Firestorm Books

"The Government Doesn't Want You To Read These Zines" – new benefit zine packets from South Bend Commons! All proceeds go to Prairieland Defendants. @dfwsupportcommittee@mas.to

https://firestorm.coop/products/25308-the-government-doesnt-want-you-to-read-these-zines.html

We've started getting an overwhelming number of requests for interviews on cooperativism, community resilience, and related topics, largely from students. Not sure what happened in 2026, but we've gone from a couple requests a year to several a month. It's awesome that there's all this enthusiasm, but we are so under resourced to respond to constant inquiries 😮‍💨

If anyone out there works for an org that wants to fund co-operative education and peer support, we are already doing this work for free, but would do more of it if we had funding!

⛓️‍💥 Do Not Confuse Punishment for Justice ⛓️‍💥

They're here! We could not be more stoked about how this fundraiser shirt for our local bail fund turned out. We adore the defiant canine designed by Turned Worm Studios and the print came out so crisp and striking.

100% of the profits from yhis shirr are being donated to the Asheville Community Bail Fund — every shirt sold puts $25 toward getting someone out! We know that putting people in cages doesn't make us safer. But supporting your local bail fund does 🫡

Available in sizes S-5XL https://firestorm.coop/products/25247-do-not-confuse-punishment-for-justice-avl-community-bail-fund-benefit-t-shirt.html

#QueerBookstore #CoopsNotCops #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (-Esmé)

#America250? 250 years? Pfft. The Prairieland Defendants were just collectively sentenced to TWICE that long for protesting outside an ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas.

Join us on July 4th—the one year anniversary of the noise demo from which Trump's justice department concocted an "antifa terror cell"—for an afternoon of solidarity zine making and contempt for the government. Our co-op has already raised $5k (and counting!) for defendants in the Pairieland case by selling zine packets, but we need help assembling them. Each packet contains 15 pamphlets that prosecutors used as evidence to convict protesters of terrorism, along with letter writing materials for sending love and solidarity to those locked up.

From 1pm to 3pm, we'll treasonously fold, staple, and assemble 1,050 zines with breaks for vegan hot dogs and comraderie! (No fireworks in the bookstore, please.) Bring your own booklet stapler, if you own one!

For more information on the Prairieland case visit https://prairielanddefendants.com and follow @dfwsupportcommittee@mas.to for updates.

#Antifascism #AbolishICE (- L)

Hey, do you publish zines?? 👀

In addition to stocking both free and for-purchase pamphlets at our bookstore, we mail zines to our sustainers each month—and we're always looking for exciting new material! If you've got a recently published zine that you think would appeal to our community, send us an email about it: bookstore@firestorm.coop 💌

What we're looking for:
• Comics, perzines, essays, poetry, or mixed format!
• At least 12 pages long (sorry, no mini zines please!)
• 60+ copies
• $5 or less per zine

We'd love to see your work, but our email will not accept attachments over 10 MB, so either send a short excerpt or a link to view the larger file in the cloud. Because we select just one zine per month to send out, we won't be able to take every suggestion!

#Zinestagram #DIYPublishing #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

OMG Firestorm is turning 18?! Lift a glass (or maybe a bottle 😉) to the end of our youth. We're celebrating the milestone with a limited edition shirt from one of our favorite seditious artists—KRIME.

Starting today you can preorder one of these gorgeous gorgon shirts on our website for $36. They'll be printed by the good folks at Black Moon Ink on a 100% combed cotton tee from AS Colour, a company focused on high-quality, longer-lasting apparel. These shirts are tough enough to wear reading critical theory, but cozy enough for a fantasy novella!

Place your preorder before Sunday, May 3rd at https://firestorm.coop/products/24878-firestorm-birthday-t-shirt-preorder.html 📦

#FeministBookstore #TurnCopsToStone #Gorgon #FeministMythology #FirestormCoop (- L)

This Sunday we're hosting "Scapegoat" author Clare Follmann and activist Patty Krawec for a virtual conversation about the the outdated narrative of "invasive species" and their management!

Drawing on environmental science and semiotics, "Scapegoat: What the Invasive Species Story Gets Wrong" (AK Press, 2026) recounts how the use of biased rhetoric and inaccessible language has created support for a popular but misleading war of “native” against “invasive” that does nothing to address the root cause of biodiversity loss: the global capitalist system that is destroying our planet.

Sign up for the virtual event and find your copy of "Scapegoat" at https://app.hi.events/event/7245/invasive-species-and-capitalism. Not able to attend the event live? Sign up anyway and we'll send you the recorded event to stream at your convenience!

#InvasiveSpecies #SpeciesManagement #EcoReads #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

Our first strawberry of the year! We're basically a farm now.

June 11th is a day for us to remember long-term anarchist prisoners through words, actions, and ongoing material support. As in years past, our co-op is partnering with Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross to donate net proceeds from all sales to support imprisoned comrades. Every book, t-shirt, sticker, or other item you purchase on Thursday, June 11th will generate funds for commissary, legal defense, and other crucial support needs for freedom fighters who remain behind bars!

Want to buy a book on June 11th, but not sure what to read next? We asked a few of our esteemed author collaborators to help us recommend titles that express the revolutionary commitment and vision needed to sustain us in difficult times. Check out a sample of their suggestions in the slides above! Order online or browse in store—either way you'll get a great book and we'll put the proceeds toward a great cause.

At a time when the State conspires to disappear more and more of us into its jails, dungeons, and camps, we see a practice of solidarity not as an obligation but as the unerring path to our collective freedom. For more information on June 11th, check out https://june11.noblogs.org, where you can also find a list of individuals supported by the campaign.

#June11 #EarthLiberation #AnimalLiberation #PoliticalPrisoners #FeministBookstore FirestormCoop (- L)

It would be hard to think of a more influential book over the last 5 years than Dean Spade's "Mutual Aid." It's a perennial bookclub pick, there’s an even chance it comes up in any conversation about local organizing, and we regularly hear customers enthusiastically recommending it to each other.

It’s also a book that’s worth revisiting, and Dean does just that in this new edition, starting with a 38-page preface that’s good enough to print as a standalone zine. When the book was first published in 2020, part of its incredible appeal was that it emerged directly from urgent conversations and collective actions that readers themselves were part of. This new preface again brings the text into our moment and serves as a critical intervention against the cooptation and pacification of mutual aid 🔥

https://firestorm.coop/products/23866-mutual-aid.html

From the new preface: “My hope is that ‘Mutual Aid’ helps more people join with others in taking risks to care for people in crisis and dismantle the violent systems that are endangering all life and have already prematurely ended the lives of so many. What we need is not just individual or small-group acts of redistribution and care-which are no doubt meaningful-but to create entire voluntary, horizontal, decentralized systems of living together that do not operate through profit, scarcity, and extraction…

Our only chance at freedom is to break from the liberal hope that elites will act for us, and begin to take direct action and care for each other right now… Any particular part of the work we take up will, inevitably, be inadequate to address the crisis-we can't possibly give out enough money, tents, water bottles, masks, hormones, babysitting shifts, abortion pills, or bowls of soup for the level of crisis that the systems we are living in are creating. But we can do this care work with a focus on bringing more people into the struggle, creating new ways of surviving that are autonomous from our opponents' deadly supply chains, and building more capacity for our fights on every front, so that more of us are ready to join every riot or strike in reach and to risk everything for each other.”

#MutualAid #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

Author Daniel Gross argues that challenges to the ruling class will emerge when workers themselves—not union officials—design and refine unions that actually work for them. We'll be hosting Daniel alongside local organizers from Asheville Food and Beverage United on Monday, June 2nd at 6pm!

Thanks to a generous community supporter, Firestorm is able to offer Daniel's new book, "Unions of Our Own," at half price to anyone who attends this in-person event.

https://truthout.org/articles/the-unions-we-need-will-be-built-by-workers-not-labor-officials/

Tomorrow afternoon, join us for a conversation with legal historian Gautham Rao whose new book, "White Power," examines the history of policing and slave patrols in the United States and the ways systems of surveillance and racial control shaped American governance and law.

Gautham offers a new interpretation of US history, speaking to the origins of today's persistence of white vigilance, white supremacist militia groups, and white racist cops determined to maintain power over Black people by force. Thanks to a community donor, copies of "White Power" will be available during the event for half price! Additional information about the event and book can be found at https://firestorm.coop/events/3619-policing-american-slavery.html.

#USHistory #PoliceHistory #AntiBlackness #AmericanCivilWar #AmericanSlavery FeministBookstore FirestormCoop (- L)

Without Bob Sheldon, there wouldn't be a Firestorm Books.

Thirty-five years ago today, Bob was assassinated at Internationalist Books in Chapel Hill, NC. It still isn't known who killed him, but the shooting took place in the shadows of the Greensboro Massacre (1979) and the Shelby gay bookstore murders (1987).

Bob was a nurse, Vietnam draft resister, textile mill union organizer, Jewish advocate for Palestinian liberation, and revolutionary bookseller. His assassination in 1991 took place at the start of the Gulf War shortly after he appeared on TV as a voice of the anti-war movement.

Following Bob's death, the Internationalist, affectionately called "I-Books" by its community, was run by an anarchist collective. For the next 25 more years (until its closure in 2016), volunteers continued and expanded Bob's vision, modeling the connection between books, ideas, current events, and political action.

Over three decades after Bob's assassination, stochastic violence by fascists and targeted killings by US government agents have become so frequent that we're lurching towards normalization. But Bob's killers failed, and today spaces across the South still operate in the legacy of I-Books. Those who oppose fascism do so at great personal risk. We know more lives will be lost in the coming year, but Bob's death shows us that the spirit of liberation cannot be killed.

Long live I-Books! Long live Bob Sheldon! His memory is a blessing ❤️‍🔥 (- L)

https://indyweek.com/news/legacy-bob-sheldon-founder-internationalist-books/

https://globalquicknews.com/founder-of-internationalist-bookstore-fondly-remembered-decades-after-passing/

https://indyweek.com/archives/archives-guides/rabble-rousers/

It's the final day of our Spring Sale and we've still got tons of great books marked down to $5 or $10! Find a title on your list or discover something new... but don't wait until tomorrow! https://firestorm.coop/sale.html

Happy Tyrannicide Day! March 15th commemorates the assassination of would-be tyrants and serves as a reminder that the most powerful men cannot claim absolute immunity for their crimes.

A suggested reading for #TyrannicideDay... "Gaetano Bresci: Tyrannicide and Defender of the People" is a 2018 essay from @CrimethInc@todon.eu on the man who assassinated King Umberto of Italy, declaring: "I did not kill Umberto. I have killed the King. I killed a principle."

https://crimethinc.com/2018/07/29/gaetano-bresci-tyrannicide-and-defender-of-the-people-with-remarks-by-malatesta-and-tolstoy

BOOK SALE INCOMING 💣 APRIL 15-18

Spring is a time for cleaning... Throwing open windows, clearing flower beds, overthrowing your government, making room for new books on the shelves at your local anarchist bookstore! 📚

This week we're bringing back our biggest book sale of the year, with a new twist: hundreds of titles marked down to just $5 or $10. Our sale will include recent fiction, children's books, political theory, memoir, poetry, history, YA, and more!

Accessible online and in-person, you can score the same great deals whether you're at our shop in West Asheville or browsing over a VPN from a state where books are already illegal. Markdowns stack with sustainer's membership discount and everyone gets free shipping on orders over $50. 📦

Next Monday, we're teaming up with Asheville Food & Beverage United to host Daniel Gross, author of "Unions of Our Own: Eight Building Blocks to Change Work... and the World." Together we'll discuss the state of labor organizing in Asheville and how workers can build unions that are led by members, powered by direct action, and aimed at fundamental change!

"Unions of Our Own" (Haymarket Books, 2026) is about maximizing our chance of victory: unions where workers are fully meeting needs, honoring their values, and advancing a transformational vision of the world.

https://firestorm.coop/events/3603-unions-of-our-own.html

#SolidarityUnionism #AshevilleFoodAndBev #FeministBookstore #SolidarityUnionNetwork #FirestormCoop (- L)

How do we reverse the suicidal course of capitalist society and build a liberated world?

This weekend we're teaming up with @pmpress@kolektiva.social to host a virtual conversation between Jarrod Shanahan, author of the recently published essay collection "Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help," and writer Eman Abdelhadi. Together they'll reflect on Jarrod's book and the last decade of US struggles—including Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the George Floyd Rebellion—alongside the rise of Trumpism, the alt-right, and an apocalyptic shift in popular culture.

Register for this free event and find your copy of "Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help" at https://app.hi.events/event/7035/every-fire-needs-a-little-bit-of-help. Not able to attend in person? Sign up and we'll send you the recording to stream at your convenience!

#EveryFireNeedsALittleBitOfHelp #GiveTheAnarchistACigarette #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

"I tuned in to watch the livestream of the city council work session where they would be discussing the proposed Real-Time Intelligence Center. Ten seconds in, my jaw hit the floor: Axon and Flock employees were IN THE ROOM. Not only that, they basically got to give city council a sales pitch, repeating their typical talking points that largely went uncontested. Not present in the room: a civil rights expert, technology expert, or community representation of any kind who was capable of challenging their claims.
...
The RTIC shouldn't go back to a vote until the community gets the same opportunity as the APD, as Flock, as Axon: a public forum with subject matter experts and civil rights advocates at the table."

https://www.reddit.com/r/asheville/s/LdrzCfOPgN

This Sunday our birthday party kicks off at 3pm, but we hope you'll come early for a conversation with local author and activist Clare Hanrahan!

Clare will present her new book "Elder & Sage Community Gardens: An Urban Uprising," which tells the story of the tenacious group of wayside gardeners who turned a vacant lot at 33 Page Avenue in Downtown Asheville into a community garden. Clare has been a fixture of local social justice movements for the better part of four decades and we so appreciate the way she has lovingly documented the community work she's been a part of. Let's celebrate our gardens and our co-ops this weekend!

Additional information and book purchasing can be found at https://firestorm.coop/events/3605-the-elder-sage-community-gardens.html.

#UrbanGarden #AshevilleStrong #828IsGreat #FeministBookstore #ElderAndSageCommunityGarden #FirestormCoop (- L)

One of the most consequential trials of Trump's second term begins on February 17th, and our friend Des is in the middle of it with a box of zines.

Join us in Asheville on Sunday, Feb 15th at 5pm for a teach-in on the Prairieland case. We'll begin with a brief presentation of background information, the situation of our friend Des, and the latest updates on his trial, with a special emphasis on the implications for the movement to abolish ICE and defeat fascism in the US.

Our collective will then facilitate a discussion on how this case might inform our thinking about violence, nonviolence, and state repression in this moment of growing opposition. The final segment of the teach-in will be a space for participants to engage with the Free Des Solidarity Week by writing a letter, creating art, or developing materials to educate others about the case!

This is a free event, but we ask that you bring a donation to support Des' legal defense fund. Given the topic of this conversation, consider the recommendations we've made at https://firestorm.coop/news/expect-surveillance.html

#FreeDes #ZinesAreNotACrime #PrairielandDefendants #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

This Sunday, we're excited to host Argentinian anarchist Tomas Rothaus, author of the recently publish memoir "Another War Is Possible," which takes us on a wild, bumpy, and beautiful ride through a lifetime of resistance.

Joined by a member of the @crimethinc collective, Tomas will discuss the lessons he learned from veterans of the Spanish CNT, his first experience trading blows with police in the streets of Paris, and his adventures slipping across borders to participate in epoch-making riots. "Another War is Possible" is the first of three explosive books Tomas is publishing with our friends at PM Press!

Register for this free event and find your copy of the book at https://app.hi.events/event/7033/militant-anarchist-experiences-in-the-antiglobalization-era. Not able to join the event live? Register anyway and we'll share a recording to enjoy at your convenience!

#AnotherWarIsPossible #AnarchistHistory #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

We're teaming up with Pansy Collective on May Day / International Workers' Day / Beltane for a free screening from @Elememts_of_MA@kolektiva.social's docuseries, followed by a community potluck!

The Elements of Mutual Aid is a four-part, independently produced documentary series putting a finger on the pulse of community-led survival projects confronting crisis with care. We'll be watching the first chapter together, which includes interviews with Reclaiming Our Homes, Justseeds, Klee Benally, and more.

Alongside the documentary, Pansy Collective will be selling merch to fund the installation of a free vending machine for Plan B and Noloxone in West Asheville!

If you are able, please bring reusable plates and cutlery along with a dish (vegan and gluten-free preferred). Because we will be eating outdoors, the potluck is weather dependent, but the film screening will take place rain or shine.

#MayDay #MutualAid #QueerSouth #TheElementsOfMutualAid #FeministBookstore

What can trans people expect from pregnancy and what roles do supportive friends, family members, and care providers play?

This Saturday at 6pm ET, join editor Simon Knaphus alongside contributors to a groundbreaking new anthology from @pmpress@kolektiva.social about navigating family building, pregnancy, fertility treatments, conception, loss, healthcare, abortion, childbirth, the early days of parenting, and the intersections of legal, political, and cultural contexts. This virtual event will include readings, discussion, and a chance to ask your questions!

Sign up and claim your copy of "Seahorses: Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender-Expansive Pregnancy" at https://app.hi.events/event/7167/gender-expansive-pregnancy. Not able to attend live? Sign up anyway and we'll send you the recording to stream at your convenience later!

#TransHealth #TransPregnancy #NonbinaryPregnancy #FeministBookstore #FirestormCoop (- L)

Happy Independent Bookstore Day! Order a book for an incarcerated reader via this wishlist and a donor will give Asheville Prison Books a matching cash donation for postage! (Matching good through 5/1) https://firestorm.coop/ashevilleprisonbooks

On Saturday, June 13th we're excited to host a virtual event with Ian Alan Paul, author of the recently published book "The Reticular Society" (PM Press, 2026). Joined by scholar Andrew Culp, Ian will reflect on the networked reorganization of capitalist society, the diverse ways digital technologies have invaded and imposed their shape upon everyday life, and what forms of revolt might remain possible against the suffocating flows of our online world.

Register for the event and find your copy of "The Reticular Society" at https://firestorm.coop/events/3617-the-networked-colonization-of-everyday-life.html . Can't join the conversation live? Sign up anyway and we'll send you the recording to stream at your convenience.

This event is organized in collaboration with @pmpress@kolektiva.social as part of their All We Have Is Each Other Speaker Series.

#TechnoFascism #Cybernetics #Situationist #IanAlanPaul #FeministBookstore FirestormCoop (- L)

Our virtual event with @elbienmaspreciado@kolektiva.social, author of a new book from @pmpress@kolektiva.social exploring capitalist society’s network form (and how to defeat it), is tomorrow! Sign up for free and join Ian for a lively conversation with scholar Andrew Culp.

https://app.hi.events/event/8067/the-networked-colonization-of-everyday-life

After taking a little break over the winter, we're back to scheduling virtual events with some amazing authors! Check 'em out and sign up for free at https://app.hi.events/events/2739/firestorm-books.

@beaiouns@is.nota.live Secret stickers!!

@johnbrowntypeface@spore.social Hey sorry to hear that you're having trouble seeing our posts! We haven't made any changes to our settings, so not sure why you're not able to access them 😢

@pjs@c.im yeah, not a great choice lol