People Against Prisons Aotearoa invites you to support us in calling on the Department of Corrections to give people in prisons appropriate clothing and hygienic supplies on Sunday 16 November from 1PM outside Auckland Region Womens Corrections Facility. www.facebook.com/events/68706...

If you can't attend the protest, then please sign our petition calling on the Department of Corrections to provide prisoners the basic supplies they're legally entitled to: our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/ge...

The Dark Times Academy Reading Room is a gathering place for sharing ideas, imagining a brighter future, a place to plot a better world, and it's welcoming to everyone! We open the space every other week to people from all over the world to just talk. No cost, it's just a place to talk.

Come join us this weekend! It should be a lovely chill time to talk about the world, art, and what going on with everyone!

A fantastic @darktimesacademy.bsky.social Direct Action! class today with the incredible Chinyere Tutashinda as our guest lecturer. She left us feeling hopeful and energized and beyond grateful. You can read some of her work here:

A super cool part of this is that the job is part-time, so I can keep running @darktimesacademy.bsky.social AND making pots!

It's part-time, so we will keep on running cool classes and supporting our students and instructors because times remain dark. Even if @narwhallibrarian.bsky.social is starting a super cool new role.

It's break week at DTA and we are curling up with a great book, some lovely tea, and all the pets 🐈‍⬛🐕🦎🦜🐁 See you all next week for more fabulous conversation with our students and guests.

We had so much fun in Direct Action! class today with Joel Bellman! Thanks to Joel for coming along and talking about his work reporting on Lyndon LaRouche and his movement--and the days when Nixon was as bad as anyone could imagine. 😱

Amazing Making Hope class with @ketanjoshi.co today! Thanks so much for joining us and hanging out for a bit. Lots of talk about renewables, solutions that aren't going to work, and how we can all communicate better about climate. Plus! We had a BABY visit and a dog and even a kitty!

Wonderful conversation today with @paolobacigalupi.bsky.social today in our Vision class! Thanks so much for joining and to all of our amazing students!

So great to welcome @stopgenai.com to our Direct Action class today! It was a ✨fabulous✨ conversation for all! Thanks Kim!

So a while back Owen Savage reached out and offered to design a new website for us--and we said YES! So we are extremely pleased to announce that we have a new website! Thanks so much to Owen for his work on this--we love the new look!

it's time again! Pop your name in (or reach out via email or DM!) if you want to join us tomorrow!

Our Vision class just had the loveliest conversation with @clairegcoleman.bsky.social about her writing, art criticism, and lobbing empathy bombs! Thanks Claire for joining us and thanks to our students!

Thanks @transform6789.bsky.social for joining our Direct Action! class today--it was so lovely to have you along! Phenomenal class 💜

Hey all! Our website is down at the moment--we are hopeful the internet fairies get it up and working soon for us!

The #LIANZA2025 presentation by @narwhallibrarian.bsky.social on the state of <flails hands> was both hilarious and sobering. Despite initial appearances, disinformation is not fixed, money to do so is drying up, and @darktimesacademy.bsky.social is fundraising with mugs.

Keen to join? There's still time to sign up and meet some of the best science fiction authors writing today!

We had a ✨fabulous✨ start to our Direct Action! class! Our students are always so kind and lovely and inspiring 💜 Can't wait to do it again next week!

It is wildly irresponsible for political orgs to gather PPI up and then not have a clear plan for what they will do to keep people safe when the government comes knocking. We have almost no money, and yet we at @darktimesacademy.bsky.social still managed to keep people safe when the request came.

Vision: Imagining the Future (19 Sept – 14 Nov) Join with socially aware science fiction writers to explore how they do the work of imagination and creating vision - Annalee Newitz, Charlie Jane Anders, Paolo Bacigalupi, Monica Byrne & Claire Coleman. Register here: imaginingthefuture.l...

Making Hope had a lovely first class! So wonderful to meet everyone and start the class!

Our first class of the term is about to start! Super excited to meet everyone 🎉

Finally looked at our student lists today and we have SO MAY returning students! I am so incredibly excited to be welcoming back so many wonderful learners to our classes 💜

There's still time to sign up for our Direct Action class! If you're on the fence or not sure what our classes are like, give this a watch to get acclimated and get to know us!

I don't think of myself as a video content creator, but there's a giant pile of evidence that says I might need rethink what it is I actually do . . .

Feeling a bit shy or not sure what our classes are like? If you're interested in this one, there is still time to register! Have a look at our first weekly lecture to see if it seems like it might be for you 💜

I know a lot of people are being doxxed by the far right because they were too honest in public about how they felt about the Kirk assassination. I wrote a quick guide about the first things you should do if this is happening to you. (Not paywalled) www.patreon.com/posts/85220523

If you are thinking about signing-up and feeling a bit uncertain about what our classes are all about, give this a watch! It's not fancy or anything, but it's a good way to get a sense of this class and what we will be doing!

This should be a really powerful experience.

Everything seems really dark right now, but together we can figure out how to bring back the light. Classes start this week! Get registered and join us in class 💜

This is awesome. Aspire to make something awesome today as a way of telling the darkness of this timeline to go stew in a corner have a little think about what it's done.

As always we had a lovely time today Lots of conversations, ideas for how to create a better world, and camaraderie 💜 And look who has a LID now! She's a real jar!

Come join us today to talk about wtf happened this week, decorating pottery with paper resist, and our upcoming classes. (See I snuck a pottery thing in there, because that's what I will be doing while we chat!)

Register today!

So get registered, share our classes with your friends and family, and let’s work together to explore new ideas, new ways to resist, and new visions for a different kind of world. RSVP to join us tomorrow for our Reading Room:

Charlie Kirk was a white supremacist hatemonger. His death, like all deaths, is a tragic reminder how short and fragile life is for all of us. It’s not hard to acknowledge that political violence is a terrible thing—and that is what made Kirk’s rhetoric dangerous and vile.

Going to be doing a new batch of Dark Times Academy mugs. Any thoughts about what colour you would prefer?

There was some internal debate about whether I was being too 🌶️spicy🌶️ with this newsletter. Pleased to see it went over beautifully here and got zero attention on LinkedIn.

Yes, yes, yes.

We very much hope you will join us in the classroom in the coming weeks. Our line-up of guests for each class is spectacular—but it’s the students who make the class. We need you, your voice and your ideas.

saying that abortion is worse than the holocaust is also political violence. hope this helps!

There’s many ways to fight back. Education is an anchor for the diversity of tactics.

A less discussed divide: we who have grieved *and processed* a deep loss / those who haven't dealt with the heaviness and healed (as much as one can), or haven't had to yet. Once you experience how precious all this is, moving forward with hatred is a choice I think fewer of the former make.

I was feeling like The Discourse needed some directness about who Kirk was and how he impacted the world. (Also, please do register for our classes!)

Charlie Kirk was a white supremacist hatemonger. His death, like all deaths, is a tragic reminder how short and fragile life is for all of us. It’s not hard to acknowledge that political violence is a terrible thing—and that is what made Kirk’s rhetoric dangerous and vile.

I’ll soon be a guest speaker for an online course aimed at continuing learners and activists looking to mount an effective resistance. I’ll focus on how advocacy and investigative journalism can help defend our rights and protect democracy. Details here: www.facebook.com/1222724389/p...

Come join one of our classes for more advice on telling fascists how little you appreciate them and their work 💜

Making Hope: Climate Action for Dark Times (17 Sept – 12 Nov 2025) How can we transform the climate movement into one that fights fascism AND ensures a livable planet? Guest speakers include Bill McKibben, Amy Westervelt, James Renwick, Ketan Joshi, and more! Register here: makinghope.lilregie.com