I have spent the last few days hinting on social media that I have a super secret announcement to make today... and well...

I am rolling out a new community reading experience that I would love for you to be a part of.

I believe that art--literature in particular--has the power to change the world. Throughout history, books have held an important role in many movements of liberation and oppression. Which is why, over the last few years, a good chunk of my content has been dedicated to challenging the way we engage with literature and asking big questions of texts that often get left unexamined.

Now, I want to take those types of conversations and books and take them even deeper.

What is this new community reading experience?

Over the next year, I am going to take you through a program I am calling The Cost of Freedom. This will be an interactive and intimate experience where we interrogate four select books and ask questions of them that help us to not only better understand the world we live in (and the one there is still time to build), but also ones that help us to reexamine the way we engage with literature as a whole.

As you know, our paid subscribers help us to fund our work to create space in the publishing industry for authors in the margins by publishing more Black and brown books and challenging systemic barriers in the industry. And while I try to keep my content as accessible and free as I can, we have reached a point in our company's growth where we need to grow in order to take this imprint to the next level--which is absolutely something I plan to do. Which is why I am rolling The Cost of Freedom out with Bindery as a part of my $25 tier.

There will still be plenty of related content available to everyone. But this program, specifically, is going to be very targeted, very interactive, and specifically pointed toward people in our highest tier.

Starting immediately, if you are subscribed to the Laborniacs tier, Bindery will be mailing you a book every quarter to correspond with a ton of personal commentary directly from me. These packages will be themed and intense. If you have followed me for a while, you know exactly how intimately I examine the books I read. And I will be sharing ALL OF THAT with you. Which is something I have never done before. We are going to interrogate these texts with everything we've got.

Our goal is to provide a rich and intimate reading experience. It will come with:

• A book shipped by Bindery directly every quarter

• A ton of exclusive commentary written entirely by me

• A LIVE zoom call quarterly for us to discuss each book as we read through them

• When I am able to secure it, I will attempt to get us interviews with the corresponding authors. But no promises.

Together, we will be interrogating these four incredibly rich and challenging books and work together to interrogate what freedom really means and who actually pays for it.

This is only one of several new benefits I am working on rolling out. And there will still be plenty of the content you have gotten used to. I only want to roll things out as quickly as I can be confident in their sustainability. So stay tuned for more benefits in the near future.

My hope is that in offering these exclusive benefits, we can not only make sure you are receiving plenty of benefit for the investment you make into this community, but that we can continue to draw more people in. As a community, the more we grow, the more our resources and voices need to grow to keep up with the demand that comes with more books. We have managed to build one of the largest communities in Bindery, which is why they have entrusted us with books as often as they have. But if we want to go further--which we certainly do--this is how we get there. By building both our community and developing tools and resources to help more people to interrogate the books they are reading.

If you want to be a part of this new community effort, make sure you upgrade to the $25 tier ASAP. Bindery's policy is to only send physical benefits after 90 days of membership. So to be included in that first box--which will ship early June--we need you to upgrade by March 1st. I would love it if we could grow this part of our community well so that Bindery continues to invest in helping us to build and grow the work we are doing this way.

I do want to also remind everyone about Bindery's new policy to only ship physical benefits in the US. I still welcome anyone international to subscribe at any tier, and I am happy to send you all of the commentary and resources electronically and to include you in any meetings, author interviews, etc. I just don't want you to be surprised by no book being shipped.

Anyway, thanks for being here y'all. I am already hard at work developing resources for Tender is the Flesh and trust me... it's going to blow your mind.

I am working on:

• Chapter by Chapter commentary

• Character breakdowns

• Theme breakdowns

• A detailed review of the book itself

• Commentary on social pushback

And detailed essays on:

• The nature of complicity

• The weaponization of the middle class

• The mechanics of getting the poor to let go of their own humanity

• How abuse is perfected in the home

• The role sex plays in systemic oppression

• Capitalism as a concept

• How patriarchy and racism work together to keep our oppressors in power

And I am sure I will have plenty more to add to that by June.

You've read my essays. You've heard me talk about books. Especially dystopian books. So you know exactly just how in-depth my commentary is going to be. And I went all out for this first year. I chose books that I feel have revolutionary messages that often get missed in public discourse. Especially when it comes to books like my first pick. People often engage with the heavy subject matter and struggle to get to the meat. I want to push us, as a community, to really dive into texts like this and to wrestle with what they are trying to say about the world we live in...and the one we still have time to build.

We are gonna fuck some shit up with these conversations. So go upgrade your subscription and get ready to read in community like you never have before.

Love y'all!