Two local women were involved in the creation of a new book, The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, now available for pre-order through Cornell University Press.

Cedar Bonnet Islander Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, a national network of grassroots-based community-labor coalitions, co-authored the book with Sarita Gupta, the Ford Foundation’s vice president of U.S. programs. Surf City portrait artist Gwenn Seemel painted each of the 10 people featured in the book, plus the two authors. The foreword was written by DeMaurice F.