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Join JJ Amaworo Wilson for the book launch of his recent novel Nazaré, in conversation with Jack Crocker, on Thursday, October 21st at 7pm MST, streaming on Zoom and in-person, hosted by Western New Mexico University. Join us on Zoom here or at Light Hall on the WNMU campus. Learn more here.

About the book:

Nazaré: the great wave. Kin, an orphan scavenger in the Fishing Village with No Name, finds a stranded whale on the beach and tries to return it to the ocean. His efforts attract the attention of Mayor Matanza and his bloodthirsty police, the Tonto Macoute, and Kin must leave the only home he’s ever known. His journeys take him to an abandoned lighthouse, through singing caves and brutal deserts, and finally to a village of warrior historians.

There he meets the Professor and others who are preparing to overthrow Matanza. They are joined by Jesa, a woman from Kin’s village who might be a witch, and the nun Iquique. Their revolution is unlike any other, fought by tinkers and miners, monks and acrobats, clairvoyants in bowler hats, a painted saint, the King of the Rats, and a giant turtle named Abacaxi. The holy man Fundogu once told Kin, “You will do battle with monsters and you will do battle with men.” As Fundogu’s prophecy takes shape around him, Kin remembers another of Fundogu’s sayings: “Everything begins and ends in the sea”

JJ Amaworo Wilson is a German-born Anglo-Nigerian-American writer. His 2016 novel, Damnificados, won three international awards, was an Oprah Top 10 pick, and has since been translated into French and German. His work has appeared in African American Journal, Justice Journal, The Penguin Book of New Black Writing, and many other publications. He is currently the writer-in-residence at Western New Mexico University.

Join Adrian Shanker, author of Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health, for a book talk at The Center on Colfax in Denver, CO on Tuesday, October 26th at 6:30pm. This is an in-person event at 1301 E Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80218. Join us! Learn more here. Or if you’re attending the American Public Health Association (APHA) conference in Denver, meet Adrian at the PM Press booth 1321 on 10/24 from 1-2pm and 10/25 from 12:30-2pm.

About the book:

LGBT people pervasively experience health disparities, affecting every part of their bodies and lives. Yet many are still grappling to understand the mutually reinforcing health care challenges that lead to worsened health outcomes. Bodies and Barriers informs health care professionals, students in health professions, policymakers, and fellow activists about these challenges, providing insights and a road map for action that could improve queer health.

Through artfully articulated, data-informed essays by twenty-six well-known and emerging queer activists—including Alisa Bowman, Jack Harrison-Quintana, Liz Margolies, Robyn Ochs, Sean Strub, Justin Sabia-Tanis, Ryan Thoreson, Imani Woody, and more—Bodies and Barriers illuminates the health challenges LGBT people experience throughout their lives and challenges conventional wisdom about health care delivery. It probes deeply into the roots of the disparities faced by those in the LGBT community and provides crucial information to fight for health equity and better health outcomes.

The contributors to Bodies and Barriers look for tangible improvements, drawing from the history of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and from struggles against health care bias and discrimination. At a galvanizing moment when LGBT people have experienced great strides in lived equality, but our health as a community still lags, here is an indispensable blueprint for change by some of the most passionate and important health activists in the LGBT movement today.

Adrian Shanker is an award-winning activist and organizer whose career has centered on advancing progress for the LGBT community. He has worked as an arts fundraiser, labor organizer, marketing manager, and served as President of Equality Pennsylvania for three years before founding Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown, PA, where he serves as executive director. An accomplished organizer, Adrian has led numerous successful campaigns to advance LGBT progress through municipal nondiscrimination and relationship recognition laws and laws to protect LGBT youth from conversion therapy. A specialist in LGBT health policy, he has developed leading-edge health promotion campaigns to advance health equity through behavioral, clinical, and policy changes.

Join Peter Cole for a free online discussion of Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly on Monday the 25th of October from 5.15pm – 6.15pm (London, UK time), hosted by the Royal Museums Greenwich. Learn more and register here.

Ben Fletcher, an African American who helped lead the IWW’s most militant and effective interracial branch, epitomized the union’s brand of anti-capitalism and anti-racism. Fletcher (1890−1949) was a tremendously important and well-loved member of the IWW during its heyday, the first quarter of the 20th century. A brilliant union organizer and a humorous orator, Fletcher helped found and lead Local 8 of the IWW’s Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union. When founded in 1913, this union was a third African American, a third Irish and Irish American, and a third other European immigrants. Despite being hated by the bosses and redbaited by the government, Local 8 controlled the waterfront for almost a decade.

Peter Cole, a Professor of History at Western Illinois University and Research Associate in the Society, Work and Development Program at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is the author of Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive Era Philadelphia and the award-winning Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area. He also is the founder and co-director of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project (CRR19). He tweets from @ProfPeterCole.