The Village Muse Bookstore in Cumberland will host the first Comox Valley Anarchist Book Fair this Saturday at The Abbey, featuring a May Day feast of subversive ideas and creative resistance possibilities.
As a black and green event, it is bathed in both the radical legacy of the Cumberland mine wars and the soaring Beltane spirit of the Merry Month of May, and has absolutely nothing to do with Queen Victoria's birthday.
This anarchist festival of the book has been fomented in the cooperative spirit of mutual aid that unites Cumberland and Denman Island co-conspirators.
While we anticipate that lots of anarchists and anarchist-friendly folks will converge on Cumberland that weekend, you don't have to be a self-described anarchist to attend the Book Fair. All you need is an open mind and an anti-authoritarian sense of curiosity.
In The Abbey on this day, you will find rows of tables peopled by individuals, distros, and bookstores that feature a wide array of anarchist and anarchist-related books, zines, publications, and crafts.
Participating bookstores and distros, in alphabetical order, so far include: BC Blackout (Vancouver/Denman Island), Black Banner Distro (Vancouver), Black Sheep Collective (Calgary), Camas Books (Victoria), One Way Ticket (Victoria), Red Lion Press (Nanaimo), Spartacus Books (Vancouver), Village Muse Bookstore (Cumberland), and Warrior Publications (Vancouver).
Authors who will be at tables include: Gord Hill, Jeff Shantz, Larry Gambone, Matta, Miles Olson, Ron Sakolsky, Sean Woods, and Tom Swanky.
There will be free food all day and a potluck at the Abbey between 6 and 7 p.m. The Abbey will provide space for an art wall and an acoustic open-mic event starting at 7:30 p.m. dubbed The Creative Mayhem Anarchist Cabaret.
Across the street from the Abbey, at the OAP Hall, there will be a series of free direct action, skill-sharing and radical history workshops at the top of every hour all day.
They will feature such topics as: combating the Raven and Bear coal mines/anti-pipeline solidarity; street theatre; rewilding; Cortes Island forest defence; decolonization; and Cumberland's radical roots.
Outdoors, there will be a medicinal plant walk and a blacksmithing workshop.
Today, anarchists, along with many others, are engaged in an effort to prevent Cumberland from once again becoming a mining town under the thumb of the coal bosses should the Compliance Energy Corporation's proposal for a Raven coal mine project get approved, which would then open the door for the proposed open-pit Bear coal mine over Comox Lake, threatening the village's water supply.
For more information about the book fair and workshop schedule, visit comoxvalleyanarchistbookfair.wordpress.com.
— Village Muse Bookstore