I’ve been working my way through the final edits on Filling in the Shadows, the third book in my Audrey Markum trilogy. (Coming this fall, yeah!) And as I find myself re-reading it, I’m remembering when I was struggling for ideas to write about, and my husband asked, “what do you really care about?” Without question, the answer was guns. I abhor them unequivocally. They have erased and damaged so many lives, particularly children’s. They have obliterated our sense of safety and replaced it with a tide of fear that is growing exponentially. However, what I especially hate is the way that the most thoughtless and careless among us wield them with impunity and imagine themselves to be righteous.
It wasn’t enough, though, to write about what I’m against. I also had to write about what I am for. The community that I have tried to create in all three books, I hope, represents the best of our diverse society. I have striven to honor the rights and recognize the hurdles facing individuals from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, to acknowledge and include individuals with differing abilities, and to embrace the LGTBQ+ community and the loving families that they are creating.
I had a doctor once tell me I was very healthy for “a small, white woman” and of course he identified me correctly. But, especially as Pride month is coming to a close, I want to say how much I admire everyone who has taken risks and spoken up in these particularly dangerous times and to say that I plan to keep on trying to be even more.
