So, it's been a few minutes since we last updated you, hasn't it? Our last newsletter went out on Thanksgiving, and I had every intention of sending another one not long after that.

 

But then my friend Mo Ryan asked me to send her some 3D printed whistles. She lives in Chicago and had been protesting daily against the inhumane and frankly horrifying behavior of ICE in her city. Whistles had become a method of warning and and one of resistance, but the people trying to source them were running out of options. Whistles were out of stock everywhere, and the prices were growing prohibitive. 

 

She sent me to a linktree with a list of recommended whistle designs, so I printed a bunch and sent them to her. Then I reached out to the woman who in charge of the linktree. Emily had been organizing whistle packing parties in Chicago and needed as many whistles as she could get her hands on. So I printed more whistles.

 

 

Things moved more quickly after that. I know at some point Courtney Milan said she wanted to print whistles as well, so I connected her to Emily. Then more people on The Broken Circle discord said they wanted to print whistles. I put together a signal chat. Just a few people. We sent whistles to Chicago. We sent whistles to my friend Greg Pak in NYC. The people we sent whistles to connected us to more people who needed whistles.

 

Then ICE went to Minneapolis, the city where most of my family lives. I found an account on bluesky desperately trying to source whistles, and promised them as many as I could print. I ran out of filament, so I put up an amazon wishlist with the  prettiest filament I could find. People bought it for me, and I started sending whistles to Minneapolis by the bucket. Thousands of whistles, all brightly colored, little spots of rainbow joy in a horrible time.

And it was a horrible time.

 

 

I saw the picture on bluesky of a little box tucked away at the Renee Good memorial, full of brightly colored whistles in colors I recognized immediately. My heart tried to leap and break at the same time. When I found out that they were my whistles, picked specifically because of the bright, hopefully colors, my heart shattered and healed.

 

 

As we moved deeper into January, more and more people asked to join our little whistle chat. We merged with Emily & Lauren, who had helped coordinate in Chicago. Their experience and guidance let us expand. We put together a spreadsheet to help us connect the people asking for whistles with people who wanted to send them. We found volunteers to help us streamline the requests that came faster and faster. 

 

When ICE did something horrifying, people blew whistles. The whistles brought witnesses, with cameras. The cameras recorded everything and showed it to the world. And with every video, with every horror… more people wanted whistles. And more people wanted to print whistles. The people who didn't have printers asked if they could buy filament, or send money to help cover shipping.

 

People wanted to help. So we found the people who needed help.

 

We're still not an organized group. No one is in charge, no one tells anyone else what to do. Volunteers help process the requests and connect them to the printers who can send the whistles. We have a dozen names: the whistle coven, the whistle avengers, the whistle goblins, the whistle crew. One night, in a fit of giddy absurdity, everyone registered increasingly silly domain names to direct to our linktree.

 

toottootmotherfucker.com is my favorite.

 

187 printers & volunteers have sent out almost 750,000 whistles since Christmas, 425,000 of them in February alone. People have written articles about us. We've also helped coordinate wishlists for people on the ground in the Twin Cities, sending over $50,000 of supplies from thousands of people around the world.

 

And through it all, I kept thinking, “here we are, using 3D printers and the communities we have built to try to help as many people as we can during this exhausting dystopia where evil tech bros seem to be bent on destroying everything.”

 

How Nina, Maya, & Dani of us.

Tor agreed with us. We're still trying to talk them into making Deal with the Devil free, but for the moment the ebook is discounted to $5.99! If you never got to read our book about three ladies with superpowers who just want to build a library but the tech bros keep being evil and forcing them to do crimes? There has never been a better time, I guess!

 

Do you need whistles? Our group will send between 100 and 3,000 out to you, completely free. Just email whistlerequests@proton.me and tell us how many you need and where to send them!

If you don't want 100 whistles but would like some Kit Rocha whistles packaged lovingly for you by Donna, you can support the work we're doing by buying a whistle from the etsy shop. (I'm making Donna put every keychain on by herself while I wait for carpal tunnel surgery, sorry Donna. LOL)

 

We also have some news about projects in the works, but this email has been long enough as it is. We're just poking our heads up to say… hi.

We're still here.

We're still us.

And even in the darkest times… we believe that people want to help. We write books about it, and we live it.

Thank you to every part of our community that always shows up to help, too.