Since the 2016 election, reading the news each day can send even the most placid among us into a paralyzing apoplexia. We are enraged, we are bewildered, and then we get nothing done all day. We go to bed with teeth clenched, wake up, and it begins again.

But there are things we can do to feel a little less powerless.

Gathered here are twenty-two pieces in which powerful voices, from poets and novelists to actors and activists, speak to our predicament, to their state of mind, and to the crucial importance of committing to take action in 2018.