Two New Anarchist Deathcare Books + A Press Update

Sep 18

Two New Anarchist Deathcare Books + A Press Update

It has been a hot minute since we updated the blog because we have been buried in books. How to Bury an Anarchist is already in its third printing round. As we have mentioned in the subscriber newsletter today and elsewhere, we did not anticipate the response or the orders. Pre-orders gave us a good idea of what was coming before each round, though. If you are waiting on a copy, it is coming! Thank you for your patience. Making books is no joke!

Meanwhile, the Parallel Deathcare Library inside the Anarchist Death Project is beginning to fill up. Its 86 field guides are written by Fíona Vivienne with High Noon Hills: Forest Restoration, Natural Burial Grounds & Conservation Cemeteries, hosted here at Bacchus Editions. Those of you already inside the Anarchist Death Project with your skeleton key password will have noticed the bare-bones scaffolding. With Autumn coming, and we are excited to get the entire thing up ASAP. What could possibly be better than an anarchist deathcare portal in time for Halloween? Nothing.

It’s organized well, gang. Inside the portal you can read the guides in your browser, download them in full color or black and white, or print them as zines to distro. So cool. We finished the first round of our own printed editions of them, and they came out fantastic. Full color, Wire-O bound, on Mohawk Superfine with satin covers. Proper, substantial little working books.

Now for some nerdy machine sharing:

We bought an Akiles WireMac E31 electric wire binder, and are completely into this thing. It is ridiculously satisfying to use. Huge plus? The young ones apprenticing with us can work on it without us sweating bullets over the vintage collector machines we use for bookmaking.

Wire-O was an easy choice for the Library. The books lie completely flat and stay on the page you need, which is extremely handy when somebody is dead and you reach for a book that tells you what to do next! Several Library titles have end-of-life worksheets inside, meant to be filled out and kept with the documents somebody will eventually need.

Enough nerding out. Two new books are up in the shop and in the Anarchist Death Project:

#2 Clandestine Burial: Law, Risk & Autonomy

A field guide to burial beyond public view and at the edges of legal permission. It separates clandestine burial from clandestine death, covering unmarked and undisclosed graves, what the law actually requires, who really has to know, how graves are discovered, and what happens when someone knowingly crosses a legal boundary. Know where the line is. What you do with that knowledge remains yours.

#3 Private-Land Burial: Burying the Dead Outside the Cemetery

A practical guide to taking burial back onto private land and finding out exactly what stands between you and the grave you intend to make. It covers where the state reaches, where funeral-industry procedure masquerades as law, land and local restrictions, choosing the ground, hand-digging, lowering and closing the grave, keeping it private or unmarked, and what happens when ownership changes. If the answer is you cannot bury here, find the actual prohibition, who enforces it and the consequences. Then decide what that boundary means to you.

Both are now available for preorder in the Bookshop. These are made to order, which lets us keep these smaller editions available while the big books take up the press.

The Deathcare Library is filling out nicely. We have a way to go, but with our handy-dandy new machine handling these, hardcover books running on the other presses, the winds kicking up and Halloween approaching, we are so ready. Perfect conditions, really!

Back to the press for us! Reminder: sign up for subscriber updates at the top of the blog, they get all the treats!