Taylor enrolled at Brown University, where she attended classes for a year before dropping out. Reflecting on her decision to leave, Taylor stated "Why had I felt compelled to enroll in an Ivy League school, to excel by the standards of conventional education and choose a 'difficult' major, instead of making my own way? What was I afraid of?"[7] Taylor completed a Master of Arts in liberal studies at The New School, though stated that she ultimately "wearied" of academia.[8]
Taylor is the sister of painter and disability activist Sunny Taylor,[16] and is married to Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel.[17] She joined Neutral Milk Hotel onstage for a number of shows in 2013 and 2014, playing guitar and accordion.[18] She is a vegan.[19] She lives in New York.[20]
Taylor has resisted the label "activist" in her writing[26] and advocates organized movement building, which she says is a necessary supplement to activism which makes it more durable and effective.
She is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America[27] and on the Progressive International council.[28] She supports a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, including publishers and literary festivals. She was an original signatory of the manifesto "Refusing Complicity in Israel's Literary Institutions".[29]
Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone, Metropolitan Books, 2019, ISBN9781250179845
Can't Pay, Won't Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition (forward), Haymarket Books, 2020, ISBN9781642594003[36]
Remake the World: Essays, Reflections, Rebellions, Haymarket Books, 2020, ISBN9781642594546[37]
The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart (CBC Massey Lectures), Anansi Press, 2023, ISBN1487011938
Other works
Taylor occasionally performs with her husband's band, Neutral Milk Hotel.
Notes
^Tortorici, Dayna, ed. (2013), "Group three", No Regrets: Three Discussions, Brooklyn, New York, p. 71, retrieved December 30, 2014{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^"Astra Taylor". shuttleworthfoundation.org. September 2015. Archived from the original on May 7, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2018.
^Wu, Tim (July 18, 2014). "Content and Its Discontents". The New York Times. Retrieved September 2, 2014. "The People's Platform" should be taken as a challenge by the new media that have long claimed to be improving on the old order. Can they prove they are capable of supporting a sustainable cultural ecosystem, in a way that goes beyond just hosting parties at the Sundance Film Festival?