"The People's Project" is going on tour!
Come see me and Maggie Smith IRL!
Hello, my loves:
Maggie Smith and I are hitting the road this September to bring The People’s Project to y’all live and in color! We’re so excited! All the tour information is included below AND here’s a sneak preview of the introduction we wrote for the book! XO.
The truth is that you don’t need us to explain how it feels to be alive in an era when daggers—seen and unseen, personal and systemic—are being thrown at us from every we direction. You know our reality like you know your heartbeat. The fact is that our Present has become the very Past we desperately hoped we had outrun. History, as it turns out, has swifter feet than even the most alert of us could’ve expected. So then, if you’re holding The People’s Project, what do you need and what, possibly, could the writers and artists in its pages offer?
This anthology is a community as a book. As we put it together, we turned to people who we always turn to for guidance, encouragement and truth. These are the people we text and call to talk our way through the path of daggers. These are the mentors, siblings on the page, and friends we trust with both heavy-hearted conversations and laughter loud enough to color a crowded restaurant. We’ve broken bread, poured drinks, danced, and created art with these folks. And now, as both an offering and a prayer, we’re bringing the best of us to you. In a 1982 interview with Kay Bonetti, Toni Cade Bambara said “As a cultural worker who belongs to an oppressed class, my job is to make revolution irresistible.” The People’s Project is as much about what we need and hope for as it is about who we are.
The fact is, reader, no one is coming to save us but us. Our survival and future—not just through this political era, but onward into the blur of eras that await—wholly depend on our ability to connect with and protect each other far and wide, to share what we’ve learned from our varied and shared histories in order to enrich each other’s wisdom, confidence and imagination. The People’s Project is our attempt to honor the fact that, terrified as we are, we are nonetheless proud to understand the stakes of our work. No way forward but through, together. As it should be.
Onward,
Saeed and Maggie
Monday, September 8 at 7PM | Washington, DC
with Politics & Prose at the Dorothy Betts Marvin Theater
in conversation with Ari Shapiro
DC registration link here
Tuesday, September 9 at 6PM | Columbus, OH
with Prologue Bookshop at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
Columbus registration link here
Wednesday, September 10 at 7:30PM | Brooklyn, NY
with Greenlight Bookstore at St. Joseph’s University
reading & discussion with Hala Alyan, Aubrey Hirsch, Mira Jacob,
and ACLU’s LGBTQ Rights Project Co-Director Chase Strangio
Brooklyn registration link here
Thursday, September 11 at 7PM | Cambridge, MA
with Porter Square Books at Marran Theatre
reading & discussion with Tiana Clark, Koritha Mitchell,
Imani Perry, and Jason Silverstein
Cambridge registration link here
Saturday, September 13 at 7PM | Burlington, VT
with Phoenix Books at First Unitarian Universalist Society
in conversation with Alexander Chee
Burlington registration link here