It turns out that writing a book isn’t easy, and it’s not a solo activity (or even a duet, in our case). Our two names are on the book spine, but every part of this book is the result of many people’s time, care, attention, and generous contributions. So let’s talk about who made this book possible.
The Indivisible groups. First and foremost, this book would not have happened without Indivisible group leaders around the country. Not only have they built this movement, but they also provided us with literally hundreds of stories for this book. Particular thanks to the leaders who took time for deep-dive interviews with one or both us: Indivisible East Tennessee, Indivisible Grapevine Area (Texas), Ozark Indivisible (Arkansas), Indivisible NY 27th, Prescott Indivisible (Arizona), Greater Lafayette Indivisible (Indiana), SATX Indivisible (Texas), Indivisible Action Tampa Bay (Florida), Indivisible New Orleans (Louisiana), Indivisible Lincoln County (Maine), Indivisible Las Cruces (New Mexico), Roanoke Indivisible (Virginia), Indivisible Front Range Resistance (Colorado), Indivisible Tohono (Arizona), Indivisible Nation BK (New York), Indivisible OC 48 (California), and Indivisible Greene County (Tennessee). And to the hundreds of other Indivisibles who sent in their stories from across the country. There are just too many stories to tell from this movement, but know that, whether named or not, we’re so proud to be in this movement with you.
The Indivisible national volunteers and staff. Indivisible the organization started as a collective of over one hundred volunteers: friends, colleagues, anyone who was willing to drop everything in their lives and spend the first six months of 2017 on our Slack channel. For our first few months, Indivisible was powered by the late nights and fake sick days of these dedicated volunteers, brought together by some combination of hope, fear, and a desperate need to do whatever we could. Our organization exists today because of this team. There are too many folks to name individually, but we want to specifically remember Julia Fox, who led Indivisible’s early organizing efforts and who passed away tragically in 2018. Thank you, Julia.
Today, Indivisible is a national organization dedicated to supporting this decentralized Indivisible movement. When we talk about how we flexed our movement muscle to kill Trumpcare, how we turned the tax scam into a political liability, or how we helped build a historic blue wave, that “we” isn’t Leah and Ezra; it’s us and the dozens of members of our staff who are in this fight together with us. We can’t possibly recognize the specific and amazing individual contributions of every team member, but we can thank them for building this movement and bearing with us as we attempted to simultaneously run the organization and write a book.
The brain trust. Think tankers, political scientists, policy experts, advocates, academics, and other smart and attractive people helped us in conceiving of and crafting the diagnosis and reforms presented in this book. We particularly want to thank (in alphabetical order!) Lee Drutman, Judy Estrin, Brian Fallon, Marshall Ganz, Christie George, Martin Gilen, Jeremy Haile, Hahrie Han, Charlotte Hill, Marielena Hincapié, Tim Karr, Nancy MacLean, Bob McChesney, Sean McElwee, Heather McGhee, Ian Millhiser, Rick Perlstein, Tom Perriello, Sabeel Rahman, Jack Santucci, Daniel Schlozman, Waleed Shahid, Theda Skocpol, and Todd Tucker, and of course our national policy director, Angel Padilla; our national political director, María Urbina; our chief communications officer, Sarah Dohl; and our chief operating officer, Matt Traldi, for their guidance and in some cases careful review of early versions of our drafts.
The book team. Our editors, Jen McDonald, Yochi Dreazen, and Bob Bland, were extraordinarily helpful throughout the drafting process, from initial outlining to final product, as was our publisher, Julia Cheiffetz. Our agent, Gary Morris, helped demystify the publishing world and shepherded us through the whole process. Our fact-checker, Alexis Sottile, ran a fine-tooth comb through the manuscript, catching everything from wrong dates to misremembered events. Abby Porter arranged, recorded, and transcribed all the Indivisible group leader interviews and helped out on countless tasks along the way to ensure that this book could actually become a real book. Emily Reyes led the painstaking process of converting all our citations into usable endnotes. Our family members were a core part of the book team, too, reviewing drafts and debating various titles and cover designs along the way (and also helping us make it through the past three years alive and well). That includes Sara Anderson, Shayna Brown, Megan Conley, Mark Greenberg, Rosa Greenberg, Danny Levin, Ronda Levin, and Gabby McEntee.
We have certainly failed to include everyone who helped make this book a reality. That’s on us, as are any and all errors that remain in the final text. In the grand tradition of Indivisible, we hope you’ll helpfully point out the errors so we can fix them in the next edition. As always, we’re building this all together.