Building Power Through Participation | Chicago
Remaking Democracy: How We Make the Worlds We Want authors Danielle Chynoweth and Elizabeth Adams in conversation with Sarah Ross and Meadow Jones, PhD.
Events
Events hosted by Common Notions, our authors, and our community
Remaking Democracy: How We Make the Worlds We Want authors Danielle Chynoweth and Elizabeth Adams in conversation with Sarah Ross and Meadow Jones, PhD.
Community Journalism and Popular Power: Lessons from Spain’s Housing Movement
With João França and PAH ( the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages / Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca)
Join activist-journalists and organizers from Spain’s housing movement for a conversation about documenting popular politics and building power from below.
Refuse work. Revolt against capitalism. Read Harry Cleaver. In that order. Repeat.
Join editors Robert Ovetz and Kevin Van Meter for a discussion of Points of Departure: Refusal of Work and the Crisis of Capitalism: The Collected Writings of Harry Cleaver.
Join authors Danielle Chynoweth and Elizabeth Adams, with Norm Stockwell, Publisher of The Progressive, and Andy Gricevich, musician, poet, and forager, for a book talk and performance focused on how we can remake democracy.
Your favorite authors try to spell and it's hilarious. Join us for the third annual Tipsy Bee Author Spelling Bee & Book Fair!
THIS IS AN OFFICIAL 2026 BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL BOOKEND EVENT
Learn with the editors of Remaking Democracy.
Using the Spiral of Change, participants will learn how to analyze problems, consult desires, and design social interventions to grow participation and democratic power. Build analysis and strategy for sustainable social transformation.
Danielle and Elizabeth will be sharing decades of experience as organizers, artists, and teachers.
How science fiction offers answers to the political questions of our time.
Through a discussion of the contemporary science fiction novel Earthly Playing Field, author Radhika Singh and Omar Zahzah will explore how, far from an apolitical indulgence, genre fiction offers a powerful vehicle to undermine structural oppression and push the imagination into the realm of resistance.
Tonight join author Radhika Singh with comrades Mayuran Tiruchelvam and Rama Ali Kased in conversation about Earthly Playing Field—a speculative tale connecting ongoing People's movements against global imperialism through a queer, Sufi love story.
Rural Radical Book Fair on Penobscot Land in so-called Maine.
August 22nd 11am-6pm & August 23rd 1-5pm, 2026
Childcare will be available on the ground floor of the First Church’s Fellowship Hall on Saturday August 23 from 11am – 5pm. The childcare area is in the church’s designated “nursery” room and is open to children ages 2 years and up.
Endless Possibilities book club discussion of Remaking Democracy.
BOMB’s Small Press Flea (SPF) returns on August 15, 2026 to host an all-day market dedicated to supporting over thirty independent publishers and small presses from across the US at Amant, a contemporary art center in Brooklyn. This year’s SPF promises to provide your end-of-summer reading, arts and literary workshops, and refreshments.
Rain or shine, unless it’s pouring, 12–6 PM. Enter at 316 Ten Eyck St.
Radhika Singh in conversation with Aba Taylor at JustBook-ish.
One day our comrades will come home. Leonard Peltier came home last year; Marius Mason came home this year. Many of our Green Scare, Animal Rights, Anarchist, Black and Puerto Rican Liberation, Indigenous and Anti-Imperialist Warriors, and Conscientious Objectors have come home. And one day the Prairieland and other anti-fascist prisoners will return to our communities, too.
Join the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) Support Committee and friends for an online webinar, Sunday, July 26, at 2pm ET, as we celebrate Marius Mason’s return home and let those inside know we are here for them. MC’d by Matt Meyer with Ashanti Alston, Diana Block, Josh Harper, Ray Luc Levasseur, and Julie Herrada (Marius Mason Support Committee).
Join Robert Ovetz in launching Points of Departure: Refusal of Work and the Crisis of Capitalism: The Collected Writings of Harry Cleaver in London.
Join us at Brookline Booksmith to celebrate the release of Earthly Playing Field with author Radhika Singh, in conversation with Aba Taylor.
RSVP to let us know you're coming! Depending on the volume of responses, an RSVP may be required for entrance to the event. In the event that we reach capacity and have to close RSVPs, there will not be a waiting list.
Celebrate the forthcoming publication of The Digital Revolution.
Summer of Ludd is a week of free, public, and participatory events to get people off big tech, into Public Space, and re-enchanting each other.
Charis welcomes Radhika Singh in conversation with Holiday Simmons for a discussion of Earthly Playing Field, a novel that traces love and revolution in a crumbling world order.
This event takes place in person at Charis and on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required for virtual attendance. Click here to register to attend virtually. Please read the in-person event guidelines at the bottom of the Charis Books event page to be sure you can participate in the event.
More info coming soon.
Audiophiles of the world, unite! Strikers in the 20th century sometimes made vinyl records to raise funds and get their message out. These artifacts offer a lively glimpse of grassroots worker culture in different times and places. Enjoy the music, browse the album art, and hear the history behind a few of these fascinating records collected in the new book Strike While the Needle Is Hot: A Discography of Worker’s Revolt (Common Notions Press, 2025).
Meet and greet with Points of Departure editors Robert Ovetz and Kevin Van Meter.
"Refuse work. Revolt against capitalism. Read Harry Cleaver. In that order. Repeat."
Join us as we welcome organizers and co-editors Robert Ovetz and Kevin Van Meter to the store for a conversation with activist and Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power co-author James Tracy, on their new book Points of Departure: Refusal of Work and the Crisis of Capitalism: The Collected Writings of Harry Cleaver.
Points of Departure will be released on Common Notion Press’s new Class Compositions series in September 2026. This special edition and release coincides with the Labor Notes conference.
Join debut authors Rachel León, Radhika Singh, and Jules Wernersbach at The Bureau for a discussion about using literature as a vehicle to tell stories about the work that is to be done – how to roll up your sleeves, translate practice into prose, and envision (and enact) liberatory futures through writing.
Radhika Singh, author of Earthly Playing Field, in conversation with Malav Kanuga.
Music by Precolumbian. Treats by Yes Yasmine. Drinks by Two Locals.
Doors open at 6.
Join Common Notions and Red May to celebrate the launch of its new Class Compositions imprint as we examine past struggles, present-day power, and our tasks ahead with an all-star cast: Charmaine Chua, Sarah Jaffe, Kieran Knutson, Peter Linebaugh, and Kevin Van Meter (facilitator)
Book Launch + Conversation with Christopher R. Rogers and karim brown
This program is in response to the exhibition, How We Stay Free, which is currently on view at TILT Institute through June 27, 2026.
Celebrate the birth of Earthly Playing Field and author Radhika Singh, in communion with the luminous Abeer Hoque.
Patchwork Literary Salon brings together authors across genres and stages in their careers to create a colorful tapestry of Brooklyn’s writing community. Curated and hosted by Nadine Santoro, this quarterly reading series features brief readings, lively conversation, drink specials, and an opportunity to mingle and connect with fellow writers and readers!
This May, we're celebrating international workers day with a lineup of writers whose work touches on labor, revolution, and people-power. From litfic to sci-fi to nonfiction, join us for a special May Day reading! We're excited to welcome Maggie Cooper, Tierney Oberhammer, Jules Wernersbach, and Radhika Singh.
No Struggle Stands Alone: Labor, Identity, and Survival in Violent Economies [Panel at the Working Class Literature Festival]
Ra Singh, Chris Gamble, Elizabeth Mayes, and Seraj Assi
Labor does not exist in a vacuum. This session explores how working class resistance interacts with race, empire, occupation, and global financial and technological systems, and what solidarity looks like across these fault lines.
Join us in celebrating Queens author Radhika Singh's debut novel Earthly Playing Field! She will be in conversation with Rebecca Suzuki. In partnership with AAWW.
Bol Co-op present DC’s inaugural Working Class Literature Festival, which will take place on May 1st-2nd at the Festival Center.
It is inspired by the annual Working Class Literature Festival in Florence, which emerged from the GKN factory occupation, where workers turned struggle into solidarity, and solidarity into celebration and a call to action.
Word Up presents authors Danielle Chynoweth and Elizabeth Adams in conversation with veteran organizer and multi-instrumentalist, David Friend, performing pieces by Susan Parenti, Mark Enslin, Larry Polansky, and Elizabeth Adams.
Danielle Chynoweth and Elizabeth Adams in conversation with Teresa Basilio Gaztambide and Esteban Giron.
Performance by Margaret Lancaster.
Celebrate the publication of My City Need Something with Christopher R. Rogers and karim brown!
February 14, 2026 | 12-2PM
Blackwell Regional Library
125 S. 52nd St.
FREE
Cohosted with Hakim’s Bookstore and W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition and Reconstruction
Common Notions is a publishing house and programming platform that advances new formulations of liberation and living autonomy. Our books provide timely reflections, clear critiques, and inspiring strategies that amplify movements for social justice.
Common Notions | 314 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11215, United States