Happy end of summer, happy fall, and happy equinox! I hope folks have been finding peace in the ways you can, as well as the strength to keep resisting everything and everyone that wants to eliminate any of us or who we are. I have been working on my small vegetable garden, and have been planting a few species native to Detroit in the yard. Below is a coneflower I planted last fall that has grown into this beauty, which gave me some peace and joy all throughout August and into September.

So far this year, I’ve published several articles. In case you missed them when they came out, this story on letterwriting as abolitionist practice was published in Truthout, as well as this story on grassroots defense campaigns that support criminalized survivors of domestic violence. I also published this long-form interview about the shifting ways to use music as a form of building political solidarity in the time of covid.

I’ve also been quite busy, with several editorial and other public sociology projects. As always, I feel lucky to support such talented authors in making their work more accessible to readers and honored to speak in classes or at events (mainly virtually). This fall, I plan to offer a new interactive workshop on conscious language and gender pronouns. The purpose of this workshop is to affirm the right of trans people to exist in public. Please reach out directly if this is something that you are excited to learn more about!

Although elites may be more insistent than ever that things are “back to normal,” many of us know that these are critical times of disconnection (and that the claim that the pandemic is over is itself an act that tears us apart from one another). Hold fast to one another because we deserve a better world.