A moment of vulnerability…

I recently completed a near-future fiction novel called The Agora (working title…also considering Road to Hope). It follows the adventures of a blended family faced with a surreal world in which the implications of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization extend far beyond simply removing the protections of Roe v. Wade and impact the basic freedoms many US Americans take for granted. Rather, took for granted, prior to the current administration.

Think of a country marching toward Margaret Atwood’s Gilead, with a sprinkling of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, in a world in which the second US Civil War has begun like Joseph Heller’s The Burn.

In other words, it may be hard to tell that it’s actually fiction.

Now the vulnerable part.

It’s my first completed novel. There’s an asterisk but in reality, it’s my first. Which means I’m neck deep in the process of searching for an agent who:

1. Likes the book,

2. Has been successful selling books, and

3. Is willing to represent a “well-seasoned” debut author.

It’s overwhelming and dredges up every scintilla of self-doubt and imposter syndrome that ever existed in me.

The thing is, I believe in this book. Not just as an interesting and entertaining story of a blended family, coming together from all over the United States in order to re-start their life in safety. The characters are vibrant and the story pops.

But I believe in it even more because the world they’re navigating is too close for comfort.

When I started writing the book, I would take the day’s headlines and extrapolate what the worst case outcome could be. But every time I did that, the worst case became reality, so the line moved. So I’d have to push the absurd conclusions out further and further.

I finally decided I just needed to set the culture and hope reality didn’t leave my “worst case future” in the dust.

The fact is that the dystopian near-future faced by the Marks-Woodruff family is not far away. It’s a cautionary tale of what could happen if the United States continues on its current path. It’s concurrently entertaining and horrifying.

I often say that history is written by the victors but the truth is told by artists. My days of standing in the breech have passed and what I have to contribute to the political fight now is my words. My stories. My art.

I have no illusions that The Agora (alt: Road to Hope) is any sort of masterpiece or future literary classic. It’s a story set in a frightening future that, sadly, is all too possible. It is one artist’s expression of his fears, laid upon the reality in which we find ourselves today.

Because of all this, I will continue to navigate the complex and terrifying world of publishing in order to bring this story to the world. I believe in it and I believe that art is the one thing that authoritarians cannot stop. They may seize it or ban it or in some other way prevent it from seeing the light of day. But they can never prevent the artists from creating it. As long as we have breath in our lungs, we can continue to resist by painting the pictures we see of our world.

So here’s the punchline of this entire, largely self-indulgent, article:

Any agents out there willing to take a chance on a well-seasoned debut author?