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Exploring Activist Life in the Belly of the Beast

Delving into our Culture, Uplifting our Stories

I’ve spent a lifetime as a participant-observer activist with movements, organizations, and individuals who challenge injustice and struggle to create a peaceful, fair, thriving planet.

I participate in grassroots struggles…[hover/touch for more]

...attending vigils and marches, singing at protests, joining town halls and petition drives,  organizing cultural events and more.
participant observer graphic

I observe and reflect on our experience...[hover/touch for more]

...writing about the delights, dilemmas, and dangers of life for activists in the belly of the beast we're struggling to transform. Discussing our culture with experienced and aspiring activists, and more.

My Work

Writing on Activist Culture

Essays on Substack

Essays here at Activist Explorer

Rainwood House Sings

A movement mystery

About the Rainwood House Movement Mystery Series

Read in Installments at Activist Explorer

Preorder print, ebook, and audiobook!

Fiction Featuring Activists

What is Fiction Featuring Activists?

The Fiction Featuring Activists List

Reviews of Fiction Featuring Activists

FFA Review Guide

Recommend Your Favorites!

Programs and Workshops

Collective Writing with Children and Youth

Movement-Building Writing for Adults

FFA Movie Watch and Discussion Club

Essays

Understanding Activists

Understanding Activists

Writings about activist culture, the activist experience, and fostering greater understanding of activists and activism.

Life in the Liberated Zone

Life in the Liberation zone

Life in the Liberated Zone

Life in the spaces we carve out in the midst of movements, creating and living the new world now.

Rainwood House Movement Mystery Series

Updates on our prep, publishing and promotion path.

Stories of Our People-SOOP

Fiction Featuring Activists

Fiction Featuring Activists

Reflections on full and fair representation of activists in fiction, reviews, stereotype busting, calls for activist writers to participate in sharing and creating more fiction--in all genres--depicting the full range of activist reality.

Everyday Activist Life

Everyday Activist Life

What is daily life like for activists living in the belly of the Beast we struggle to transform?
Beast

JB's POA--Participant-Observer Adventures

My experiences navigating the waters and riding the ebb and flow of activist work on the high seas of struggle and the inlets and bogs of daily activist life, in the company of my alter ego JB and other trusty comrades.

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Activist Emotional Landscape

Activist Emotional Landscape

Emotional ups, downs and sideways of being an activist

Protecting Activists

Understanding is Protection

The deeper our understanding of ourselves, our culture, and our specific reality and risks, the more effective we can be, and the better we can face our challenges.

Activist Learning - Learning Activism

Articles, fiction, conversations, projects and programs around learning to be an active, equal, vocal participant in society, and the struggle against passivity in the belly of the Beast.

Fiction

Rainwood House Sings

a Movement Mystery

JB explores the wilds of Delaware USA
Above: Exploring in the wilds of Delaware, USA. Right: Home-based activism during Covid

About Juliana

Juliana Barnet is a lifelong activist, popular educator, and avid fiction reader. Annoyed by the dearth of activist characters in novels and movies, she decided to start writing—and encouraging others to write—stories centering the joys and struggles of activist life.

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