenacious: Art & Writings from Women in Prison.

Traci Picard is a practicing herbalist with an apothecary of handmade medicines. She grows and forages plants for my community and teaches classes about plant identification and herbs. She writes about plants, foraging, holistic health care and life and maintains a blog of photos and thoughts at fellowworkersfarm.wordpress.com while homeschooling her 3 children. She believes a sense of humor just may save the world.
 
Jennifer Silverman is a NYC-based mama of two sons and an unrepentant coffee addict. She is a coeditor of My Baby Rides the Short Bus (PM Press, 2009), a contributor to Moms Gone Mad, and has had essays and articles published in HipMama magazine, Newsday, off our backs, and many regional newspapers and parenting magazines. Jennifer has also spoken about raising her son with autism, intergenerational movement building, and/or community organized childcare at conferences including the Left Forum, National Conference on Organized Resistance, Mama Gathering, and several bookfairs, and is looking forward to the day when there is less talk and more action on these issues.
 

Hope to see you there!


 

NYC release party for Don't Leave Your Friends Behind!

NYC release party for Don't Leave Your Friends Behind!

Saturday,  October 06, 2012 07:00PM 

Bluestockings Bookstore 

172 Allen Street, New York City

212.777.6028

F train to 2nd Avenue

bluestockings.com

 

Join us as we celebrate the publication of Don't Leave Your Friends Behind! 

 

How do we create new, non-hierarchical structures of support and mutual aid and include all ages in the struggle for social justice? Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is a collection of concrete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes. Let's build an all-ages, inclusive revolution that leaves no one behind. 

 

Join co-editors Vikki Law and China Martens as well as NYC contributors Kathleen McIntyre, Cynthia Ann Schemmer, and Jennifer Silverman and celebrate!

Baltimore Book Launch! Saturday, Sept 29th

In or around Baltimore this Saturday? Come help us celebrate the launch of Don't Leave Your Friends Behind!

We'll be having not one, but TWO events that day. We hope to see you at one or both:


Sept, Saturday, 29th, 1pm

Baltimore Bookfair,  
Mt. Vernon Place,centered on 600 North Charles St, Baltimore MD
 
China Martens and Vikki Law joined by local contributors Sine Hwang Jensen, Monalisa Lennon Diallo a.k.a. Oluko Lumumba, and Harriet Moon Smith  
Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: 
Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice
Movements and Communities
 
Years in the making, this volume of essays and interviews edited by Baltimore’s very own hip mama, China Martens, author of The Future Generation, and NYC prisoner-justice organizer Victoria Law asks tough questions about what happens to parents when radical and social movements don’t make space for families. The Baltimore launch event for this hotly anticipated, deeply moving title!
 
http://www.baltimorebookfestival.com
http://bookfair2012.redemmas.org

 
and then...

Sept, Saturday, 29th

Baltimore Book Release Party

7pm, Normals Books and Records 
425 E. 31st Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218
http://www.normals.com/
 
7pm Food, Cake, Balloons
 
7:30 pm: Marching Band opening w/ Barrage Band
Reading:  China Martens, Vikki Law, Sine Hwang Jensen, Monalisa Lennon Diallo a.k.a. Oluko Lumumba, and Harriet Moon Smith
 
9 pm: Music: Raindeer – Happy techno-pop: http://raindeer.bandcamp.com


Not in Baltimore? Not to worry! We'll be posting our events in other cities, including NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, Albuquerque and New Orleans soon enough. Stay tuned...