I Dress for Decency

My game plan for the day was to visit a prisoner at GEO North Lake Processing Center, aka North Lake Immigrants Concentration Camp, in Baldwin, Michigan. I was prepared to follow all the rules so that I wouldn’t be denied entry. I took my driver’s license and a $20 donation out of my wallet so I could store my wallet with my keys in my knapsack. My pen and notebook I left there as well, comforted in the assurance that “3×5 note cards and bendy pens” would be available for note taking.

And I obeyed the unofficial dress code, which, we were warned, was being enforced:

• pants with no holes/distressed material (jeans preferred but khakis, trousers, slacks are OK. no leggings, sweatpants or pajama-type bottoms)
• closed-toed shoes and no Crocs 
• long-sleeve shirt or sweater with no pockets, no hoodies, no quarter zips
• if wearing a bra, no underwire

I wore jeans but with no holes in the knees, and my usual tennis shoes.

The restriction on bras with underwires fortunately was no problem for me. More of a challenge was the requirement to wear a long-sleeve shirt with no pockets. I wear short sleeves all year round and all my shirts have pockets to carry my glasses. My only option was my pullover wool turtle-neck sweater, which seemed too overdressed and warm for the event and the day’s weather.

Then, lo and behold, I discovered a pocketless long-sleeve pullover on Emily’s side of our closet. With confidence in my masculinity, I prepared to wear it as my alternative, until I received the following message: “I believe a short-sleeve shirt for a man will be allowed. A breast pocket is probably ok, too. It’s sort of a ‘decency police’ dress code.” I’m nothing if I’m not decent. I went with short-sleeve button down over a T-shirt that said, “We were all immigrants.”

On the Road to Baldwin

Baldwin is located three and a half hours north of Ann Arbor. I drove up with friends Mary Anne and Amelia.

Mary Anne and I were going to meet another friend, Ramiro, and the three of us were going to make the visit.

Amelia brought with her eight cartons of Korans, thirty-six per box, a donation from an area mosque for the prisoners. We delivered them personally to the prison reverend as soon as we arrived. He was concerned to learn that they were hardbacks, which are strictly verboten as gifts because they may be hollowed out to hide contraband. However, he came up with a workaround: He would donate them to the prison library, which has many hardbacks, and prisoners can borrow them from there.

Mission accomplished, we went out front to join one hundred other patriots who had shown up to show their support for the prisoners.

Food for the Family

At 1 p.m, Mary Anne, Ramiro, and I went back to the prison for our visit. On our brief walk, a security guard approached us in her car. She made a point of telling us that she doesn’t necessarily agree with what’s happening but she needs food to feed her family. We’re pretty sure this is the plight of many of the employees. It isn’t uncommon for Trump/Miller concentration camps to be built in depressed communities that are forced to choose between principle and food. Baldwin is one of the most depressed areas in Michigan.

We had been given the name of one prisoner and instructions by a leader from No Detention Centers in Michigan, the leading statewide coalition working to abolish immigration concentration camps in Michigan. The prisoner was a Venezuelan asylum seeker who had been abducted in Chicago in October and brought to North Lake, where he has remained since then. His only family members in this country are an ex-wife and a daughter, who the ex-wife has kept from him. In other words, nobody.

I had so many questions, which I knew I would have to ask through Mary Anne and Ramiro because I’m not fluent in Spanish:

• Why did you flee Venezuela?
• What were you doing in Chicago and how were you caught?
• What are conditions like in prison?
• How is your health?
• Do you have a routine? How is the food?
• How can I contact your daughter?

Registering at the Prison

The reception area included two women behind the counter processing visitors, at one time or another about thirty visitors, and a handful of I guessed guards who were milling around not really doing anything. It appeared to be shift change time so some of the guards could have been waiting to leave. To the right side of the counter were two rows of chairs with twenty visitors, some of whom were standing behind the chairs, all waiting to be called.

At the counter, we filled out the visitor form, which indicated who we were visiting, his “A” number, our driver’s license numbers, our relation to the prisoner (we all wrote “friend”), and our addresses.

We each brought a $20 donation for our prisoner’s commissary account. The bills all went into one envelope, which I signed after writing our prisoner’s name and “A” number. Then one of the women directed us to watch as she sealed the envelope and dropped it into a secure box.

To join the waiting visitors on the right side of the counter, we had to pass through security on the left side. I put my coat and shoes in one basket and my glasses case in another and pushed them through the X-ray machine. I retrieved them after passing through the scanner and then joined the visitors.

Driving while Brown

While we were waiting to meet our designated prisoner, we talked with a young woman who was here to visit her boyfriend, another Venezuelan, who had been abducted in his car because he was driving while Brown. He had been imprisoned for six months but this was her first opportunity to visit him.

She tried futilely to hold back tears as she described his growing pessimism as he awaited his court date in December 2027! She was uplifted when we told her about Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC), which provides free legal help (but which is always in righteous need of donations).

We learned from one of the milling men, who described himself as a processor, that the prisoners come from all over, including Chicago, Grand Rapids, Detroit, and other cities. Many are from prisons. “It’s all about money,” he said. “Democrats, Republicans, ministers making over $200,000. I don’t trust any of them. Governors from both parties call ICE, and ICE takes them to federal prisons so the state doesn’t have to pay.”

He says it is common for immigrants to be sent to camps and prisons far from their homes to reduce visits.

Waiting for What?

We waited an hour before being told to line up in front of the vestibule that led to what we guessed would be the meeting room. At last, we thought, we’re on our way. We waited in line for another ten minutes. And then our names were called. Here is what we were told: The prisoner we had travelled from Ann Arbor to visit “already had a visit today and inmates only get one visit a day.”

What? That’s it?

That was it.

My friend Rich and his wife, Nancy, who, like us, had driven up from Ann Arbor to show support for someone who they didn’t know, got the same message.

What the hell?

Ramiro knew one of the women who had been picked up recently in Ypsilanti. “Can we visit her instead?” he asked. No, we couldn’t because today was visitors’ day in Delta cell, which was for the men. Visits are on a rotation basis. Bravo is the women’s cell and visitation day there was Monday.

That was it. A three-and-a-half-hour ride to Baldwin, an hour wait in the reception area, and then a three-and-a-half hour ride back home. Good company for sure, and we were on hand to join the one hundred others outside the camp, but that was not our anticipated outcome.

Guests had other ways of being screwed also. A family of five drove in from Cincinnati only to learn that the maximum number of visitors at a time is four, so one of them had to remain in the waiting room.

Now we began to wonder, would our prisoner even receive the donation we had left for him? Will he even know a donation was given to him?

Happy Valentine’s Day

Our treatment in Baldwin’s Trump/Miller Concentration Camp is an extension of the dehumanizing treatment inmates receive. For one, we don’t even know if indeed these two prisoners really had already received visitors. But even if they had, why are they only allowed one visit per visitors’ day? The men’s and women’s cells are open for visitors each only one day a week. So, in effect, prisoners are allowed one visit a week. Visits are limited to ninety minutes.

How can members of the resistance—aka, immigrant supporters and family members—be given access to visitors’ logs, or provided relevant information by prison staff, or allowed to make reservations, so duplicate assignments of prisoners to receive guests can be reduced and eliminated and out-of-town visitors can be assured their trips won’t be in vain?

What other support groups besides No Detention Centers in Michigan are lining up volunteers to visit prisoners who otherwise would have nobody? How can they coordinate their efforts so prisoners aren’t paired up with more than one group a day?

And how can we be assured our designated prisoner received our donation?

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone. ICE Out of Existence.

* * *

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.

The post Valentine’s Day in Prison appeared first on .

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.

The post Happy New Year appeared first on .

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.

The post No Kings Marchers Celebrate America in Ypsi-Ann Arbor appeared first on .

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.

The post “Thumbs Up” Now Available on IngramSpark appeared first on .

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.

The post Help Is Here for Breast Cancer Silent Victim appeared first on .

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.

The post Patriots Protest North Lake Concentration Camp in Baldwin appeared first on .

Third Mind Books, 118 E. Washington Street, in Ann Arbor, is playing host. Party begins at 7 p.m.

I Offer My Beat Credentials

This is my first time speaking at Third Mind Books. I’m especially honored because they specialize in literature of the Beats. To get the invitation, I had to prove my Beat credentials.

How did I do that? Come to the book launch and find out my personal connections to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders, Paul Krassner, and other literary legends.

As historian Harvey Wasserman notes in his foreword, Thumbs Up “spins a Kerouac-worthy tale of an adventure-filled life well spent.”

Then we’ll celebrate with a cake that is a spitting image of the book cover but tastes better.

Bonus: With every book you buy, Third Mind will give you a free copy of my first book, Beercans on the Side of the Road: The Story of Henry the Hitchhiker. While supplies last.

Thumbs Up

Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer is my memoir about the milestone events I witnessed and provoked and that shaped my life from Kent State into the new millennium.

It includes all three phases of my life with the underground press: when I was on it, when I preserved its legacy in print through Voices from the Underground, and when we went digital with Independent Voices. But it includes a lot more. Here’s how it is described:

“The author’s journey through the seventies and beyond with the underground press, the Yippies and Zippies, his thumb, his Judaism, organic catering, community organizing, emerging technology, and Emily. A funny, insightful, always hopeful memoir of a joyful writer, editor, dishwasher, Zen phony, and legendary historian of the underground press.”

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz called Thumbs Up “a gift, a cultural outbreak of joy in the dark time of the 1970s for our own dark time.”

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

Kerouac biographer Gerald Nicosia called Thumbs Up “an important book because it straightens out a history that has been deliberately twisted in the telling, and hopefully it will open a lot of eyes to what really happened in the Sixties, and even more urgently needs to happen again in America.”

I look forward to seeing you tonight at Third Mind Books. If you can’t make it, go ahead and order the book here.

Ken

The post Launch Date at Last for “Thumbs Up” appeared first on .

In 1992, a small, sinister no doubt, group of adjunct faculty members at Eastern Michigan University—known euphemistically as part-timers even though some taught up to eight classes a semester, on three campuses throughout southeast Michigan to make ends meet—came together and made a vow: that they would create one bargaining unit for all adjunct faculty members, both part-timers and full-timers.

It was a gutsy move. In all of Michigan history, no such bargaining unit—for adjunct faculty exclusively—had ever existed. In addition, they faced a hostile administration. By the end of that first meeting, they had formed themselves into EMULOC: Eastern Michigan University Lecturers Organizing Committee (later Congress).

They began their first card campaign the next day.

And they won.

But it took thirty years!

In Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, I share my story of that historic campaign for the first time.

In these dark times, we have to remember: When we organize—we win!

But sometimes it takes a long time. Think thirty years.

Thumbs Up launches on July 14 with a party at Third Mind Bookstore, 118 East Washington, in downtown Ann Arbor. But it is available now at a special preorder purchase price. Consider it the family rate. You can preorder your softcover and ebook versions here.

To learn more about Thumbs Up and to see what others are saying about it, visit my book page.

And if you’re so inspired, please place an honest review on whatever platform you used to purchase it.

Be well and keep laughing. They hate that.

Peace.

Ken

The post Historic Union Victory Celebrated in Upcoming Memoir appeared first on .

Susan Brownmiller, legendary feminist author and pioneer leader of the second wave of the feminist movement, died Saturday May 24, 2025. Susan was best known as the author of the groundbreaking book, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, the book that put rape on the map as a feminist issue.

It was my honor to have her in my life for one brief but significant, for me, moment. Here’s what happened:

I Give in to Groupie Tendencies

I was sitting at my desk at the publishing house where I was working by day when the voice over the intercom announced that I had a call on line 3.

I was at the time at a low point in my life. The entire inventory of my Voices from the Underground had been stolen from the publisher’s warehouse. Voices is a collection of histories of Vietnam-era underground newspapers written by key people on each of the papers. I contributed the history of the Lansing-area underground press and edited the whole collection. This first edition had appeared in 1993 as 600+ pages of an 8 ½ x 11 two-column format, the equivalent, in standard 6 x 9 paperback format, of a 1,500-page book, or four separate books.

I picked up the phone and identified myself. The voice at the other end said, “Hi, Ken, this is Susan Brownmiller.”

With no time to restrict my groupie-est of tendencies, I blurted back, “Susan Brownmiller!” She didn’t seem phased. Maybe she was being polite.

She said she was in the process of writing her history of the feminist movement, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution, and she needed a copy of Voices for her research. Her particular interest was two histories, of

• off our backs, the first nationally distributed feminist newspaper to emerge from the east coast, written in part by Marilyn Webb, the founder of the paper; and
• The Furies, published by the legendary radical lesbian group, The Furies, written by collective member Ginny Berson.

Unfortunately, my own supply was down to only a precious handful that I couldn’t spare, and I couldn’t reorder from the publisher, whose inventory had just been ripped off. Fortunately, Marilyn Webb had a copy to spare. Marilyn’s story is footnoted several times in Susan’s book.

Susan Comes Through

I never forgot that incident, so twenty years later, while working on the second edition, which Michigan State University Press published in the four volumes it should have been all along, I contacted Susan and asked her for a testimonial quote. Generously, she came through. Here’s what she wrote:

“What a boon to historians! Ken Wachsberger’s Voices from the Underground is crucial to an understanding of the literary and political history of the 1960s counterculture movement. This valuable resource must stay in print, if only for academics who wish to study the amazing phenomenon of the alternative newspapers, put together by amateurs, that sprang up across the country in those fervent years. Wachsberger’s material, largely in the form of ‘how we did it’ memoirs, is rich in personal histories and anecdotal details that are collected nowhere else.”

I Meet Susan

On my next trip to New York, I met Susan for the first time. I expected her to tell me how much she loved the book. I was prepared to feign modesty. Instead, she said, “You don’t have enough on the feminist press. You need to include It Aint Me Babe.”

I reminded her that I already had off our backs and The Furies, so the women’s voice was well represented.

But the feminist papers deserved more, she demanded. She insisted I contact Laura X, whose interview with a rape victim in Berkeley had inspired Susan to write Against Our Will.

It Aint Me Babe Joins Voices

Laura X is legendary in feminist lore as the premier archivist of the feminist movement. She embraced my invitation and pulled together other key figures from Berkeley’s It Aint Me Babe, the first nationally distributed feminist underground paper in the country, to tell their story. Other contributors included lead author and Babe founder Bonnie Eisenberg; Trina Robbins, pioneer feminist comix artist, who helped to break through the men-only barrier; feminist journalist Starr Goode, and Alta Gerrey, founder of the feminist Shameless Hussy Press.

The story of It Aint Me Babe appeared, for the first time ever, in volume 3 of the four-volume series. Susan wrote the foreword.

* * *

The story of Voices from the Underground appears in Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, now available for preorder. Launch date: July 14, 2025.

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The book launch date for my memoir, Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, is fast approaching, and with it come two special occasions. I hope you can make it to at least one of them, and spread the word.

I Offer My Beat Credentials

On Monday July 14, launch date, Third Mind Books, 118 E. Washington Street, in Ann Arbor, will help me celebrate by hosting my book launch party. Party begins at 7 p.m.

This is my first time speaking at Third Mind Books. I’m especially honored because they specialize in literature of the Beats. To get the invitation, I had to prove my Beat credentials.

How did I do that? Come to the book launch and find out. Then we’ll celebrate with a cake that is a spitting image of the book cover but tastes better.

Bonus: With every book you buy, Third Mind will give you a free copy of Beercans on the Side of the Road: The Story of Henry the Hitchhiker.

Home, Sweet Home

Being at Everybody Reads is like returning home. On Saturday July 26 at 2 p.m., I will have my sixth Lansing book launch at Everybody Reads, 2019 E. Michigan Avenue. Of course, cake will be included, and a free copy of Beercans on the Side of the Road with every purchase.

Thumbs Up is filled with stories of the Lansing area counterculture and antiwar community because so much of my story took place there. Do you remember Michigan State’s secret involvement in the Vietnam War? The trial of the MSU 132? Francine Hughes? The Lansing area’s proud underground press history? The first-ever Natural Food and Health Spring Fest?

Come and share your stories and hear mine.

Thumbs Up

Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer is my memoir about the milestone events I witnessed and provoked and that shaped my life from Kent State into the new millennium.

It includes all three phases of my life with the underground press: when I was on it, when I preserved its legacy in print through Voices from the Underground, and when we went digital. But it includes a lot more. Here’s how it is described:

“The author’s journey through the seventies and beyond with the underground press, the Yippies and Zippies, his thumb, his Judaism, organic catering, community organizing, emerging technology, and Emily. A funny, insightful, always hopeful memoir of a joyful writer, editor, dishwasher, Zen phony, and legendary historian of the underground press.”

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz called it “a gift, a cultural outbreak of joy in the dark time of the 1970s for our own dark time.”

Harvey Wasserman said it “spins a Kerouac-worthy tale of an adventure-filled life well spent.”

Speaker Anne Bonney said my experiences are “deeply inspiring, showcasing resilience, activism, and a passion for making a difference in the world. The puke-in had me ROLLING!! This memoir is a must-read for anyone who appreciates a life well-lived and well-told. I LOVE IT!”

I look forward to seeing you at one or both launches. If you can’t make either, go ahead and order the book here.

Ken

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