Phyllis Zimbler Miller's Blog: Phyllis Zimbler Miller Author, page 6

Ten-Year Anniversary of My Women’s Friendship Novel MRS. LIEUTENANT

This week is the 10-year anniversary of my self-publishing on April 7, 2008, the paperback format of my women’s friendship novel MRS. LIEUTENANT, which was inspired by my first nine weeks as a new U.S. Army Mrs. Lieutenant at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, in the spring of 1970 during the Vietnam War.

I self-published the paperback format with the predecessor of Amazon’s CreateSpace, and when Kindle ebooks became available, I added the Kindle ebook version. During these 10 years many opportunities have opened up for self-publishing authors, and I am grateful for all of these. I am also grateful for the novel’s readers — both women and men — many of whom over the years have written positive reviews on Amazon.

In addition, I am grateful for the opportunities to be involved with active duty military personnel and their families as well as veterans and their families. These opportunities — “birthed” by the publication of MRS. LIEUTENANT — have enabled me to create more projects connected to the military, especially those promoting the awareness of PTSD (see, for example, www.SolomonsJustice.com).

In commemorating this 10-year publication anniversary, I wanted to share here what I wrote on Amazon about MRS. LIEUTENANT:

The novel MRS. LIEUTENANT took 38 years to be published.

The novel’s saga started when I was a new Mrs. Lieutenant in May 1970 during the Vietnam War and right after the Kent State shootings. The experience introduced me to the world of army wives that I would never have otherwise known.

About 20 years later and after I had started the Los Angeles Chapter of the national organization Sisters in Crime, I told the story of my military spouse experience to two female movie producers. They were intrigued and optioned the story for a movie.

They eventually told me that Hollywood people did not “get” the movie concept and that I would have to first write a book. By the time I wrote the first draft of the novel the producers had moved on.

For another 20 years or so I wrote and rewrote the novel. (It had to be a novel rather than a nonfiction book to protect the people whose stories I wanted to tell.) I created fictional characters and some fictional events for a more compelling story.

Many agents and publishers over the years turned the novel down. But I felt strongly that there was a place for a novel about this slice of women’s social history at the beginning of the women’s movement in the United States.

When POD (print on demand) self-publishing became an option, I decided to self-publish MRS. LIEUTENANT. At the same time I entered it in the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. When the book was named a semifinalist of this competition, I felt vindicated for my 38-year belief in sharing this story.

At the same time I stumbled into blogging and social media for book marketing. From that point on I dove into learning as much as possible about this brave new online world.

Now ebooks have opened up the self-publishing world even more — and I’m engaged in publishing more fiction and nonfiction books via Kindle Direct Publishing.

Click here now for the Kindle and paperback versions of MRS. LIEUTENANT. And if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, you can read the Kindle version for free.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

Powerful Women in Entertainment Discuss Need for Inclusion

“CBS EYE Speak” kicks off on March 14 [2018] in Los Angeles featuring a panel of some of the strongest female voices in front of and behind the camera.

Featuring left to right:

Nina Tassler (moderator of panel) — Actor, Producer; PatMa Productions



Maria Bello — Actor, Producer, Writer; Jack on “NCIS”



Jennie Snyder Urman — Writer, Producer; “Jane the Virgin”



Gina Rodriguez — Actor, Producer; Jane on “Jane the Virgin”



Sonequa Martin-Green — Actor, Writer, Producer; Michael on “Star Trek: Discovery”



Aline Brosh McKenna — Writer, Producer; “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”



Sara Ramirez — Actor, Producer; Kat on “Madame Secretary”



Lori McCreary — Producer, Executive; “Madame Secretary”

What I learned from watching this powerful discussion:

In both my book fiction and my screenplays I am careful to indicate women (and men) of different ethnic backgrounds. While I need to continue to do this for book fiction, I realized that this should no longer be necessary for my screenplays.

Why? Because actors of different ethnic backgrounds should routinely be considered for all the roles. It should be taken for granted that these roles are open to all.

(One exception: My story adaptation of my new feature film screenplay THE TRUTHFINDER (adapted story serialized on Wattpad starting at http://budurl.me/Chap1Truthfinder) requires the “she said” character to be African-American and the “he said” character to be white because of the question of race in this sexual assault story.)

Watch this video and learn!

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

Now Serializing THE TRUTHFINDER “He Said, She Said” Story on Wattpad

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THE TRUTHFINDER is part of my near future sci fi universe THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE and deals with the attempt to discover the truth in a “he said, she said” sexual assault that has many murky areas.

Here is the first part (on Wattpad at http://budurl.me/Chap1Truthfinder):
Chapter 1: State of the Union Address

2030 – East of the Mississippi River

President Isabel Perez used her right hand to slip on low-heeled pumps while keeping her eyes on the personal comm unit on her left wrist. She had already memorized most of her first State of the Union address, yet she wanted to be word-perfect when the Videobook broadcast began in 30 minutes. As President of the United States she didn’t bother with a Twitterverse earpiece – she had aides who monitored the Twitterverse, and she had been careful since assuming the Presidency to avoid internecine Twitterverse skirmishes.

Admiral John MacIntosh, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had advised her to emphasize in her address the security measures the U.S. now employed to keep terrorists and other subversives out of the U.S. These included a vast governmental online surveillance system that was of major concern to many civil liberty groups. Yet Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA and other U.S. government security institutions argued that continuing this surveillance system was the best protection for the survival of the U.S. against enemies within and without. In this State of the Union address she would be asking Congress to approve the largest-ever budget for the surveillance system.

A year ago she had become the first female and the first Latina President of the United States. The diversity proponents couldn’t have been more pleased. And then the nightmare had begun only 24 hours after she had been sworn in on January 20, 2029. The confusion of that next day would never leave her.

She had been called to the situation room, where she found assembled representatives from the major government agencies responsible for the U.S.’s overall security – many of these she hadn’t yet met with individually. Then Admiral MacIntosh had told her the news.

“We’ve lost contact with all U.S. states west of the Mississippi River except for Hawaii and Alaska.”

It had taken a moment for her to understand what the admiral’s words could possibly mean. Then the questions had flowed.

“You mean that you can’t call or comm anyone?”

Someone handed her a cup of tea. Brandy might have been better she remembered thinking. The admiral shook his head. “I mean there’s nothing – it’s as if the entire land mass has disappeared.”

She glanced up at the Videobook projection of the communication network for the country. The entire land mass west of the Mississippi River showed black. She’d been the FAA Administrator before running for President. Her first thoughts were for the planes flying over that land mass – she asked if they had been grounded as they had after the 9/11 attack?

“We have no idea,” the admiral said. “Our control towers east of the Mississippi lost all contact with planes west of the Mississippi. It’s as if a black hole is there.”

Now the questions in her mind fought for dominance. With what should she be most concerned?

“Is this a cybersecurity attack by the Russians or the Chinese or by any others?” she said.

The admiral yielded to Cynthia Tobin, director of the CIA. “We don’t think that someone has simply caused our communication lines to disappear,” she said. “We think – strange as it may sound – that there is nothing.”

President Perez gasped. “You mean that huge area has been totally destroyed? Have you sent up planes to see?”

The CIA director nodded to the admiral for him to resume. “Without air traffic control over that area,” he said, “we can’t risk sending any planes.”

“What about drones?” the President said.

“We can’t send any drones if we can’t monitor their feeds,” the admiral said. “We’d be launching drones into a void with no way to recall them as we can’t control anything past the Mississippi River.”

The President asked about surveillance from satellites. “Some kind of signal jamming is preventing satellite surveillance,” the CIA director said.

Then the admiral suggested that perhaps missiles fired from satellites could get through. These wouldn’t need to be targeted – they could strike wherever in the blacked-out land mass – as a warning to the people responsible for what had happened. Make them think twice before attempting to do the same to the remaining part of the U.S.

The President had refused this suggestion. In her first full day in office she was not about to kill tremendous numbers of Americans if they were still alive. And if someone or something had already destroyed everything there, what good would sending missiles now do?

The rest of the briefing had been as bleak. And then decisions had to be made. President Perez had gone on national media to announce the “unknown incident,” which the media had immediately renamed “The Disappearance.” She had asked everyone to remain calm even though they couldn’t reach loved ones in the blacked-out land mass. At that moment in time there had been hope that, whatever this was, it was only temporary.

Now a year later there were no more answers than there had been originally. Scientists and tech experts all over the world had weighed in on what could have caused this. Some pointed out that in 2015 there had been a warning of web vulnerability that could explain the phenomenon. Yet no one could figure out how, if that were the case, to reverse the situation.

Attempts to cross into the land mass from Canada or Mexico or from the Pacific Ocean were met with failure. Some kind of force repulsion barrier prevented anyone from getting close at surface level. The military had given up after the loss of several personnel.

Over time President Perez had been forced to make numerous uncomfortable decisions, the one announced only yesterday perhaps the most painful to date. The government would allow anyone with a spouse in the disappeared land mass to file for a divorce that would be final in 30 days without a court hearing. When her White House spokesperson had announced this decision, it had been emphasized that this was a voluntary individual decision – no one would be forced to divorce his or her missing spouse.

If she were honest with herself, she usually tried to avoid making the really painful decisions. That is why she had given approval to the FBI to try the experimental Truthfinder procedure for a “he said, she said” sexual assault. She wouldn’t be even remotely connected to the outcome in that case.

She grasped her hairbrush as she pulled it through her shoulder-length hair. She had been lucky that her husband and adult children were in D.C. for the Inaugural events and thus east of the Mississippi River the day that everything changed. Yet her parents had opted not to come from California – they preferred not to expose their immigrant-accented English on national media – and she had no idea whether they were even alive. And she owed everything to the risks they had taken illegally crossing into California from Mexico with her older siblings when her mother was seven-months pregnant with her. That illegal entry two months before her birth allowed her to be President now.

She had gone to law school, focusing on immigration law, in order to help her family members and others gain the right to stay legally in the U.S. And now what was the U.S.? A portion of its former self. People flying from the East Coast to locations west of the former Pacific Coast states had to take flights that “circled round” the blacked-out states. Social media accounts of people in the disappeared land mass at the time had no updates since January 21 of 2029. Nothing, nada.

In the State of the Union address she would touch only briefly on this moment the world changed. After a year it was time to look forward – to plan for a truncated U.S. still resolved to be a major participant on the international stage.

President Perez fastened tiny pearl earrings into her ears. She knew that her hair, dress, jewelry, makeup and even fingernail polish would be critiqued by the media as part of the address – a scrutiny to which a male President would never be subjected. She also knew that behind her back some people whispered that The Disappearance had been caused by factions within the U.S. who wouldn’t abide a female President, let alone a Latina with illegal immigrant parents – that this was why The Disappearance had occurred immediately after she was sworn in.

For the whole year since then President Perez had clung to the hope that this was a test. That if she did well under such stressful circumstances, the perpetrators of this occurrence would allow the disappeared land mass to rejoin the U.S. Yet her advisors had finally convinced her that this wasn’t going to happen – that she had to start taking actions, such as the newly announced divorce option, to help stabilize social situations. Otherwise, for example, how could the justice system deal with sexual assault cases when the institution of marriage had been dealt such a strong blow?

Not for the first time did President Perez wonder whether that motivation of delivering a blow to marriages had been behind this drastic occurrence. Someone wanted out of his or her marriage without paying alimony?

She shook her head. That thought belonged in the realm of science fiction. For now she had to walk into the Capitol and deliver her first State of the Union address.

And in that address she had to try to assuage everyone’s daily fear – that whatever had happened a year ago to a large portion of the U.S. could happen at any moment to what remained of the Union.

Click here to read for free part 2 and then the following chapters on Wattpad at http://budurl.me/Chap2Truthfinder

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

Recommending Military Documentary THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE

“The U.S. military faces a mental health crisis of historic proportions.”

Warning:There are scenes of fighting in this video and in the documentary.

From the website description of the documentary:

Thank You for Your Service takes aim at the flawed mental health policies within the Armed Services and their tragic consequences. The film interweaves the stories of four Iraq War veterans with candid interviews of top military and civilian leaders. Observing the systemic neglect, the film argues for significant internal change and offers a roadmap of hope.

The film proposes the implementation of a Behavioral Health Corps in the military in order to streamline effective care, create accountability at the highest levels and ultimately a reduction to stigma on the issues surrounding mental health. [#bhcnow on Twitter]

Note: There are other military film projects with the same name.

The October 28, 2016, New York Times review stated:

“Thank You for Your Service” starts with a frantic, tear-filled 911 call reporting a suicide. It’s a gut-wrenching moment in a documentary that’s filled with them, and with scenes that make you want to scream in frustration at the bureaucracy faced by combat veterans seeking mental health services.

“We couldn’t have drawn up a more catastrophic way to fail to meet mental health needs than the blueprints that were followed in this war,” a retired Navy psychologist says about Iraq. The facts bear him out: Over the past decade, the number of suicides among veterans has soared.

The documentary reports:

If a soldier commits suicide 121 days after discharge it is not counted as a suicide in the United States military.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), wrote a CNN opinion piece March 11, 2018, after the March 9, 2018, killings at the Pathway Home for veterans in Yountville, California. The title of the piece was “Yountville shooting: The casualties of America’s war at home” and he concluded:

The road forward after war is never easy, and never a straight line, but it’s out there. For individuals — and for our nation. And it’s easier to navigate if we do it together.

That includes you, whoever you are, reading this piece. Veteran or not. Ten tours overseas or none. We all have an obligation to look out for our fellow citizens. And especially those who heroically step up into the breach to serve our country like Christine, Jen and Jennifer did. Not just on the front lines overseas, but here at home. This is your moment. America’s future needs you.

I highly recommend this documentary, especially for Americans who have no connection to active duty military personnel or veterans. It is imperative that we all support the efforts to provide our veterans better mental health care while on active duty and afterwards.

If you have any doubt that we all need to do this together, watch the documentary THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.

Click here to watch THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE on Amazon (free with an Amazon Prime subscription).

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

The “Inclusion Rider” and Diversity in Hollywood

At the 90th Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, Frances McDormand in her remarks after winning “Actress in a Leading Role” for THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI said:

I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider.

A March 5, 2018, NPR article by Colin Dwyer titled “What’s An Inclusion Rider? Here’s The Story Behind Frances McDormand’s Closing Words” explains:

Simply put: It’s a stipulation that actors and actresses can ask (or demand) to have inserted into their contracts, which would require a certain level of diversity among a film’s cast and crew.

The article quoted the following statistics from a study of 900 popular films from 2007 to 2016:

Just 31.4 percent of speaking characters were female, even though they represent a little more than half the U.S. population.
Women represented 4.2 percent of the directors, and just 1.4 percent of the composers.
About 29 percent of speaking characters were from nonwhite racial/ethnic groups, compared with nearly 40 percent in the U.S.
Only 2.7 percent of speaking characters were depicted with a disability, despite the fact that nearly 20 percent of people in the U.S. has one.

As to the legality of such inclusion riders, Scott H. Greenfield in the post “Oscar’s Curious Legal Advice: Inclusion Rider” on his “Simple Justice” blog gives a detailed legal explanation of the ramifications of such a contractual inclusion. (The link to this post is provided below if you want to read the extensive legal explanation.)



Yet “inclusion” contractual requirements (regardless of whether those would hold up in court) should not be necessary if producers, directors, writers, casting directors, etc. naturally did a good job of including people of different genders, races, etc. in fictional portrayals in film and TV. This goal is something to which every person in Hollywood can personally commit.

In my own writing I purposely include gender and race descriptions to provide more inclusion. Yet in a perfect world this would not be necessary because it would automatically happen.

A segment by Alexis Thrower on KTLA5 on February 20, 2018, titled “The Future of Minorities in Major Films/Shows With Film2Future’s Rachel Miller” discusses with Rachel Miller — founder of the nonprofit organization Film2Future — the potential impact of the wildly popular film BLACK PANTHER on increasing diversity.

Watch this brief KTLA5 video now on the future of minorities in films and TV.

Organizations such as Film2Future and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media are working to change the face of Hollywood. Yet all of us involved in (or aspiring to be involved in) Hollywood need to make this a natural part of all film and TV projects.

And here are two previous blog posts I’ve written about diversity in Hollywood:

“Creating Diversity in Films and TV Starts With Mentoring High School Students”
“Why Is Diversity in Fiction So Important?”

Click here to read the entire “Simple Justice” blog post by Scott H. Greenfield on the legal ramifications of an inclusion rider.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

Women’s History Month and My Novella THE NATURE OF LOVE

As a fiction writer, I am interested in the past, the present and the future. As a female, I am especially interested in the history of women, and thus wanted to write a blog post in honor of March being Women’s History Month. To write this post I revisited my own historical novella THE NATURE OF LOVE, which covers a span of years in the 20th Century and the impact of historical events on the lives of the novella’s main characters.

THE NATURE OF LOVE begins:

In the spring of 1995 a female history professor in her 51st year — a student of the history of women in the United States her entire adult life — begins a video record of her own history paralleling the ups and downs of women’s rights in the second half of the 20th century.

She starts her recording: “My story could be of interest to future historians, if there is a future here on earth.

“And even if our civilization is completely destroyed, aliens will someday come to this planet. There will be historians with those aliens, searching for the truth of our life on earth.”

THE NATURE OF LOVE switches back and forth between Jennifer’s story (the history professor) and Judith’s story. One of the segments of Judith’s story is based on the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

The Wikipedia entry on the fire begins (the boldface below is mine):

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911 was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in US history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and 23 men[1] – who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian and Jewish immigrant women aged 16 to 23; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and “Sara” Rosaria Maltese.

The factory was located on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of the Asch Building, at 23–29 Washington Place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. The 1901 building still stands today and is known as the Brown Building. It is part of and owned by New York University.[

Because the owners had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits – a then-common practice to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft – many of the workers who could not escape from the burning building jumped from the high windows. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.

This fire has haunted me for years, especially after seeing that the actual building is one block away from Washington Square Park. (I had always pictured the building in a very dense part of New York City.)

This is my fictional account of the fire in THE NATURE OF LOVE:

Judith’s Story

New York City, Spring 1911

Judith stomped on the pedal of the sewing machine owned by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. The pile of finished shirtwaist pieces next to her machine was her clock. Each day the height of the pile indicated how long she had been at her machine, stitching and stitching and stitching.

It was hot, so hot. The doors to the fire escape were nailed shut. The building contained flammable chemicals but had been declared “fireproof.”

They had all foolishly participated in a strike for better working conditions. The strike just meant there had been less food at home than usual. The International Ladies Garment Workers Union was fighting to improve these sweatshops, but what could be done? The owners had all the power.

Soon Lillian would climb the factory’s five flights of stairs bringing Judith a cold lunch and the baby. Judith would nurse Sylvia while eating her sandwich and watching Lillian regain her breath. Five flights was a long climb for a five-year-old carrying a six-month-old baby. And on the children’s return home Lillian would have another long climb to their fourth-floor cold-water flat.

The women around Judith spoke in Yiddish, cursing at the machines as the thread broke off the spindle or the pedal jammed. Judith pricked her thumb but could barely feel the stab through her roughened fingers.

At night Jacob would hold her hands to his face. Often he would cry. In Yiddish he would say, “It hurts me to see your hands.”

“Speak English,” she would say. “We must speak English.”

At that moment smoke swooshed into the room. The women coughed, gasped for breath. “Fire!” someone yelled. “Fire!” That English word Judith knew!

Judith sprang from her machine. Next to her Tova clutched her spindle. “Pull your shawl over your mouth and come with me!” Judith screamed.

“The doors are locked! We’re trapped!”

Judith slapped Tova across the face. “Come with me!”

They ran towards the internal stairs. “We’ll have to try to make it,” Judith said.

Screams filled the room. Women shoved towards the windows, crying for help. Flames lit the wooden floors.

They reached the stairs but smoke billowed up towards them. “This is our only chance. We have to try!” Judith said.

“No!” Tova screamed. “I can’t.”

Tova wheeled away and lurched towards a window. She shoved aside the other women and leaned out. Then she jumped.

Her scream followed her all the way down.

Another woman leaned out the window. Then she jumped.

They were jumping to their deaths. Judith had to try the stairs.

The stairs. What if Lillian and Sylvia were already in the building, trapped on the stairs!

Judith wrapped her shawl tighter and plunged down the stairs. The smoke encased her. She kept her hands against the wall and bent down. The air was better near the floor.

She reached the fourth floor. Screams, sobs, terror shot towards her – she could see no one.

She stayed on the stairs, hurling herself down the next flight. On the third floor the heat soared and the fire cackled. No human noises.

The second floor. One more floor. Partway down she stepped into nothingness. Her scream trailed her fall.

Sirens, shouts, cries – inches away. She couldn’t move.

Outside a child’s cry. “Mama, Mama, where are you?”

Lillian! It must be Lillian! Please God!

Judith crawled towards the smoke-engulfed door.

Her mother stood before her, hands flapping at Judith. The goblins of yellow-black flames war danced around her mother, a Cossack sword plunged into her belly.

“Mama, Mama!”

Strong hands pulled Judith from the flames.

Click here to read for free the THE NATURE OF LOVE novella on Wattpad.

Click here to read Wikipedia’s entry on Women’s History Month.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

Honoring Japanese Diplomat Chiune Sugihara for Saving Jews During WWII

As I walked through Little Tokyo in Los Angeles on the way to seeing a performance of the musical “Allegiance” at the Aratani Theatre (located in the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center), I was startled to see a life-size and lifelike statue of a Japanese man in a suit holding out a small flat object. Stopping to investigate this statue and the accompanying plaque and information, I learned that this was a tribute to the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara and that the small flat object held out in his hand was a visa.

As Jaweed Kaleem said in his Huffington Post article “Chiune Sugihara, Japan Diplomat Who Saved 6,000 Jews During Holocaust, Remembered”:

Most Americans know of Oskar Schindler, the German businessman who saved more than 1,200 lives during the Holocaust by hiring Jews to work in his factories and fought Nazi efforts to remove them.

But fewer know about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who disobeyed his government’s orders and issued visas that allowed 6,000 Jews to escape from Nazi-occupied territories via Japan.

What I found particularly compelling in Kaleem’s article (found via an internet search for articles about Sugihara) was the quote from Anne Akabori, who wrote a biography of Sugihara — “The Gift of Life”. Kaleem quotes her saying:

And it’s been so important for the Japanese people to know there was a person who did whatever he could to lessen the Japanese involvement in the war. He was always for peace.

The reason I found this so compelling is that the musical I was en route to see — “Allegiance” — deals with the internment of Japanese men, women and children living on the West Coast in U.S. government detention centers as well as the Japanese young men who eventually won the right to join the U.S. Army fighting in Europe in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.*

In 1940 Sugihara became the Japanese consul general to Lithuania. Kaleem wrote:

As Nazis threatened to invade Lithuania, thousands of Jews surrounded the Japanese consulate and asked for visas to escape. Disobeying his bosses in Japan, Sugihara issued thousands. From July 31 to Aug. 28, 1940, Sugihara and his wife [Yukiko] stayed up all night, writing visas.

The Japanese government closed the consulate, located in Kovno. But even as Sugihara’s train was about to leave the city, he kept writing visas from his open window. When the train began moving, he gave the visa stamp to a refugee to continue the job.

What is also moving is this information in Kaleem’s article:

Chiune Sugihara, who worked odd jobs after returning to Japan and later was employed by a trading company in Russia, worked in obscurity and never spoke of the visas. He never knew if anything came of them and survivors had no luck finding him. But in 1968, a survivor who had become an Israeli diplomat, Joshua Nishri, finally made contact.

The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center has artifacts from Sugihara as part of its permanent collection, and the Visas for Life Foundation perpetuates the legacy of Chiune Sugihara.

Click here to read Kaleem’s entire interesting Huffington Post article on Chiune Sugihara.

And click here to read about my proposed Holocaust memoir SURVIVORS AND SAVIORS.

In addition, in light of my blog post “Are We All Complicit in School Shootings?” this quote in Kaleem’s article from the grandson of a man saved by a Sugihara visa is very relevant:

 “Most people have this idea that you can’t really help the whole world, so what’s the point?” said Mark Salomon. But Sugihara showed that “whatever you are doing with yourself, you are having a much broader impact. Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest through the trees, but it’s important in every aspect of your life to remember you are having an effect and to make it a positive effect.”

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*According to Wikipedia:

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is an infantry regiment of the United States Army, part of the Army Reserve. The regiment was a fighting unit composed almost entirely of American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who fought in World War II. Most of the families of mainland Japanese Americans were confined to internment camps in the United States interior. Beginning in 1944, the regiment fought primarily in Europe during World War II, in particular Italy, southern France, and Germany.

The 442nd Regiment was the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of American warfare. The 4,000 men who initially made up the unit in April 1943 had to be replaced nearly 2 times. In total, about 14,000 men served, earning 9,486 Purple Hearts. The unit was awarded eight Presidential Unit Citations (five earned in one month). Twenty-one of its members were awarded Medals of Honor. Its motto was “Go for Broke.”

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

Are We All Complicit in School Shootings?

New Yorker magazine staff writer Adam Gopnik in his February 15, 2018, article “Four Truths About the Florida School Shooting” offers “four simple truths worth saying again, in the aftermath of the Florida massacre, about gun control and gun violence.” Yet for me, perhaps, the most compelling is the first truth (the boldface is mine):

1. The gun lobby, and the Republican Party it controls, have accepted as a matter of necessity the ongoing deaths of hundreds of children as the price that they are prepared to pay for the fetishization of weapons. The claim of this lobby’s complicity in murder is not exaggerated or hysterical but, by now, quite simple and precise: when you refuse to act to stop a social catastrophe from happening, you are responsible for the consequences of the social catastrophe. If you refuse to immunize your children and a measles epidemic breaks out, you are implicated in the measles. If you refuse to pay money for sewers and cholera breaks out, you are complicit in the cholera. Acts have consequences. This complicity includes all of the hand-wringers and the tut-tutters and the “nothing to be done”-ers as much as the N.R.A. hardcore. Many people have predicted, repeatedly, that one gun massacre would lead to the next—and that more gun massacres would probably take place in one year in America than in the rest of the civilized world combined—and they have been proved right, and then right again. Since everyone knew that this would happen again, those who did nothing to stop it happening again—and who did everything they could to see that no one else could do anything to stop it happening again—are complicit when it happens, again.

The power of this truth is undeniable in my opinion — and clearly undeniable in the opinion of all the students and others across the U.S. organizing protests and other actions to bring attention to this fact.

In reading Gopnik’s article I am reminded of the following quote attributed to German pastor Martin Niemöller regarding complicity and the Nazis:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

(For information about variations of this quote click here.)

Fictional response to school shootings

The school shooting in Florida and the accompanying failures to prevent it caused me to add a half page to my sci fi novel THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE.

In the novel, the motivation for the antagonist — who starts out as William Colker before he replaces last names with numbers— has always been to encapsulate a part of the U.S. to seal it off from the vices and horrors of the rest of the U.S. and the world. Yet in reading articles about how the Florida school shooting could have possibly been prevented, I realized that my antagonist would be 18 in 2018 according to the timeline I created for the universe.

And that’s when I realized I could give him a more personal motivation to seal off his world than a general motivation. I thus wrote the following half-page prologue for the novel:

Prologue — The Trigger

2018 East of the Mississippi River

Her body lay sprawled at the base of the high school entrance steps, her arms upraised as if to protect her head from the shooter’s deadly aim. William Colker knew that, had he been five minutes earlier, he would undoubtedly be sprawled dead alongside her.

The rage that welled up inside him caused his heart to race and sweat to break out on his forehead. He was one of the few high school students who should have been prepared for this. The debate team had been preparing pros and cons of not allowing people with documented mental health issues to buy or own guns of any kind. His fellow debate team members had researched the leniency of federal gun purchase background checks as well as the lack of active shooter drills for soft targets such as schools and religious institutions.

As a first responder now ran towards William, waving him to get away from Sheila’s body, William felt in his pocket for the locket he should have placed around her neck that morning on the one-year anniversary of their dating. The locket contained the senior class photos of both William and Sheila.

His hand gripped the locket as he vowed – someday he would have the power to prevent such massacres! He would find a way to circumvent the politicians who kowtowed to the gun lobby, the FBI personnel who didn’t take immediate action on citizen-provided tips, and everyone who chose financial gain over human life.

He owed it to Sheila!

If we as Americans do not stop being complicit in school shootings and similar events, we, too, may someday face a totalitarian government (as in THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE) intent on sealing us off — and apart — from such threats.

Perhaps the tide has finally turned — and sensible truths such as Adam Gopnik presented will be put into action rather than just put into words.

P.S. In the last few days there have been many excellent articles on prevention strategies including ones about active shooter training in schools. For those people who think that such drills will unnecessarily scare children, it might be a good idea to study how Israel trains everyone, including small children, to respond to life-and-death situations.

Click here to read Gopnik’s complete New Yorker article.

Click here to read more about THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE: A Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

Writing Fiction for Social Change

I have been working on my near future sci fi universe THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE, and I suddenly remembered the first satirical hyperbole piece I ever wrote as a freshman in college. I was entering the Mademoiselle magazine competition for a summer internship, and I took as my inspiration the 1729 essay “A Modest Proposal” by Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). In this satirical essay, in the words of Wikipedia, “Swift suggested that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies.”

I submitted my satirical essay on the “solution” to the problems of integration in America by the simple expedient of scraping off the black “paint” of blacks (the term African-American had not yet started to be used). Thus the blacks would now be “white” and there would no longer be any problems of integration.

(And while this essay did get me to the next round of the competition, I chose to next create a 3-dimensional disco nightclub model out of cardboard and paint that did not make the next cut in the competition.)

Today the current media attention on a range of social issues requiring social change (sexual assault in the workplace, shootings in schools, hacking of supposedly secure online networks, etc.) provides ample fodder for sci fi fiction.

And connected to writing of the future is writing of the past as we need to understand the past to imagine the potential awards and punishments of the future.

I just finished reading the novel THE KITES by Romain Gary — recently translated from the French. Partway through the novel I checked that I was, in fact, reading a novel. This was because it was clear Gary was referring to real people and events during the French occupation in World War II.

When I got to translator Miranda Richmond Mouillot’s note at the end of the book, I understood. Apparently Gary considered this  novel as connected to memory, which explains, for example, his praise of Pastor André Trocmé and all the villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon who risked their lives to rescue and hide Jews from Nazi roundups for the extermination camps.

In the Wikipedia entry for Le Chambon-sur-Lignon I learned:

In 1990 the [French] town was one of two collectively honored as the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Israel for saving Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. The other town awardee was the Dutch village of Nieuwlande.

(I quickly looked up Nieuwlande in Wikipedia, as I had never before heard of this town’s heroic efforts to save Jews from the death maw of the Nazis.)

Then I discovered in my pile of recent New Yorker issues the January 1, 2018, Adam Gopnik article “The Made-Up Man: The truth about the novelist Romain Gary.” Gopnik says about THE KITES, “What is remarkable about ‘The Kites’ is this combination of moral clarity and moral compassion.”

This “combination of moral clarity and moral compassion” may be very appropriate for writing in the science fiction realm, where concerns of the past, the present and the future are reflected in both the protagonists and antagonists (as well as for all of us in the real world).

Click here to read more about THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE: A Dystopian Sci Fi Thriller.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller

Facial Recognition Eye Glasses Increase Chinese Government Surveillance

I read Josh Chin’s February 7, 2018, Wall Street Journal article “Chinese Police Add Facial-Recognition Glasses to Surveillance Arsenal: Police are donning the devices as hundreds of millions of Chinese begin traveling for the Lunar New Year holiday” while working on my book manuscript of THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE, the first in a proposed near future sci fi book series. My immediate thought was that, by the time the first book is published, many of the sci fi elements of it will already be reality.

The Journal article begins:

BEIJING—As hundreds of millions of Chinese begin traveling for the Lunar New Year holiday, police are showing off a new addition to their crowd-surveillance toolbox: mobile facial-recognition units mounted on eyeglasses.

China is already a global leader in deploying cutting-edge surveillance technologies based on artificial intelligence. The mobile devices could expand the reach of that surveillance, allowing authorities to peer into places that fixed cameras aren’t scanning, and to respond more quickly.

I’ve been working out how, in my fictional near future sci fi universe, dissidents could move around without having the proper identification. Thus this part of the article is particularly of interest to me:

The devices have already helped railway police at Zhengzhou’s East Railway Station capture seven people wanted in connection with major criminal cases, and 26 others who were traveling using other people’s identities, the paper said. China monitors train and air travel, and sometimes people who are facing punishment for infractions will try to get around travel restrictions by using a borrowed identity.

While the technology is probably useful in catching criminals, it could also make it easier for authorities to track political dissidents and profile ethnic minorities, said William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International.

I’m pretty sure that the idea I’ve come up with for getting around this problem in THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE is realistic. But who knows? Tomorrow there could be an announcement of another innovation in 24/7 surveillance monitoring of citizens.

The person who alerted me to this Journal article said perhaps it was time for him to read George Orwell’s classic novel 1984. Actually, it may be time for all of us to be worried about 24/7 surveillance — and not just in near future sci fi universes.

Click here to read about Book 1 of THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE.

P.S. In a Lyft ride I took this week the driver had items for sale in his car, including condoms. I thought this was such a good idea that it inspired me to add the following paragraph to my science fiction novel THE MISSISSIPPI DIVIDE:

Natalie sat in the individual unit of the Uber two-movicle en route with Mark to a chemical supply store. She stared at the hanging pocket holder of diverse small items available for sale in the movicle. Her eyes passed over the tissue packs and the aspirin tins to the individual condoms. In sex education class she had practiced with her classmates unrolling condoms onto bananas although she herself had not yet had sex. She did know these were the new condoms – the green ones that turned red if, when pulled on, there was any interference with full protection.

© 2018 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks. Phyllis is available by skype for book group discussions and may be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com

Her Kindle fiction ebooks may be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller — and her Kindle nonfiction ebooks may also be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited monthly subscription — see www.amazon.com/author/phylliszmiller