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, became a life-long writer and community organizer, and came to be renowned as a historian of the underground press. If you’re unfamiliar with Kent State and the underground press, I’ll open your mind. If you were a Baby Boomer, you’ll recognize the terrain.

It’s funny. It’s historical. It includes cameo appearances from Alan Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Country Joe McDonald, Susan Brownmiller, and a host of other luminaries from the radical left during the Vietnam Era who I never would have met if I hadn’t gone with the flow.

A lot of it takes place right here in Ann Arbor, like the successful thirty-year struggle at Eastern Michigan University to form the first-ever collective bargaining unit for adjunct faculty members in Michigan; and the successful campaign to bring Temple Beth Emeth and St. Clare’s Episcopal Church together into today’s sanctuary movement.

Historian Harvey Wasserman says Thumbs Up “spins a Kerouac-worthy tale of an adventure-filled life well spent. Full of fight and fun.”

Kirkus Reviews called it “an open and funny account that spans decades with joy and passion.”

This will be my third time speaking at Schuler. It will likely be my last, as Emily and I will be moving to Palm Springs, CA, next year to begin a new adventure.

I’d love for you to buy a copy for yourself or a friend. But mostly I’d just like you to join me, January 8, 2026, 6:30, at Schuler Books, 2513 Jackson Avenue, Ann Arbor.

Peace and happy new year,

Ken

* * *

Ken Wachsberger is an author, editor, speaker, and book coach. His memoir, Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, was released in July 2025 and is available for purchase here.

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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 faces and wearing costumes. Unicorns, frogs, even Darth Vader showed up. I may have been imagining it but he seemed happy, relieved that for a change he isn’t the cause of the disturbance in the Force.

American flags were prominent, showing us to be the America lovers. One flag, featuring Kim Jong Un, I assumed reflected his close relationship with Trump but I couldn’t read the words. Another said, “Love Wins,” with an American flag above the words and a rainbow flag below it.

Topics on the posters and signs were all over the place, including the Epstein files, our veterans, Citizens United, Palestinians and Gaza, the economy, the environment, sexism, ICE, and more (see partial list below). This range shows the depth of our movement. No wonder the Trumpers fear it so.

Our challenge is to not let the Trumpers turn us against each other. We’re all in this together. Our umbrella is getting bigger while theirs is shrinking. As poet Robert Zimmerman said, “I’ll let you be in my dream if you let me be in yours.”

Some, like “ICE is the new Stormtroopers,” noted parallels between Trump and Hitler. To those who say we shouldn’t compare Trump to Hitler and MAGA to Nazis, I wonder at one point we can acknowledge the similarities. The masked midnight raids weren’t Gestapo enough? Do we have to wait until they’re throwing us in ovens?

Yellow for Unity

We were called on to wear yellow by Indivisible, the nationwide grassroots movement that has been spearheading the No Kings marches. But the call was muted. I only saw one other reference to it, in a flyer from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. As a result, the effect was less dramatic than it could have been. The good president (Weingarten!) said it would display unity. Okay, next time, let’s shout out the call so everyone gets on board.

In any case, Emily didn’t join us in that show of solidarity because she doesn’t have any yellow clothes in her wardrobe. “I don’t look good in yellow,” she confessed.

Signs of a Growing Movement

Except for one passenger who gave us the finger as we marched by, horn-honking drivers and their passengers were a powerful addition to the crowd that met at the park and walked around a long block.

The highpoint of the march for me happened right at the beginning when we ran into a friend from the community and his son. He said this was the first political rally he had ever attended. I guessed it was his son’s first also. Signs of a growing movement. At the next march, I want to see Republicans and former MAGAs among the speakers. At some point, they will wake up, pop the bubble that is safeguarding them from reality, and realize they are being screwed—here it comes—royally!

And they’ll agree with us that we can settle our differences later but right now we’re all in this together.

* * *

Here are some of the best posters:

• No Faux-king Way.                                                                     
• Resist.
• Cholesterol do your job!
• I will not learn your hate.
• Don’t obey.
• We’re all immigrants.
• ICE is the new Stormtroopers.
• Your loser fascist regime can’t steal my joy.
• The only monarchs I like are butterflies.
• Which restrooms should castrated Republicans use?
• No Sexist PolICE (with last three letters painted red).
• We shouldn’t have to defend democracy from the president.
• Super Callous Fragile Racist Sexist Nazi Potus.
• Make America Glad Again.
• You know it’s bad when the Episcopalians show up.
• Billionaires are the only minority running the country.
• Make America Not Embarrassing Again.
• We Don’t Bow. We Vote.
• Poverty is the worst form of violence.
• Keep your religion out of my rights.
• Queens Yes. Kings No.
• Standing up is patriotic. Bowing down is treason.
• Defend the people. Defy the dictator.

And one to the nepo baby who keeps us all healthy:

• RFK: Go away!

Remarkably, I found only one typo, on a slogan I didn’t memorialize: Privlege.

* * *

Ken Wachsberger is an author, editor, speaker, and book coach. His memoir, Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, was released this summer and is available for purchase here.

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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 platform individually.

Add to that is one unique benefit, D2D’s Universal Book Link (UBL), a URL that leads to one web page that includes links to all the platforms where your book may be purchased. Readers can choose the bookstore of their choice. For example, here is the UBL for Thumbs Up.

IngramSpark never showed up there, maybe, I guessed, because it’s used mainly by bookstores, who use their own link to get there.

A Horrifying Discovery about IngramSpark

So I had to verify that D2D did make my book available to users of IngramSpark, mostly bookstores. In my research, I was pleased to discover that they did. But I was horrified to learn that bookstores only received a 20 percent discount.

This can’t be. In the pre-digital age, Ingram was the distributor used by bookstores. Their traditional discount was 40 to 55 percent. In the digital age, Ingram became IngramSpark, the electronic book distributor. Bookstores buy their books from IngramSpark, but they expect the same discount, and with the right to return books they don’t sell.

Draft2Digital gave less than half that.

I needed Draft2Digital to release my right to distribute to IngramSpark back to me.

There appears to be no standard set of instructions for this procedure.

I told D2D I wanted the right to distribute directly to IngramSpark from Azenphony Press instead of indirectly through D2D. They said I should ask IngramSpark.

I asked IngramSpark. The representative said they had to receive that request directly from the publisher. I said I was the publisher.

Two Side Rants

Side rant #1: Don’t ever let an electronic distribution network say they are your publisher. Draft2Digital is a distributor, and a good one at that—but only you are the publisher. Remember: It’s called independent publishing. You are an independent publisher.

IngramSpark was treating D2D as the publisher. That distinction might have been true in the pre-digital age but it no longer is. This confusion can be easily eliminated if IngramSpark would include fields for both publisher and distributor in their metadata

Side rant #2: In the same way, they need a field for edition so publishers can distinguish when they publish new editions.

Back to My Story, and the Lesson

Back to my story: I brought the representative from D2D into the conversation, and we got to know each other because I didn’t let the issue rest. Finally, IngramSpark gave into my argument, accepted my updated file listing Azenphony Press as publisher, and even helped me iron out a few electronic glitches so it could go live.

I’m grateful to them both for helping me through those apparently uncharted waters.

The lesson to independent publishers is, when you upload to Draft2Digital, upload first to IngramSpark so you can control the discount and return policy. When you then upload your file to D2D (because no reputable distribution network demands exclusivity), they will see that a book with the same ISBN already is available to IngramSpark and take it out of their distribution network.

* * *

Ken Wachsberger is an author, editor, speaker, and book coach. His memoir, Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, was released this summer and is available for purchase here.

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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 should be doing more but not knowing what more to do. I wrote the book to help me survive the experience. Now, others can do the same. Here’s what readers have said:

“Ken has in a thoughtful and caring way shared effective ways that worked for him as he was a great husband and father supporting his wife and children in his family’s battle against breast cancer.”— Marc Heyison, President/Founder, Men Against Breast Cancer

“I read it in one sitting, then went back and read it again. The story is masterfully told, the advice lovingly conveyed,,,, Everyone whose lives have been touched by cancer should have a copy.” — Cantor Emeritus Ann Zibelman Rose, Temple Beth Emeth, Ann Arbor, Michigan

“All I can say is wow! I found this booklet helpful, informative, moving, and clearly a labor of love.”— Dr. Helen Pass, Chief of Breast Surgery at Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island

“I connect with you so easily and on a very personal level.”— Kristi Davis, Founder, Creative Spirit Healing

Here It Is

In observance of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I have made it available right here at a major low price. Real men experience emotional pain and recognize when they need help.

Here it is.

* * *

Ken Wachsberger is an author, editor, speaker, book coach, and breast cancer support person survivor. His memoir, Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, was released this summer and is available for purchase here.

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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 Michigan, the exact type of community that profit-driven private companies like GEO Group, owner of NLCF, prey upon with their promise of jobs.

GEO, a major Trump donor, is a failed maximum- and minimum-security prison that gained new life with a multi-million-dollar, multi-year federal contract. It reopened in June 2025 and immediately became the largest employer in Baldwin.

Collective Witnessing at North Lake

Lauren, the granddaughter of immigrants, was the spokesperson from NDCM. She informed us that North Lake is the largest Midwest ICE concentration camp. It rests on Anishinaabe land. “No human is illegal on stolen land,” she said.

A representative of Witness at the Border travelled from Chicago wearing the black-and-white striped suit familiar to the Jews in Nazi Germany. We know about the yellow triangles the Jews were forced to wear and the pink triangles worn by homosexuals. He passed out pins with blue triangles like those worn by immigrants. What No Detention Centers in Michigan did Saturday is similar to what Witness has been doing at migrant concentration camps in Tornillo, Texas; Homestead, Florida; and Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades.

A woman read a statement from Nael Shamma, a Palestinian American grandfather who came to America when he was seven, has been living here for over fifty years, and holds a permanent green card. He checked in faithfully with ICE for decades until he was kidnapped by ICE in front of his home in Burton, Michigan, in August. He has been in captivity since then.

We heard a recording from a political activist from Venezuela who came here seeking asylum.  He was picked up at a routine appointment and is being held in the Calhoun County Jail, where he is in need of, and not getting, medical attention to treat his HIV.

Richard Kessler, an immigrant rights attorney for forty-five years, spoke twice. The first time, he noted that he had clients being held in the prison. The inmates have held protests inside, he informed us. A guard told his client we would be rioting outside the prison and used that lie as an excuse to cancel visitation. Then GEO blamed us for the cancellation.

The second time he spoke, he introduced Nicha, an inmate who was able to call Richard because he is her attorney. Richard put her on speaker, so she was able to hear us chant “You are not alone. We are not criminals.” Men and women are isolated from each other, she said. Men outnumber women. Most of the inmates have no criminal records. Our presence gives them strength in the knowledge that people outside the prison have not forgotten them and are actively fighting for their release.

And there were other speakers.

After the formal part of the rally, we relocated around the corner at the entranceway used by vehicles to enter the premises. By the time we left, protesters had blocked the entrance with branches and tree limbs from the forest across the street.

How You Can Help

If you are interested in witnessing in Baldwin, check out NDCM’s website at https://nodetentioncentersmi.org.

You can learn more about Witness at the Border, and about witnessing at other concentration camps around the country, at https://witnessattheborder.org.

If you live in Washtenaw County and are passionate about the injustices that we are witnessing daily from the federal government, please contact me at ken@kenthebookcoach.com so I can add you to the mailing list of Washtenaw Congregational Sanctuary, where I am a Steering Committee member.

From Palestine to Mexico, all these walls have got to go.

Break the chains and let them fall. / Free the prisoners, free them all.

We’ve said it once. We’ve said it twice: / We must abolish ICE.

* * *

A history of the Trump-era sanctuary movement in Washtenaw County appears for the first time in my Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, available for purchase here.

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