Hey folks, welcome back. This is Andy and this is the Port Pearls Almanac.

Continuing with our Left Media interview series, today we're

speaking with Shar and Kristen from AK Press. If you're not familiar with AK Press, they're one of

the oldest anarchist publishers in the United States. We have a really great conversation around

the idea of what an anarchist publishing company or any company for that matter really looks

like working under the framework of capitalism. Not just this, but we discuss what the future

of publishing looks like and we get some really great book recommendations at the end. So take a listen,

tell us what you think. Charred Kristen, thanks so much for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit about AK Press

and what your roles are there? Yeah, thank you so much for having us. So I'll introduce myself,

talk a little bit about, you know, like the bare bones of AK Press, and then Sharrell

introduce themselves and do a little bit of a deep dive on AK.

So my name is Kristen. My pronouns are they them. I am a publicist in the publishing department

at AK Press. And for any folks who are not familiar, AK Press is an anarchist, worker run,

and non-hierarchical collective that publishes and distributes radical books and other media.

We're all self-identified anarchists and that is also reflected in the books we publish,

distribute as well as how we structure and organize our labor. There's about eight of us now in the

full collective and we are all paid the same, so we don't operate on a tiered

or seniority-based pay system.

My name is Shar.

My pronouns are they, them, and I work in the distribution department at AKM, so that

means I work in our warehouse.

I just want to say that we're not here to speak for the full collective, but it's a really

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