Jen Angel

It is with a heavy heart that we announce that Oakland baker, small business owner, social justice activist, and community member Jen Angel has passed away on February 9, 2023. Jen was born in 1975 in Dearborn, Michigan, and was living in Oakland, California at the time of her death. The family moved many times because her father was in the Navy, but she most identified with Ohio. Her mother is a retired nurse, and Jen also has a twin sister.

Jen's prolific relationship with media and the written word began as a high schooler in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, when she founded her personal zine. Connecting with writers, activists, and performers across the country before the age of the internet, Jen's politics blossomed through the punk music scene of the 1990's, leading her to what would grow into lifelong commitments to autonomy, resistance, mutual aid, and anarchism.

Ever the believer that everyone has a unique role to play, Jen focused her considerable early musical talent toward learning the bassoon. She auditioned for and played in the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra. At the Ohio State University she further wed her interests in music and writing, graduating with a degree in journalism in 1997. After a short first stint in the Bay Area, Jen moved with her then husband and collaborator to Bowling Green and then Toledo, when they co-founded both Clamor Magazine and the Midwest Zine Conference, which would later become the Allied Media Conference, now in its 22nd year.

A long-time writer and advocate for independent media, Jen was called a "visionary" by Utne Reader and a "pioneering media activist" by Bitch Magazine. Jen's publishing history included Clamor (1999-2006), the Zine Yearbook (1996-2004), her personal zine (1991-2000), and Maximum Rock'n'Roll (1997-1998). Her writing appeared in magazines such as Bitch, Punk Planet, Upping the Anti, and In These Times.

Returning to the bay in 2006, Jen became a core organizer of the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, the longest-running event of its kind in the United States. In 2014, Jen co-founded an anarchist PR project called Agency, dedicated to unapologetic advancement of her values through mass media.

Jen was a consummate builder of community, using every opportunity to bring people together and build a world based on love, dignity, and mutuality. In 2008, she launched the community bakery Angel Cakes, and opened a retail shop in Oakland in 2016. Jen learned practically everything she knows about baking from her mom, Patricia, and her favorite cupcake flavors were chocolate peanut butter and Meyer lemon with passion fruit filling (though secretly she loved chocolate chip cookies the most). Angel Cakes is a small shop that has always strived to be a good neighbor and community member through donating to and providing desserts for various social justice efforts, particularly in the areas of environmental justice, housing, and criminal justice reform. Angel Cakes will remain open, supported by Jen's estate, and staffed by the talented team that Jen built. Community members who wish to support the bakery can especially help through buying gift certificates.

In her work, her activism, and her life, Jen pursued her vision of building a world outside the systems we've been handed. She was a beloved and central part of a rich community expanding the notion of family. She identified as polyamorous and embraced alternative relationship structures. Through her loving relationships, Jen made tangible her insistence on everyone's access to love, pleasure, and autonomy.

Per Jen's wishes, her organs will be donated, and her committed medical team has informed the family that those organs are expected to serve to lengthen and improve the lives of 70 people and possibly more. Jen was preceded in death by her father, John, and her beloved dog, Tobe. Jen is survived by her mother, Pat; her partner, Ocean; her twin sister Becky; two aunts; and numerous nieces and nephews. Countless friends and comrades are also mourning her loss.

As a long-time social movement activist and anarchist, Jen did not believe in state violence, carceral punishment, or incarceration as an effective or just solution to social violence and inequity. Jen would not want to continue the cycle of harm by bringing state-sanctioned violence to those involved in her death or to other members of Oakland's community.

Donations can be made on GoFundMe and will go toward the various expenses that may arise in the wake of Jen's untimely death.

There will be a memorial in the Spring to celebrate Jen's life and legacy. Details on that will be announced soon; in the meantime please continue to self-organize to support each other and to honor Jen.

"There's this misconception that anarchism means chaos. But the term means 'without rulers.' We don't expect people to organize for us. We organize for ourselves."

-Jen Angel