Blue Jean Pocket Writers Handbook, Sue Doro

The Blue Jean Pocket Writers Handbook, created by Sue Doro for Pride and a Paycheck, is a practical guide empowering tradeswomen and blue-collar workers to write their own stories. Rooted in workshops since 2005, it champions the idea that a worker’s pen is a powerful tool.

The handbook offers 35 writing prompts tailored to tradeswomen’s experiences—from first entering the trade to confronting harassment and discrimination. It includes a simple guide to writing Haiku, alongside powerful examples from past workshop participants. A significant section provides an extensive bibliography of worker-writer literature for further inspiration.

Paying homage to Meridel Le Sueur, a pioneer of worker writing from the 1930s, the handbook calls on tradeswomen to document their realities, celebrate their resilience, and build a collective “herstory” for future generations.

This new edition is published by 51 Personae, which, alongside its release of Sue Doro’s poetry collection Of Birds and Factories, has redesigned and typeset this zine as a standalone publication. The goal is to make this handbook more widely available—for individuals and groups alike—so that all who need it today can read, share, and use it.

Author: Sue Doro

Design: Li Chen