Thursday, June 4, 2026 at 9:45 AM
Skylight Books, Los Angeles
 CLICK HERE TO RSVP _**RSVP is recommended but not required. Entry and seating are first-come, first-served. RSVPs do not guarantee entry to a full event.**_ Crisis looms large in daily life. From failing public health infrastructure to resource shortages, endless wars, and melting ice caps the crisis in education is inseparable from the crisis in loneliness, spurred on by the interests and fantasies of a small group of wealthy individuals, for whose sake whole swaths of our planet burn. The name for this compounding disaster is polycrisis. Confronted with this situation, Kate Rose Weiner and Kailea Rose Loften began collaborating on what would become _Compassion in Crisis: Building Disaster-Resilient Communities_, a book that presents a strategy for catastrophe guided by values of curiosity and communal care. Knowing this is work with long-growing roots, Weiner and Loften gather a choir of organizers, educators, and healers from across North America to speak to their experiences responding to disaster. _Compassion in Crisis_ is a book of energizing dialogues and clear-eyed checklists for everything from water purification to somatic practices. Readers will learn how to prepare baby formula in an emergency, how to best use stinging nettle or chamomile flowers for first-aid, alongside tips for paying attention to the different responses of our nervous systems to stress. For many, the word “prepper” conjures images of underground bunkers and rural compounds; it’s an endeavor of individuals. The kind of preparedness such ideologies offer focuses on the survival of one, cut off from (or outright against) their neighbors. _Compassion in Crisis_ affirms that true preparedness is the practice of honoring change, learning to steady ourselves and what we love in the face of it, and remembering that the world we want only follows from acting as if we live there already. **Kailea Rose Loften** is a mother of Tahltan, Kaska, and Black American ancestry. She is the coeditor for the community publisher Loam and has guided climate change policy with an emphasis on Indigenous rights, previously serving as a Climate Commissioner for the City of Petaluma, California. **Kate Rose Weiner** is a writer, editor, and publisher working at the intersections of culture and climate justice. She is the coeditor of community publisher Loam and the director of Loam Library, a mobile library committed to bringing the power of print to the people. Kate’s work is shaped by her studies in environmental art, social practice, and community herbalism. **Kyle T. Mays** is an Afro-Indigenous (Saginaw Chippewa) writer and scholar. He is a professor of African American studies, American Indian studies, and history at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author or co-author of four books, including _Rethinking the Red Power Movement_ (with Sam Hitchmough), _City of Dispossessions: Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, and the Creation of Modern Detroit_, _An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States_, and _Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in Indigenous North America_.