Thoughts on my current post-apocalyptic novel.

Available May 2019

My paranoia began with the trump administration. Many Americans felt immediately in peril when that dangerous orange buffoon stole the election.

I had heard the buzzword infrastructure, and warnings about how it was failing, but until the last few years, I wasn’t even sure what infrastructure really was. I thought it just meant roads and bridges.

When I learned that it also included, most crucially, our utility/electrical grids, and then when there were reports that Russian hackers had infiltrated our grid and were just perched there, able to attack at any time, I started reading more about that situation.

This inevitably led me to the post-apocalyptic fiction genres concerning grid failure. Whether by cyber-attack, terrorist attack, an EMP, or a CME, it became clear that an attack of this sort would plunge us back into the 1800’s. And as a novelist, I understand enough about human nature to know that our technologically-dependent society would fall to pieces in a hot second. We rely on electricity and instantly available information for so much of our lives, and when all that disappears in a blink of an eye, chaos would follow.

Suddenly, my feelings of paranoia didn’t seem quite so outlandish. As the saying goes, it isn’t paranoia if they really are out to get you.

So, I thought the post-apocalyptic genre just might be the ticket. I’d been looking for something new in my writing for some time. I have a tendency to write stories about strong women in trying circumstances, and I had no desire to change that. We are in a long-overdue era of woman-empowerment, and I’m a passionate member of that movement. But I did want a wider audience.

I’ve also wanted to break into the mainstream more. While I have several mainstream novels in my catalog of 60 books, they never did very well, because (a) the market is glutted with competition from Indie authors and traditionally published authors and (b) I was concentrating on my niche market of lesbian fiction. Unfortunately, many lesbian readers don’t read outside that genre, and so I was on the horns of dilemma. I’ve always believed that people are people, no matter what their orientation. They share the same hopes and dreams and obstacles and tragedies. And the post-apocalyptic genre intrigued me. So I started reading in that category. To date, I’ve read about 50 books in the genre. Some, better than others. I knew I could throw my hat in that ring, and so I have.

I hope my readers enjoy the result.