Happy new year to you. Congratulations on surviving 2025. If you had a pulse, you know that an orange wrecking ball is on the loose. But the resistance is strong and getting stronger. Popular mantras are “He can’t live in my brain,” “Keep laughing,” and “Keep the vision.” With them in mind, 2026 is going to be amazing. If you are anywhere near the Ann Arbor area, I invite you to begin it with me by joining me at Schuler Books on Thursday January 8, at 6:30 p.m. Schuler has chosen that day to spotlight my book, Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, and they’ve invited me to tell stories from it. Thumbs Up is one Baby Boomer’s story of how he navigated his new reality after Kent State, […]
Ken Wachsberger
5 posts
I’m proud to say, and I say it often, that my generation, the Baby Boomers, came of age as leaders of the largest antiwar movement in our country’s history. I say, just as often, that the current, emerging anti-fascism movement will be even bigger. No Kings March Unites the Best of America The nationwide No Kings March on Saturday October 18 was the latest demonstration. Over seven million America-loving peace-and-joy fanatics attended over 2,700 marches in all fifty states! If you participated, you are part of history. And if you think this was about hating America, you are delusional. Emily and I attended the Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor No Kings march at Riverside Park in Ypsilanti with over 1,500 fellow patriots. Energy was already high when we arrived. Marchers came with painted […]
I’m pleased to announce, to bookstores everywhere, that Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer is now available on IngramSpark with the standard 55 percent discount and the right to return books. Making it so was a major adventure that included long email discussions with IT and HR representatives from Draft2Digital and IngramSpark. If you’re an independent publisher, this blog is for you. Here’s what happened. Azenphony Press Uploads “Thumbs Up” to Draft2Digital Azenphony Press, my publishing house, uploaded the book files to Draft2Digital (D2D), the digital distribution platform I have been using since I discovered them. Among the many advantages of using D2D is, they distribute books through most of the major platforms so you don’t have to, saving publishers from having to individually upload files to every single […]
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The person with breast cancer is the perceived victim, and with good reason. Meet the Silent Victim But there is a silent victim: the support person, not always but more often than not a man. Feel especially for those young men who think toxic masculinity is the way to be a real man. My book, Your Partner Has Breast Cancer: 21 Ways to Keep Sane as a Support Person on Your Journey from Victim to Survivor, is for them. I wrote it while I was playing that role as support person for Emily and discovering that no resources were available anywhere to help me take care of myself so I could take care of her. What Others Are Saying I felt guilty thinking I […]
Two hundred descendants of immigrants met Saturday September 7 at the euphemistically named North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin, Michigan, to stand in solidarity with the estimated six hundred immigrants who have been illegally kidnapped by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Their crime: being born non-white and outside the United States. Witnesses came from as far away as Chicago. At least a dozen representatives from Ann Arbor were present. Your Tax Dollars at Work The event was sponsored by No Detention Centers in Michigan, a statewide coalition of immigrant-support groups that is working collectively to abolish immigration detention and migrant incarceration in Michigan and beyond. Baldwin is located within Manistee National Forest, three and a half hours from Ann Arbor. It is one of the most impoverished communities in […]