You Are On Strike

Digest 01.23.26 - Stone Soup

Welcome to the Stone Soup Digest! This is where I share what I'm up to and some of my favorite things from around the internet. Subscribe to Stone Soup to get this in your inbox every week.

In support of the General Strike today, this issue of Stone Soup is unedited. Any errors in the newsletter are my fault, and should serve to highlight how incredibly valuable my team is. Lydia, Josh, Jen: Thank you for everything you do, and thank you for not doing it today. -gailey

Hey friends, great news: You aren’t going to work today.

According to the Minnesota Reformer, today is ICE Out of Minnesota Day. This is a general strike supported by Minnesota’s unions, progressive faith leaders, Democratic lawmakers and community activists. Many places, including schools and museums, are closed in the state. Minnesotans are encouraged to stay home from work and school and to refrain from shopping. This action is, in itself, designed to disrupt normal operations – and to free up citizens to protest the unthinkably violent presence of ICE in Minnesota.

Perhaps you are thinking to yourself: I do not live in Minnesota, what does this have to do with me? Well, it turns out that everyone, everywhere, fucking hates what’s happening in Minnesota right now. As of the time I’m writing this, the general strike has extended into 215 cities across the United States. 

The thing is, ICE operations are a profit engine. The US government just voted to give a shitload of money to the DHS. In turn, ICE will use that funding to kidnap people and force them into unpaid and underpaid labor. This system is designed to launder money, extract labor, and exploit vulnerable people. The goal of this horrific, evil project is profit.

But profit is easy to fuck with. If business operations are shut down through strike action, profit evaporates. This is a way for us to flex the muscle of collective action: The General Strike.

I can’t overstate how unprecedented this moment is. This system is vulnerable. We have the ability to throw sand in the gears. Let’s not waste this opportunity. General Strikes are nearly impossible to coordinate, but right now, it is happening. This is a massive, vital movement that will demonstrate the collective power we hold – and you can be part of it. 

Don’t go to work on Friday, January 23. Don’t go to school. Don’t send business emails, don’t shop, don’t order anything online. Don’t spend a dime. Don’t generate profit for anyone.  

Instead, find a collective action in your area to join. Protest outside ICE collaborators like Target, Comcast, and Tesla. Check out this roundup of ways you can support our neighbors in Minnesota right now (note that you’ll need to turn off your VPN to view this). Get on your high-vis vest and stand on street corners as part of ICE watch. Find your neighbors and share a meal together.

We are in this together. We are greater in number and in principle and in conviction than they are. Together, we can drive ICE the fuck out.

I believe in us, as long as we are together.

Let’s take the day off, and in doing so, let’s get to work.

Announcing my new comic series Neighborhood Watch!

Every neighborhood, no matter how innocent seeming, has its secrets. Secrets that could tear lives apart if they aren’t uncovered. 

Jill Hewett, community leader and wife of a respected police officer, has turned up with a gunshot wound in a tunnel connecting the Willow Haven Gated Community with the neighboring Open Arms Collective. And now, the VP of the HOA and the Kitchen Steward of the Collective have stumbled upon her body at the exact same time – instantly casting blame across the already fragile divide. Forced into an uneasy alliance to uncover the truth, they’ll need to work together to unearth the secrets both communities hold to figure out who’s responsible for the crime – and what they could possibly gain from it.

I am thrilled to announce Neighborhood Watch, my upcoming original comic in collaboration with Haining! We’ve got colors by Rebecca Nalty and letters by Jodie Troutman. Issue #1 will be available April 8 wherever you get your comics!

Spread Me is longlisted for a BSFA Award!

Thank you so much to everyone who supported this book! I am so thrilled to be in such incredible company on the ballot.

I’m Reading: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by a longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into a wealthy and insular art community.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love – and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

Barnes & Noble | Bad River Website | Local Library | Find an Indie Bookstore

Featured New Release: This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Sloane Price knows there are worse things than the end of the world, so when the zombie apocalypse happens, the opportunity to escape her violent home life offers no relief. She's already lost the one thing that matters most--her sister--and now seems like the perfect time to give up.

But when she inadvertently ends up barricaded in her high school with five other teens, their desperate and volatile bids for survival force a series of impossible decisions. As the days creep by and the dead close in, Sloane must confront everything she thought she knew about life, death, survival, and sacrifice and--once and for all–make a choice.

Joined together for the first time in this special "director's cut" edition, This Is Not a Test and its novella sequel Please Remain Calm explore the forces that tether us to life–and to each other–in our darkest times.

Barnes & Noble | Bad River Website | Find an Indie Bookstore

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In the meantime, remember: Do what you can. Care for yourself and the people around you. Believe that the world can be better than it is now. Never give up.

-gailey