Juliana Barnet, Activist Explorer

In search of Activist Stories…

I’m Juliana, Activist Explorer. My Quest is to Collect, Create, Cultivate, and Connect stories centering activists and social movements.

We need stories of activist life to inspire us: to provide examples, help us think, spark our imaginations, and motivate us to take that first step… or the hundredth, on the path toward organizing together with others to make the changes we require at all levels so that every being on our beleaguered planet has the equal right to live in peace and plenty.

We need authentic portrayals of activists fighting for justice, peace, and planet that show our daily struggles in the belly of the beast.

Activist life is full of drama, thrills, romance, and adventure. And comedy and mystery! We need stories–movies, novels, TV shows and more that counter the erasure and stereotyping that pervades the dominant narrative about activists.

We need stories to help us imagine and enter into lives of people making change–not as isolated individuals or superheroes, but as communities acting together.

About Activist Explorer

Activist Explorer is a quest to collect, create, cultivate, and connect our activist stories. The goal is to foster deeper understanding and fairer representation of our wildly diverse global community of boat-rockers, city-hall-fighters, neck-sticker-outers, dreamers, experimenters, and gadflies…aka activists.

About Juliana

Juliana Barnet is a lifelong activist, popular educator, and avid fiction reader. Many years immersed in the ups and downs of popular (and unpopular) movements have inspired her to delve into the nature of activist culture. An avid fiction reader, frustrated by the lack of activist characters in novels and movies, Juliana writes, and encourages others to write, stories centering the fascinating adventures of activists, and articles about why representation matters.”

Her writing includes essays on activist culture, novels featuring activists, and reviews of activist portrayals in fiction. She works with writers and activists young and old on integrating creative writing into movement building.

Her activism includes thoughtful trouble-making in a wide range of areas.

Rainwood House Sings

a Movement Mystery

Groundskeeper and ex union activist Marlie Mendíval and her nine-year-old granddaughter, Samantha turn mildly haunted, ramshackle Rainwood House into a collective residence, hoping renters will forgive its quirks: crumbling rooms, whispers of bygone racial justice struggles, musical plumbing.

Radical garden enthusiast Demetrius moves in, offering friendly conversation and comforting meals that help Marlie cope with her ex’s eviction threats, her sudden notoriety as a campus workers’ movement leader, and Samantha’s escalating school troubles.

Then she discovers her amiable new collective-mate is on the run, accused of shooting a white policeman. A fugitive in her house! She must turn him in!

But will that bring justice? Should she instead risk hiding him and helping him find the truth?

As their lives intertwine, the characters unite at Rainwood House to create, as former Labor Notes editor Jane Slaughter puts it, “a cascade of idyllic solutions to real-world problems”: a Friendship Club, a People’s History Museum, and a refuge for endangered activists.