Publication Notes

If the blog as a medium is about anything it is about shameless self-promotion. Well, I'm not sure I can quite manage the shamelessness, but I do from time to time -- I wish I had more opportunities! -- draw attention to pieces of my writing that appear elsewhere or are used in other ways. Today, there are two items that I want to share.

The first is that a post on elections that I wrote in early September is appearing in edited form in issue #6 (Oct/Nov '08) of a publication called Linchpin. This is the regular newspaper of an Ontario-based organization of platformist anarchists called Common Cause, and it is my understanding that they distribute it in various ways in Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, and perhaps elsewhere. Their website is here if you want to learn more about them. I should point out that though I know a few people who are involved with this organization, I am not myself a member. But I'm honoured that they wanted to print that piece in their newspaper.

The other thing I want to share is not an instance of publication but rather of use. A group of students has organized "an autonomous, free, student-run class at McGill University, Montreal" which they call Indyclass. This experiment in pedagogy "strives to make education relevant to real communities, and classes are open to all. This year's theme focuses on prisons and the criminal (in)justice system." Week 7's readings include a post I wrote pretty much exactly a year ago called "Talking About Jail With A Four Year-Old." I really like the idea of this sort of peer-run, mutual aid model of learning, and am happy that they found something useful in that particular piece.