Issue 97 — Readers Wanted
Welcome to 500 Words.
Firefighters are working to contain the wildfires and making progress. We’re back in our apartment. My youngest son is back in middle school. But it still feels like 911 times. We’re wearing masks outside because of the ash and debris on the ground and in the air. The go bag is still in the car. My backpack is out, ready with masks, gloves, battery power supply, drives with years of my work on them, first aid kits. My wallet, keys, and phone are in my pockets at all times in case we have to leave fast. As my eldest son said, we’re sleeping with one eye open.
People talk about returning to normal. But it’s not like that. There isn’t anything like a new normal. We seek equilibrium, but with a new set of facts.
If you want to help, consider supporting two USC professors who have lost their homes in the fires.
Trudi Sandmeier has supported me in my journey at USC to become an assistant professor. She has recommended the course I teach to her students. She lost her home in the Pacific Palisades. Other faculty members have put up a GoFundMe to help.
I don’t know Scott Uriu as well as I know Trudi. He is leading the effort to unionize non-tenure track faculty at USC. He, his wife, and their two kids lost their home in the Altadena fire. Here’s his GoFundMe.
Readers Wanted
I’m getting close to holding a first draft of my next novel, Liberation in my hands. Would you like to read it? If so, you’d be a hero to me.
Early readers influence the direction of the book, telling me what works, what might not work, and their favorite parts. You don’t have to be a science fiction fan to like it. Like my other two novels, Liberation, is aimed at readers who might not have read any science fiction at all. It takes place in the future, in New York and California, tracking a small band of Resistance fighters who are on the run from an AI that wants to crush them and control everyone else. It has a slow-burn romance. Rogue whales that chomp the propellers off of boats. Scientists who are trying to translate whale song into words. The characters live in a tech world but are working out their relationship with nature.
In the next few weeks, I’ll be including some excerpts from Liberation here in the newsletter.
If you’d like to be a beta reader, click the link below and I’ll be in touch. You’ll get an acknowledgement in the final printed and e-book editions and your own free copy of the book when it’s published later this year.
The Storyline Sessions
This year, one of my projects is to launch a storytelling course for CEOs, communications teams, and leaders managing change. The Storyline Sessions will present everything I know about storytelling after thirty years of writing and producing. The format will be a four-week master class of online sessions. Storytelling is at the core of all effective and engaging communications. It’s a life skill! The Storyline Sessions will make storytelling inspiring and fun. More to come on the Storyline Sessions soon.
Take care of each other and see you here soon.
Lee
