Anne Focke

Anne Focke’s writing draws on a long life as an artist, organizer, editor, planner, and manager, and as an instigator of both lasting and temporary nonprofit, for-profit, and informal projects. She works with words and ideas, and most importantly with other people. Her focus has been on the arts and on civil society. She was co-editor of Grantmakers in the Arts Reader (1991-2008) and is currently editor of Lucy Bernholz’s annual series of monographs, the Blueprint for Philanthropy and Digital Civil Society published by Stanford University (2009-present). Her chapbook, a pragmatic response to real circumstances, is available from Publication Studio. Her home is in Seattle, Washington.
Photo by Kate Murphy.

Collectively Imagining a More Just World

87 min Read Now

Polity of Literature (49/51)

Collectively Imagining a More Just World

Written by Anne Focke, Illustrations by Ken Krimstein

Travis Ray ComesLast committed a terrible crime, but what should happen next? Stories of injury and stories of repair involve us all. We must tell and receive these stories collectively.

53 min Read Now

Polity of Literature (17/51)

Building the Parallel Polis

Written by Anne Focke, Illustrated by Ken Krimstein

A polity of literature can assemble in myriad ways and places. American artist and writer, Anne Focke, considers two examples: the “parallel polis” of 20th-century Czech resistance to Soviet domination; and a practice called “the dynamics of difference,” rooted in the work of Native American tribes in the Humboldt Bay area of California.