Award-Nominated Author Amy Shimshon-Santo Shows How Creativity Shapes Community in Piecework: Ethnographies of Place

Unsolicited Press is thrilled to announce the upcoming release of Piecework: Ethnographies of Place, a dynamic new collection of creative nonfiction by interdisciplinary artist and educator Dr. Amy Shimshon-Santo. Hitting shelves November 18, 2025, Piecework illuminates the ways people—especially women and children—use arts, culture, and heritage to make possibility and place.

Through engaging ethnographies and autoethnographies, Shimshon-Santo puts women, children, and community at the center. From classrooms to neighborhoods to global migrations, these stories reveal the power of collective creativity: families, schools, and communities working together to shape their own futures.

The book unfolds in three thematic sections: classrooms, where young “artivists” experiment with dance, poetry, and design; communities, where youth activists, cultural curators, and spatial justice organizers challenge and remake the world; and migrations, where Shimshon-Santo explores her ancestral archives to uncover art-making, organizing, and refugee stories. Along the way, provocative interviews with cultural promoters in Nigeria and Brazil add global perspective, and the book closes with a spirited pep talk for future culture makers.

Dr. Amy Shimshon-Santo is an Emmy Award nominee, three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and interdisciplinary artist whose work explores creativity as a tool for personal and social transformation. With a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from UCLA and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch, she has taught, performed, and led cultural programs across the globe. Her unique perspective—from co-founding the Brasil Brasil Cultural Center to directing academic programs at UCLA and Claremont Graduate University—infuses Piecework with insight, urgency, and inspiration.