We Run on Mutual Aid

As a rotating collective of volunteer anti-capitalist pubishers, we aren’t keen on incorporating. We don’t want to run a business or a nonprofit. Instead, we run on a model of mutual aid and gift-giving.

We don’t have a store. we have principles.

Gift Economy

When you send us a gift, you support our whole publishing project from the authors to the printers.

When we send you a gift, we support you as a human–not just a customer or a consumer (blech).

We owe each other the world. But capitalism reduces care and creativity to just accounting.

We support each other in ways beyond money transaction: that’s why we don’t have a store, don’t cards, don’t do business. We trade in a gift-giving network.

Art and Literature are Needs

The principal is best illustrated, “We need bread and roses, too.”

Our published works nurture the need for unfettered art. Not hidden in a museum or behind a paywall. Regardless of your ability to ‘pay’ for an issue, we will make these published works as available as we can while not bound by rules of money or law.

Please understand in turn that we are volunteers paying for everything out of pocket. Be patient with us so we can support one another! And if you can donate to our project–please do! Read on for how.

Support creators, not capital

Every editor working in Grinning Kitten Press pays for the work of authors, artists, printers, and designers using our own money from gig work and 9-to-5 grinds.

We don’t ask the people who need our work to pay for it, and we’re not skimming profit off the artists. Everything you gift us goes back into the project.

We already have jobs where we are exploited. This is not a job where we’re trying to pass the buck of exploitation. We are trying something new. Instead of becoming beholden to credit card companies, Paypal, Patreon, or other late-capital vultures, we put creators first.

And we put our money where our mouths are. We may not have a lot to give, but if we start small and keep trying, we could help win everything for everyone!

Gifts given –> Gifts received

How can you get our published zines? Write to us at editors@grinningkitten.com and ask for it. We will need your mailing address! Or you can send us a letter at:

Grinning Kitten Press

PO Box 1060

Eau Claire, WI 54702

We also distribute to a number of infoshops, cafes, and bookstores all across the so-called United States.

So what kinds of gifts?

Small gifts and supplies.

We love used magazines and books, yarn, craft supplies, pencils and paper, journals, glue sticks, staples, recipes, love letters, index cards, pressed flowers, treasure maps, greeting cards stuffed with cash, garden seeds, cross-stitch patterns with or without thread, textiles, clothes, job offers–the only limit is your imagination (and our 12” x 22.5” PO box, lol.)

As you can tell, we are always in need of services, too; website help, especially promotion, are always welcome.

Anything we can’t use directly we pass on to our authros or people in the communities where we live, work, and organize.

That’s mutual aid!