Fiction is for escape; fiction teaches empathy. In every book, I work to put the story first (“the gotta know”—as per Stephen King’s instructions) while imbuing it with the times that mark the characters.
Like the cast of The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone, which goes on sale October 29, 2024, we live in fraught times.
We are not the first, nor will we be the last.
What are some of the things that terrify me right now?
Many injustices fight for primacy inside me, but none have raised the level of my fear as much as “Project 2025: Understanding the Heritage Foundation’s Playbook to End American Democracy.” I urge you to read the article by the brilliant Heather Cox Richardson, but given time constraints, here’s one line that should wake us: “Project 2025 presents an apocalyptic vision of a United States whose dark problems can be fixed only by a minority assuming power under a strongman and imposing their values on the rest of the country.”
“a timely and exciting story of womanhood, family, and coming of age set against the turbulent background of the 1960s moving through to the present. Meyers delves into the untold strength of mothers and the unfathomable choices they face—and will have readers whipping through these pages.”—Pam Jenoff, NYT bestselling author.
“There are no easy answers here; social justice, familial love, and acceptance are works in progress . . . good people trying to do their best in a turbulent era . . . A thought-provoking novel from an accomplished storyteller.”—Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point and In the Gloaming
The long-established, large, and powerful Heritage Foundation is targeting everything from LGBTQ rights to reproductive freedom, replacing civil servants with political appointees throughout the government. Voting rights. Student loans. A headline from AP News reads: Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision.
Imagine dismantling the FBI, changing climate change regulations to favor fossil fuel, terminating DEI programs, and implementing the military within our borders for what a president considers insurrection on their whim. Project 2025 has been described as an authoritarian, Christian nationalist.
You don’t have to imagine it: this is the plan they are putting in place.
Voting in the upcoming Presidential election may be a defining choice for the United States, for your liberty, and mine.
Feeling bound by the chains of believing ‘what can one person do’ is paralyzing. If we each choose one small way to address Project 2025 and its beliefs, differences will be made, and the project’s precepts will fail.
We can vote, make donations, plant a sign, and write a letter to the editor—whatever we can comfortably do.
I’ve decided to take up the tithe, a 10% donation of a percentage of earnings, so often used to support the church, to support democracy—specifically, reproductive freedom.
With every preorder of my upcoming novel, The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone, a donation will be made to Planned Parenthood. You can notify me here what and where you ordered by clicking here.
Signed copies and a bonus are available by ordering through the independent bookstore Belmont Books. Click here.