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Category: Life

Kit’s Best of 2024Kit O'Connell is leaning with their hands clasped on the railing of a boardwalk, the Austin city skyline behind them. They are a white nonbinary person with wavy, graying brown hair wearing a purple and white scarf, a cactus necklace, a deep blue jumpsuit and a rainbow steel bracelet. Their nails are shiny green.
Kit O'Connell on the Austin Boardwalk Photo by Montinique Monroe
December 28, 2024
Kit
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Kit’s Best of 2024

Posted in Austin, Journalism, Life, The Advocate, The Barbed Wire, and The Texas Observer

What a ride this year was—the highs were very high and the lows were very low. But at the same time, I can look back at 2024 and feel proud.

Probably my proudest moment this year wasn’t something I wrote, but that someone else wrote about me. In September, the Columbia Journalism Review profiled my work and career. Journalist Lucy Schiller spent days getting to know me and shadowing me while I reported, and photographer Montinique Monroe made me feel incredibly comfortable and look incredibly cute. I couldn’t be happier with how this turned out, and I’m honored that they thought me worth profiling.

Read moreKit’s Best of 2024
Coming Soon: Soup For Our Families zine(Image: A faded out photo of a pile of rusted soup cans, their labels long gone. Added text in a curvy retro font, in red & black words layered on top of one another, reads "Soup For My Family". In the lower right in black are the words "Coming soon...")
"Soup For Our Families" will be a collection of recipes submitted by antifascists of all kinds.
July 30, 2021
Kit
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Coming Soon: Soup For Our Families zine

Posted in Creative Commons, Food, Other Writing, and Zines

Let me start by saying thank you  for supporting me. The last couple of months have been challenging, and the next few probably won’t be a whole lot easier. I’m looking for work, dealing with the slow collapse of the hemp industry, and coping with some significant health problems in my family.

So that’s why I’m assembling a cookbook zine. It’s called Soup For Our Families: An Antifascist Cookbook, and I’ll be collecting recipes over the next month. That’s right, actual food recipes — and not just soup, I’m collecting food and drink from every category from apps to desserts. I want to showcase the wide range of who we are, using food as a window. The only rule is the recipes should come from antifascist/antiracist people or groups.

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Life in Isolation (& Gonzo Zine Library Update)Kit sits with his chin resting on one raised knee, with his cheek against his fist, among brightly colored wildflowers in the Texas Hill Country near Hamilton Pool.
Kit sits among brightly colored wildflowers in the Texas Hill Country near Hamilton Pool. In happier, simpler times ... April 29, 2019. (Photo: Jane Michael Stallings, All Rights Reserved)
April 11, 2020
Kit
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Life in Isolation (& Gonzo Zine Library Update)

Posted in Journalism, Life, and Zines

It’s time again for me to say THANK YOU to everyone that supports my work on Patreon. Thanks to your help, I’ve been able to continue work on the Virtual Gonzo Zine Library. Read on for a little bit more about that below.

I want to be transparent about my mental health, because I think it’s helpful for others to know they’re not alone in this.

I’ve struggled my whole life with depression. After watching “The Babadook,” I think of depression like the monster in my personal basement. Always there, in my life, but hopefully part of the background most of the time as long as I take care of myself… but occasionally, escaping it’s home in the basement to spend a few days in the foreground of my consciousness. For the most part, I try to love myself and let it pass.

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Update on my life & work in March
A utility box on the sidewalk, near a trash can and bus stop sign. A wheatpaste graffiti image depicts a person wearing a gas mask, and mirrored text repeating the words, "Trump is the Virus!" (Kit O'Connell, Creative Commons Attribution license)
March 26, 2020
Kit
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Update on my life & work in March

Posted in Life, and Zines

What a bizarre, intense and upsetting month it’s been, hasn’t it?

I wanted to give you all a brief update on my life and work.

Read moreUpdate on my life & work in March
Using A Cane With An Invisible DisabilityA fashionably-dressed person seated in a chair holds an antique cane in one hand while a men's hat rests on their other knee. I use a cane to help me get around and also to help signal that I'm a person with an invisible disability.
I use a cane to help me get around and also to help signal that I'm a person with an invisible disability. (Photo: Pixabay / Life-of-Pix, public domain)
February 15, 2019
Kit
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Using A Cane With An Invisible Disability

Posted in Creative Commons, and Life

I thought I’d write for a moment about what it means to use a cane as a person with an invisible disability (fibromyalgia).

Invisible disabilities are life-altering health conditions which are nonetheless not always visible to a normal observer. Even a trained medical professional might miss them under casual observation. Fibromyalgia is a debilitating, and poorly understood condition. It combines chronic pain with other symptoms like sleep disturbance and severe fatigue.

I don’t use a cane every day, which can contribute to confusion from people who don’t understand how disabilities can work. I might seem “able bodied” one day, but the next (or even later the same day) be hobbling around in pain.

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I’m writing scripts for Eleanor Goldfield’s Act Out!
A massive rift in the Larsen ice sheet in the Western peninsula of Antarctica. (NASA / John Sonntag)
December 4, 2016
Kit
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I’m writing scripts for Eleanor Goldfield’s Act Out!

Posted in Act Out!, Journalism, and Life

Hey everyone — thanks again for your continued support of my writing.

As I reported last week, I’m losing my job at MintPress News in mid-January and my hours are actually getting cut starting next week. If you haven’t yet, please consider visiting my Patreon and making a small donation. I promise even small recurring donations will add up.

I’m excited to report that I just filed my first script with Act Out! a show about news and activism by Eleanor Goldfield that airs three times a week on Free Speech TV. Check out the archives on Occupy.com.

Read moreI’m writing scripts for Eleanor Goldfield’s Act Out!