Escape from grind culture and dehumanizing systems with this visionary guide from the author of the New York Times bestseller Rest Is Resistance
ORDER
BOOK TOUR
NOVEMBER 12
CHICAGO
Semicolon Books
Conversation and Collective Daydreaming Activation with Natalie Moore and BSA Gold
6 PM
NOVEMBER 19
NEW YORK
First Corinthian Baptist Church
Conversation and Collective Daydreaming Activation with George McCalman and ArinMaya
7 PM
FEBRUARY 18, 2025
WASHINGTON, DC
National Museum of African American History & Culture Smithsonian
Lecture and Collective Daydreaming Activation with ArinMaya
7 PM
NOVEMBER 13
ATLANTA
Charis Books at First Baptist Church
Conversation and Book Reading with Tayari Jones
7 PM
DECEMBER 11
CHARLESTON
International African American Museum (IAAM)
Book Reading
6:30 PM
MARCH 23, 2025
WASHINGTON, DC
The Psychotherapy Networker Symposium
Keynote Lecture
NOVEMBER 14
VIRTUAL
Mahogany Books
Conversation and Book Reading with Cole Arthur Riley of Black Liturgies
7 PM ET
JANUARY 19, 2025
HOUSTON
Kindred Stories
Conversation and Collective Daydreaming Activation with Jerid P. Woods
ABOUT THE BOOK
We don’t believe we are worthy of rest unless we burn ourselves out to accomplish it. Our thinking has been limited by disconnection, sleep deprivation, and the unattainable call for perfection. The systems will never give us rest. It is something we must create for ourselves and each other.
Just as the North Star guided the enslaved on their journeys to freedom, visionary artist and founder of The Nap Ministry Tricia Hersey leads us to imagine a new world: one in which we subvert the narrative of productivity at all costs and embrace rest as a healing spiritual practice.
Inspired by vintage hymnals, prayer books, and abolitionist pamphlets, We Will Rest! is a modern sacred object, medicine for a sick and exhausted world. Weaving together meditations and poetry with storytelling and powerful art, Hersey provokes liberation through refusal and trickster rebellion in the face of capitalism and white supremacy.
There is another way. Focus on the escape. Focus on the transformation. We can just be. We are beautiful. We are enough. We are escape artists. We Will Rest!
***
Have you ever noticed
when you ask for rest
the body becomes a holy trumpet
the walls come tumbling down?
ABOUT TRICIA
Tricia Hersey is a multidisciplinary artist, theologian, escape artist and founder of The Nap Ministry. She is the global pioneer and originator of the “rest as resistance” and “rest as reparations” frameworks, and collaborates with communities all over the world to create sacred spaces where the liberatory, restorative, and disruptive power of rest can take hold. Tricia’s work is seeded within the soils of Black radical thought, somatics, Afrofuturism, womanism, and liberation theology. She is a Chicago native who believes in daydreaming, porch sitting, and poetry.
ALSO BY TRICIA HERSEY
Rest Is Resistance
SELECT PRAISE FOR REST IS RESISTANCE
“Sometimes the window is open and a breeze comes through singing a sweet song: it is nap time. Grandmother sits on the front porch; grandpapa cuts the grass. It is a song. You nap. I nap. The angels hug us. A book settles beside us. Rest Is Resistance. It is a war we will win.”
Nikki Giovanni, Poet
“Tricia Hersey whispers ‘rest is a form of resistance’ to me, to you, to those who think resistance is always movement. Her message is essential: Sit. Lay down. Slow down. Rest is a necessary step in reclaiming our power to resist systemic oppression.”
Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning
“Vivid, deeply researched and moving… Hersey’s manifesto towards radical restoration is lifegiving.”
Glory Edim, author of On Girlhood and Well-Read Black Girl