Staged Reading of ON SALE at ArtRage!

As part of our exhibition programming for our November/December exhibition, Cutting Up Capitalism, we are delighted to bring you a staged reading of Tracy Kinne’s new book, ON SALE! The author herself, along with friends, will read from some of the workers’ stories in the book. There will be a Q&A afterwards and an opportunity to buy a book and have Tracy sign it for you!

Concerned that the news media were backing away from hard news, Tracy L. Kinne took a buyout in 2007 and left the newspaper where she had worked for most of her 21-year career in journalism. Her timing couldn’t have been better — or worse. The Great Recession began six months later.

She rode out the recession, and the years after, as a low-paid sales associate and cashier at a chain store. “On Sale: Employers Get Good Workers Dirt Cheap” is her first book, a memoir of her four years at the store she calls Big Box.

“On Sale” also is the story of her coworkers, an under-appreciated, underpaid, but intelligent, hard-working group of compassionate, down-to-earth individuals. Her coworkers are young people finishing college but unable to find jobs in their chosen fields. They are middle-aged people who can’t find a decent job after the place where they worked for 30 years laid them off or closed. They are senior citizens who can’t make ends meet on Social Security.

As she says in her book, “One of my coworkers at Big Box had a theory that greed is behind most — if not all — of the world’s problems. She’s one of those amazing people I met at Big Box. Her story deserves to be told. As with all the people from Big Box, I’ve changed her name and enough details that I hope I can protect her privacy. In many cases, I’ve combined several people into one character. But the essence of what I’m writing is real. These are true stories. This is America today.”

Free to the Public