About this space

Even though many hearts and minds are part of this project, writing a book is largely a long, solo labour. Now that the chapters are finished, the peer review completed, the citations triple checked, and my manuscript is off to the fine folks at University of Toronto Press, my mind is turning toward how I'd like to share this work. And who I want to be doing this with and for. (Information about ordering the book will be shared here as soon as it's available).

Transforming the public sector from within is a massive, and largely invisible, movement of incredible people doing important things under (mostly) challenging conditions. My hope is that my book honours and celebrates our collective labours and supports us in finding each other and lifting one another up. My intention is that this community/newsletter space provides a small bit of infrastructure to help us do this.

...I want it to feel as human and humane as possible for a digital space. This means writing and imagery generated by all-natural intelligences. This means using a platform that is founded in open source, community-led, and non-extractive values. This means focusing on high quality contributions and working with natural cycles rather than on quantity, pushing too hard, and adding more noise to an already very loud and busy world. This means finding ways for the digital space to facilitate activities and connections in the real, living, world.

...I want to cultivate space where the stories and insights shared in book form can continue to shift, change, evolve, and grow. Where they can really come alive. My hope is that when transformational characters read it that you'll reach out, share your own experiences with the thinking that's there, and that I can keep gathering and sharing these to keep us all learning.

...Transforming the public sector from within is an everchanging and lifelong project, and I dream of being surprised and delighted by where this might take us!

The way that I think/feel/act about transformation in the public sector is rooted in feminist, Indigenous, Black, queer, Earth-centered, somatic, and other anti-oppressive lineages. This will take some time to explore and explain and is why I've written this book. I long for spaces where we can think/feel/enact transformation together that spills outside of the dominant systems, structures, and paradigms of governance.

For now, it's Spring as I'm beginning this community/newsletter space... Spring tells me to pay close attention, move with intention, and let this unfurl. So I will start with sharing some excerpts from my forthcoming book, and also some stories about how it was made. As Summer comes and the sun's energy is plentiful, I will be out and about meeting new and old friends and inviting you/them into this space. Along with you all, we'll figure out what else this community might become as the book prepares to arrive in our hands and hearts in the fall.