She Seeks Nonfiction

Closing the book on my blog

December 31, 2025December 31, 2025Rebekah Kohlhepp

Last month was the nine-year anniversary of my first post on this blog. An anxious college student dared to share with the world that she was an atheist while sitting in her top bunk in her junior dorm room at Grove City College, one month before her 21st birthday. It’s hard to believe, having turned 30 this week, that that person was me. It sometimes feels like everything in my life has changed since then, as it does for most people in their twenties, but I have had the privilege of documenting this decade on my blog every step of the way.

A wider worldview: Diverse Perspectives (Nonfiction November 2025)

November 17, 2025November 16, 2025Rebekah Kohlhepp

The leaves have fallen, and where I live, we’ve seen our first dusting of snow. For me, that means it’s time for me to usher in the beginning of the end of Nonfiction November and kick off week 4!

Here’s your prompt:

Nonfiction books are one of the best tools for seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. They allow us to get an idea of the experiences of people of all different ages, races, genders, abilities, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, or even just different opinions than ours. Is there a book you read this year from a diverse author, or a book that opened your eyes to a perspective that you hadn’t considered? How did it challenge you to think differently?

Reading through an impossible year: Your Year in Nonfiction (Nonfiction November 2025)

October 30, 2025October 30, 2025Rebekah Kohlhepp

Fall is my favorite time of year. As I write this I’m bundled up in a sweatshirt, listening to the rain outside, while my house smells like apples. It’s a bittersweet time as I say goodbye to the scary fun of Halloween, but I’m reassured because November has something just for itself: Nonfiction November! For me, Christmas is only welcome once I’ve done my annual nonfiction roundup.

Nonfiction November is back for 2025!

October 1, 2025December 23, 2025Rebekah Kohlhepp

Few things in life are certain. Our world is unpredictable and chaotic. But as surely as sweater weather rhymes, Nonfiction November alliterates. And in the book blogging sphere, seasonal alliterations almost always mean a reading challenge is here. That’s right: Nonfiction November 2025 is right around the corner! And thanks to never-ending calendrical peculiarities, this year’s event begins earlier than ever. My co-hosts and I will be sharing prompts for you to give your nonfiction TBR some much-deserved attention from October 27 to November 30.

Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad on a background that is half red and half blue

Skeletons in America’s closet: book review of Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad

September 1, 2025September 1, 2025Rebekah Kohlhepp

It must have been the third or fourth rave review of Vijay Prashad’s work that pushed Washington Bullets to the top of my TBR. Specifically, a fellow reviewer had called Washington Bullets a “critical (yet still accessible) intro” to US imperialism. I had already been primed on the topic by works like Inventing Reality and Manufacturing Consent as well as myriad YouTube channels and podcasts, but the story of US imperialism is so winding and chasmic that it seems no amount of sources could cover it all.

Liberating social justice from nonprofits: a review of The Revolution Will Not Be Funded

August 17, 2025December 23, 2025Rebekah Kohlhepp

The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex caught my eye from the moment I saw it. I’ll admit that I was nervous to see what the essays edited by INCITE! Women of Color would say about the industry I had chosen. What I found were incredibly validating tales and analysis of the nonprofit industrial complex (NPIC). Was nonprofit work really a means of achieving liberation? Or does it just keep activists too busy to notice their own exploitation and deradicalization?

Americans United for Separation of Church And State doesn't want you to know about its Zionist hypocrisy | a photo of the Summit for Religious Freedom 2025 program lying torn up in the road

The Zionist hypocrisy that Americans United for Separation of Church and State doesn’t want you to know about

July 28, 2025December 23, 2025Rebekah Kohlhepp

Listen to this post:

On April 5, 2025, my boss, Andrew L. Seidel — yes, that Andrew L. Seidel — kicked me out of the Summit for Religious Freedom for wearing my keffiyeh. I had chosen to wear it to show my solidarity with the Palestinian people and their 77 years of resistance against Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide. But my taking this stance at the Summit for Religious Freedom was strictly forbidden, because I was an employee at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who organized the conference. As Americans United (AU)’s graphic designer, I helped create the Summit for Religious Freedom. It’s only fair, then, that I be the one to tell you that the people who run this conference are far more committed to upholding Zionism, colonialism, and apartheid than they are to fighting for religious freedom.

Queer Palestine’s white savior: a book review of Israel/Palestine and the Queer International by Sarah Schulman

January 26, 2025January 26, 2025Rebekah Kohlhepp

After spending an afternoon last week protesting Donald Trump’s second inauguration in a wind chill of zero degrees Fahrenheit, I find myself thinking back to Pride last summer.

Mind Openers: Nonfiction November 2024, Week 4

November 18, 2024November 17, 2024Rebekah Kohlhepp

I can’t believe I am already hosting my third Nonfiction November! This week, I want to know what books really opened your mind this year. Here’s the prompt!

Nonfiction November 2024 Mind Openers prompt

One of the greatest things about reading nonfiction is the way it can open your eyes to the world around you—no plane ticket required. What nonfiction book or books have impacted the way you see the world in a powerful way? Is there one book that made you rethink everything? Is there a book that, if everyone read it, you think the world would be a better place?

Inventing Reality or Manufacturing Consent: Nonfiction November 2024, Week 3

November 16, 2024December 15, 2025Rebekah Kohlhepp

This week in Nonfiction November, we are pairing books together! Here’s the prompt from Liz:

This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title (or whatever you want to pair up). Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read and you would like recommendations for background reading. Or (because I’m doing this myself) two books on two different areas have chimed and have a link. You can be as creative as you like! (Liz)