The first round of blurbs for my memoir Song For a Hard-Hit People are coming in and my heart is full. ❤️‍🔥 Thanks Chicago Review of Books for choosing me as a 2026 Most Anticipated release and @avashianeema.bsky.social , Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, and Robert Gipe for your support.

Pre-orders are so important to the life of a book... who in your circle can you make a "pre-ordered for you!" gift certificate for?

“Since 2018, labor columnist Kim Kelly brought the labor beat to teenage readers through her “No Class” column, covering everything from wildcat strikes to general strikes, the Gilded Age labor organizer Mother Jones to contemporary Amazon warehouse conditions.” 💔 thisislaborwise.com/teen-vogues-...

Let’s go EKY!

Working Class Love Notes #14: Song For a Hard-Hit People pre-orders are open for this love song to the multiracial working class that is going to get us free ❤️‍🔥 so freaking proud of @jbethiejean.bsky.social for the cultural + organizing work she gives her whole heart to!

@jbethiejean.bsky.social is a lovely and fierce soul and I know her memoir is the same:

my friend, comrade + conspirator @jbethiejean.bsky.social wrote a book that WE NEED RIGHT NOW look at this cover! ❤️‍🔥 pre-orders are open + they are IMPORTANT hello to my fellow white antiracists: we need this story! HUZZAH to you, Beth 🎉👏🏻🤌🏻 bookshop.org/p/books/like...

SURJ's very own @jbethiejean.bsky.social has a book coming out next year ⬇️ check it out!

My friend @jbethiejean.bsky.social wrote a book! I’m so looking forward to reading 🤓

Song For a Hard-Hit People: A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity From a Coal Miner’s Daughter will be released on April 21st 2026 from @haymarketbooks.org. In the midst of hateful divisive rhetoric, violent repression, and grifters writing elegies, let this one be a song. ❤️‍🔥 Pre-orders are open!

Already pre-ordered my copy! Cannot wait to read my teacher and friend @sheainthecatskills.com ‘s essay! 💖✨plus an essay by @laetitiacartomancy.bsky.social !

Lora Eli Smith’s “Gobsmacked!” in @oxfordamerican.bsky.social is an excellent @longreads.com pick! It’s the best essay I’ve read this year: ecology, grief, wonder, and goblins ✨ oxfordamerican.org/magazine/iss...

Some cool queer KY history in @jbethiejean.bsky.social's latest Substack! I really enjoyed this. workingclasslovenotes.substack.com/p/working-cl...

@jbethiejean.bsky.social with a Love Note for us: "Through mending circle, we are learning how to change and reimagine the broken system we live in so we can work towards a new way of living and being together, like dreaming up worker cooperatives." ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 I'm a paid subscriber—you can become one too!

Loved talking about rural organizing and Rednecks for Black Lives on @tvlrfm.bsky.social ❤️‍🔥

Loved talking about fellow Kentuckian Anne Braden on @mountainlaurels.bsky.social 💖💖💖 thank you for having me on! open.spotify.com/episode/6QXo...

“Our right-wing opponents have been serious about investing in organizing rural communities for generations. It’s time progressives are serious, too.” @jbethiejean.bsky.social @convergencemag.com convergencemag.com/articles/fro...

This is a good piece that talks about solidarity and coalition building in left-behind areas where people's needs aren't being met. It's really heartening, and heartbreaking, to recognize our lived experiences and frustrations reflected elsewhere.

We'll be talking with @jbethiejean.bsky.social and Stephen Smith on Friday on Block & Build. Join us on Friday at 2 PM Eastern/11 AM Pacific: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxnV...

"Our right-wing opponents have been serious about investing in organizing rural communities for generations. It’s time progressives are serious, too." ❤️‍🔥

"Attacks on democratic institutions merely scratch the surface of what we’re up against. In most rural places, we are facing a generational crisis."

New article in @convergence about the dignity and power of rural people, places, and organizing which we should all invest in. Proud to be a co-author with my friend Stephen Smith, also one of my fellow co-founders of the Rural Defenders Union. ❤️‍🔥

Corporate Coup in Global Context Join @naomiaklein.bsky.social, @chenjerai.bsky.social, @astra.bsky.social, & @keeanga.bsky.social for an emergency town hall on the accelerating corporate dominance of our societies Mon., Feb. 17 at 5:00 pm ET RSVP to attend: www.tickettailor.com/events/hayma...

Today’s art project — with a quote from @margaret.bsky.social “Deescalate all conflict that isn’t with the enemy.” 🌸

Yes, @sheainthecatskills.com we all gotta build that muscle of refusal and breaking rules ❤️‍🔥

Let’s go @surj.bsky.social ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

SO PROUD OF MY POLITICAL HOME SURJ ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

my dear friend + comrade @jbethiejean.bsky.social's Working Class Love Notes is about her interview with THEE Dr. Angela Davis...includes a link to the webinar interview + Beth's ferocious encouragement ❤️‍🔥

Thanks to @jbethiejean.bsky.social for sharing some good news and encouraging us to "Never Stop Resisting." Movements for justice and freedom can win, and sometimes they do, even in these dire times.

my dear friend + comrade @jbethiejean.bsky.social is interviewing ANGELA DAVIS for this SURJ call on Thursday—I am already registered! It’ll also be recorded for those who can’t make it live. www.mobilize.us/surj/event/7...

Join us!

My latest substack newsletter is posted. ❤️‍🔥 Working Class Love Notes #6

I wrote about UNION, the gripping and much-needed documentary about the Amazon Labor Union, and why it hasn't gotten a distribution deal (spoiler: Bezos has too much money/power). You can stream it on Gathr this weekend and you should! slate.com/culture/2024...

This week's must-read roundup has arrived early (and was still tough to narrow down). Here are some articles you won't want to miss, along with ways to support Native people this weekend and my final thoughts for the week.

Against Settler-Colonialism: A Reading List

The Georgia Department of Health dismissed every member of the Maternal Mortality Review Committee after an article was published about the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, two pregnant women who died as a result of Georgia’s abortion ban.

Octavia Butler inspired art — from “Parable of the Sower” Chapter 2 “A gift of god may sear unready fingers. — EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING #booksky #artsky

Vanity Fair's weird story about Cormac McCarthy grooming an abused 16-year-old girl and then stealing her stories and voice for his books thing has really bothered me (and a lot of other women). A bit more on that subject from my memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence about muse as trap....

Happy Holidays! ALL Haymarket Books are 40% off through January 3rd!

A supermajority of the battery workers at a Kentucky plant have signed union authorization cards and are launching public campaign to join the UAW today. The plant is owned by BlueOval SK, a joint venture of Ford and Korean company SK On.

One of my favorite newsletters and communities ❤️subscribe!

Billionaires are a disease

We’ve given away more than 350,000 free ebooks this week! Thanks to all of you who have been reading with us and sharing, and thanks for your patience as our servers have at times struggled to keep up. Which book are you reading first? bsky.app/profile/haym...

“When those in power try to divide us, we have each other’s backs and know who the real enemy is.” - @jbethiejean.bsky.social

Instead, we should blame those at the top who are getting rich by ensuring we all suffer.

"So, in honor of the age-old wisdom of working-class Southern matriarchs, here’s what we’re not going to do. 🤌🏻❤️‍🔥 Beth Howard has the goods 👇🏻

The director of Appalachia People’s Union explains why the region’s rich history of labor organizing is inspiring working-class solidarity that will be needed in the next four years.

Grateful I was asked to write this piece for @barnraiser.bsky.social. Solidarity forever, always and especially now. ❤️‍🔥

Just listened to this conversation with @feelingndealing.bsky.social, @shrinkthinks.bsky.social and Gogo Khayela and I really recommend it. The Farmer’s Almanac mention captured my rural heart, along with so much more. ❤️