Getting Political: My Midwestern Roots Inform What I Value & How I'll Vote

As many of you know, I started this Substack after my mother’s death in January 2021. My mother launched her writing career very late in life, and she published many of her poems, essays, and stories in newspapers, magazines, and anthologies, all except the novel she’d been working on for decades. I helped her publish that novel in end, but felt my efforts came much too late, as she was by then essentially locked inside an urgent care facility during the dreaded pandemic and couldn’t enjoy the delight that so many readers (friends, relatives, and strangers alike) poured out when they finally got a chance to read her book. (You can find it here).

So here we are with my attempt to give free access to everything I know about writing, including the knowledge and expertise of many of the talented and giving writers that have joined our episodes. I hope to help writers like her before they lose their chance, because there are many voices that the publishing world still doesn’t hear enough from, not even close.

Kindness, integrity, honesty, humility, and service not for the sake of award but because that’s just what we’re here for. I owe the values I was raised with to my midwestern upbringing—born and bred in Ames, Iowa, the drive-through state for most. And it’s these values that shape how I vote. I know many of you might have different views about these things, and honestly I was afraid to step into these waters for my Substack, but I have a sense that more people than not share these values and try their best to live through them, no matter how often we fail. I do—on a regular basis—fail, that is. But I still hold up my hand for these most human of principles. And I’m holding up my hand here as well. Many of the writers I’ve interviewed over the last few years have joined me in this endeavor. Will you?

Join us at Writers for Blue to find out more.

Please give what you can, talk to people who might need to hear from you, help a neighbor register to vote. We can do this together, as writers and human beings. Thank you for hearing me out.

This isn’t my own mother, but Jessica Keener’s who is one of our group’s co-chairs and a regular guest on the show. I would love to make this woman happy!