Katie Tastrom
A Room of One's Own 2717 Atwood Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53704
media release: A Room of One's Own is thrilled to welcome Katie Tastrom and Lachrista Greco for a conversation on Katie's new book A People’s Guide to Abolition and Disability Justice. Join us to learn more about how disability and the prison system overlap with two incredible writers and organizers. No matter where you are in your understanding, this is an event for you!
This is an in person event at A Room of One's Own.
About the Book
Disability justice and prison abolition are two increasingly popular theories that overlap but whose intersection has rarely been explored in depth.
A People’s Guide to Abolition and Disability Justice explains the history and theories behind abolition and disability justice in a way that is easy to understand for those new to these concepts yet also gives insights that will be useful to seasoned activists. The book uses extensive research and professional and lived experience to illuminate the way the State uses disability and its power to disable to incarcerate multiply marginalized disabled people, especially those who are queer, trans, Black, or Indigenous.
Because disabled people are much more likely than nondisabled people to be locked up in prisons, jails, and other sites of incarceration, abolitionists, and others critical of carceral systems must incorporate a disability justice perspective into our work. A People’s Guide to Abolition and Disability Justice gives personal and policy examples of how and why disabled people are disproportionately caught up in the carceral net, and how we can use this information to work toward prison and police abolition more effectively. This book includes practical tools and strategies that will be useful for anyone who cares about disability justice or abolition and explains why we can’t have one without the other.
Katie Tastrom is a disability justice activist and writer who has worked as a lawyer, social worker, and sex worker. Her work has appeared in the anthologies Burn It Down: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution and Nourishing Resistance: Stories of Food, Protest, and Mutual Aid, as well as all over the internet including: Truthout, Rewire, and Rooted in Rights. She resides in Syracuse, NY.
Lachrista Greco is Marxist feminist prison abolitionist. She is a writer, educator, librarian, and maker living on Ho-Chunk Land (Madison, Wisconsin). Lachrista is a consultant to organizations and universities on preventing digital violence (and teaching survivors how to cope). You may know her as the human behind @lachristagreco on Instagram. Lachrista has two books forthcoming, the first is a memoir titled, The Guerrilla Feminist: A Search For Belonging (Online and Offline) from Iskra Books and the latter is a book of poems titled, Lift Me Out of the Wound.