News and Musings
Wow, it’s the end of March already. There’s a few bookkeeping things I need to get out of the way and to be honest they are all good! First, if you haven’t been following it, I’ve been sending out a quarterly newsletter with bonus content, book recs, and writing updates. You can sign up for it here. The next issue comes out on April 15 and includes a bonus scene from the time between Mud Witch 1 and Mud Witch 2.
Speaking of which…the second book in the Mud Witch series has a title and release date! The Mud Witch of Verdun will be published on September 15, 2026! I’m so excited to share it with you and of course there will be a ton of info forthcoming on it on the website, Instagram/FB and in the July 15 edition of the newsletter.
It’s been a long road to get this book pulled together and published, not least because I want to make it as historically accurate as possible, and writing about post-World War One America was a little harder than writing about the day to day life on the Western Front. There just aren’t as many sources. That period just after the war was marked by chaos, uncertainty, and no small amount of violence right here at home. In addition to thousands of young men returning, the country was still suffering from the Spanish Flu, wartime censorship, and increasingly contentious views about immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe, places considered beneath America’s heritage. Oh, and women were fighting tooth and nail to be recognized as full citizens of our nation.
Sound familiar? I wish I could tell you that our better angels won out, but mostly, they did not. It was hard to write a book about that time, knowing that all of the struggles would not bear any fruit for more than a generation. To read about men and women who fought for their rights – as black people, as women, as immigrants – and know that they would only be offered the barest of concessions in return. And that those concessions would be continually undermined by the actions of those in power.
There are a lot of people who would like us to return to 1919. To a time where bosses could do anything they wanted to workers. Where men could do anything they wanted to women. Where white people could do anything they wanted to black people. Where if you were a white, male business owner you could do anything you wanted to anyone. I see why those people want to return there.
Mud Witch 2 isn’t about tackling those injustices. It takes place in a world defined by that corruption, but the book is about Addy and how she navigates a world that is changing. How she has to keep making the next good choice despite living in a country that seems to only reward the bad ones. And how hard it is to make a moral choice in a world that seems dead set against kindness, compassion, and justice.
I couldn’t write about Addy standing up to that corruption because, unfortunately, history didn’t include superpowered women from secretive orders. It just included people like us, trying to make the moral choices in a world that will demoralize us at every turn.
I’ve stopped going on social media so much lately. I miss it. I miss the fun and connection. But it started really getting me down. My neighborhood page got so full of people complaining – about traffic, about new houses, about schools, about taxes, about noises and kids and dogs and, and, and. But when I went outside to my mailbox, nothing about the real world looked anything like what was being discussed.
That made me realize that those people, whether they meant to or not, were demoralizing everyone around them. The word demoralize means “to cause someone to lose confidence or hope.” By God, I need all the hope I can get right now. Because, like Addy, we are facing a world full of intractable problems led by men who can not be bothered to fix them. And I’m not superpowered. But neither were those men and women back then. And slowly, slowly, slowly, through grit and struggle and creativity and hope, they built a world that is better. So much better for most of us that some men want to bring us all the way back to 1919, before any of those changes happened.
Well, not on my watch, right? And not on yours either, I’m sure. So, let’s keep our chins up and our arms strong and keep working to honor the legacy that has been passed down to us by our forebears. A legacy of community, and compassion, and, above all, hope.