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I have a wonderful, wonderful guest joining me.

Shira Hassan is the co-creator of Just Practice, a capacity building project, working at the intersection

of transformative justice, harm reduction, and collective liberation.

In 2022, Haymarket Books published Saving Our Own Lives, A Libald. of transformative justice, harm reduction, and collective liberation.

In 2022, Haymarket Books published Saving Our Own Lives, a Libertory Practice of Harm Reduction,

which is an anthology of essays from Shira featuring many collaborators,

telling the stories of how sex workers, drug users, black, indigenous, and people of color,

queer folk, transgender, nonconforming,

and two-spirit people are and have been building systems of change and support outside of the societal frameworks of oppression and exploitation. I love the way that you open the book.

Literally, page two, you write, quote, this book is titled Saving Our Own Lives because that's

what we did and do every day. And those of us who do not survive whisper the secrets of how to be

safer to the next generation through cherished platforms like handwritten instructional zines

and song, protest chants, and the stories our communities share through vast world histories.

This book is about what happens when those of us who are targeted by the intersections of

structural violence survive, thrive, and build power together.

And then a few pages later, you say, quote, I hope that this book offers us a space to

dislodge our shame and live into the beauty of our mess. And that last line,

the idea of living into the beauty of our mess is something that's really stuck with me since

first reading this book last year. It's that living into part. And I was wondering if to sort

of just start us off, Shira, what was your hope for this collection of offerings that saving our own lives

brings to readers once it was out in the world and sort of had left your hands? There were two sort of

...