An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping Collective Reading

Join us on Thursday, January 30 at 7pm for a collective reading from An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping. Editors Erin Segal, Chris Hoff, and Julie Cho will be joined by ten contributors to the publication. Read on to see the full list of program participants.

From “abundance” to “zinemaking,” An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping invites the reader to wander through a collection of interconnected entries on helping and healing by over 200 contributors from the worlds of social work and family therapy; art and design; body work and witchery; organizing and education; and more. Privileging co-construction over diagnosis, wisdom over evidence, collective healing over individual cure–yet always blurring categories and embracing contradictions–this world-making collection reveals a pluriverse of helping practices grounded in love and freedom.

Alice Chung (forest bathing)
Alice Chung is a designer, educator, wife, mother, learner, and one-third of the design studio Omnivore.

Amy Pekal (community gardens)
Amy Pekal is an artist and researcher; she examines climate breakdown as an ecological and ethical urgency and remains dedicated to living as Naturecultures.

Ashley M. Lagrange (altar work)
Ashley M. Lagrange, M.Ed, LPC (They/Them) is a Queer Neurodivergent Fat Black DominicanAmerican Nonbinary Femme Therapist and Collage Artist born and based in NYC.

Casey Mack (circular economy; limited-equity cooperative housing)
Casey Mack, an architect, is the founder of Popular Architecture and the author of Digesting Metabolism: Artificial Land in Japan 1954-2202 (Hatje Cantz, 2022).

Chris Hoff (liminality; narrative therapy; Power Threat Meaning Framework, the; 12-step programs)
Chris Hoff, PhD, LMFT, is the Founder and Executive Director of California Family Institute and a Liminal Space Tour Guide.

Erin Segal (ongoingness; public benefits; 12-step programs)
Erin Segal, MSW, PhD, is a middle-aged mother, wife, daughter, and friend who facilitates groups with elders and, along with Julie Cho, publishes unusual books about care.

Joel Blau (redistribution)
Joel Blau is professor emeritus at Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare and the author of numerous books and articles about US social policy.

Julie Cho (ongoingness; public benefits)
Julie Cho—graphic designer and design educator who thrives on being in collaboration with others—is one-third of the graphic design studio Omnivore with Alice Chung and Karen Hsu; one-half of Thick Press with Erin Segal; and one-quarter of a family with David, Cleo, and Yoona.

Karen Hsu (forest bathing)
Karen Hsu is a middle-aged mother, middle child, and one-third of the design studio Omnivore.

kimi malka hanauer (coalition)
kimi malka hanauer is an artist, media-based organizer, collective member of Press Press, and steward of the Center for Liberatory Practice & Poetry.

Lejla Ćatović (theosophy)
Lejla Ćatović is an artist, writer, and thoughtworker with a penchant for the mystical.

Lily Luo (Grace Lee Boggs)
Lily Luo is a scholar, poet, and visual artist who is currently working on a dissertation about the revolutionary legacy of Grace Lee Boggs and the power of radical pedagogy.

Mark A. Hernandez Motaghy (mutual aid organizing)
Mark A. Hernandez Motaghy is an artist and cultural worker with a background in architecture.

About Thick Press
Thick Press is a collaboration between a social worker (Erin Segal) and a designer (Julie Cho). We aspire to a practice that is loving, reflexive, playful, and collaborative. We worry about reproducing oppressive structures, but we’re not really that interested in critique.

Above all, we want to make unusual books with others. Inspired by artists’ books and chapbooks, Thick Press publishes books that cross genres and disciplines. All our books relate to working or living in the thick of human experience.