Orca Books Co-op Author Talk: Cedar Monroe

Orca Books Cooperative is excited to announce an author talk with Cedar Monroe, author of the book "Trash: A Poor White Journey".

A little about the author: Cedar Monroe is an author, activist, and chaplain. They worked for over a decade as an interfaith chaplain to people experiencing homelessness, incarceration, and addiction. Raised in a rural community in a poor white family, they had a front-row seat to the fall of extractive industries and the rise of white Christian nationalism.

Monroe has invested much of their work into understanding those communities, the dangers of white nationalism, and paths toward cross-racial organizing for change. They are committed to finding paths of solidarity across races to end poverty and the systems that create it. They are also committed to finding paths of real healing for their people, in solidarity with Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, and in supporting the ultimate sovereignty of Indigenous people on this continent.

A little about the book: Every day across the U.S., 66 million poor white people pay the price for failing whiteness. In this sweeping debut, activist and chaplain Cedar Monroe introduces us to the poor and unhoused of a small town in Washington, who grapple with desperation, a collapsing economy, and their racism. Trash asks us to see anew the peril in which poor white people live. Can those deemed "trash" join the resistance to the system that is killing us all?

"Joining the ranks of Barbara Ehrenreich and Nancy Isenberg, interfaith chaplain Monroe recounts forgotten people dismissed and made invisible, tucked away in trailer parks and housing projects around the land.... An eloquent defense of the poor and dispossessed in America." --Kirkus Reviews

Join the author on Saturday, March 30 at 4 p.m. for a reading, Q&A, and signing. Copies will be available on-site or available for pre-order beforehand.

Please email sierra@orcabooks.com for more details.