About the PSN Book

Let’s write a book together.
Let’s share with the world our experience of having lived through the atrocity that was the 2016 Election, and what we are doing to ensure Cheeto Stalin is a one-term President.

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Why a book?

David France, a gay journalist who lived through the HIV crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, recently released his book on the topic, How to Survive a Plague.

A journalist asked him:

“Is passing on history, as in writing this book, an important part of knowing how to respond in crisis times like these?”

His reply:

“We have to create those stories and pass those stories along. What we're left with is a lot of the literature that was written in the middle of the plague, which is all wonderful and powerful, but it's literature about what the virus did to America, not what activism did to the virus. That's the story I wanted to tell—the story about how people responded and what they did and how doing what they did made a difference. How did they gain power? How did they infiltrate these hostile environments and hostile systems and turn them around? What did they leave behind? What legacy did they leave behind? That legacy is a blueprint for how to do it in the future. That's the story I wanted to tell.”

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Okay, got it?

Do you want to participate? Here are some questions to think about:

What was your state of mind leading up to Nov. 8, 2016? Was this your first time voting Democrat, and if so, why now?

Describe your experience on Nov. 8, 2016, and the following days (ex. fallout with relatives).

MOST IMPORTANTLY:

What perspective have you gained? How has been your call to action?

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Email your story to info@erinpassons.com. Also include your age, city/state, occupation.

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More info:

*Are you an artist or a poet? I would love to include your work, too. Let’s talk.

* You will need to sign a release form if your story is picked.

*All proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood.

*Yes, I have the background to pull off this thing, and that’s all I can say without sounding self-promotional.

*No, I do not have a publisher on the hook, but that’s never been a problem for me before.

*You don’t have to be the best writer in the world to participate. Grammar Nazis have already volunteered their services for this project. You’re in good hands. (If you are also Grammar Nazi and would like to volunteer, let me know).

*We don’t have to print your real name, but I would like to print everyone’s real age, location, and occupation, as it provides readers some background on the narrator.

****UPDATE****

WE ARE GETTING OUR BOOK PUBLISHED!

No BS. No playing around. This is happening.

So submit, submit, submit!


You might be thinking, “What are you going to be doing, Erin, while we’re spilling our souls out on paper?”

I’ll tell ya—I will be editing your work, and as editor, it is not my job to rewrite your story, nor would I want to. Your voice is unique and needs to be heard, which is why I kicked off this project. I encourage you to be creative, but in case you have never taken a creative writing course, here are a few basic guidelines:

Do not double space between sentences. Double-spacing is old school.

Choose a tense and stick with it.

“Show, don’t tell.” Google that phrase if you do not know what I mean.

Adverbs are not your friends. Use them sparingly.

Same goes with cuss words.

And italics.

Insert line-breaks between dialogue when you are moving between multiple speakers, and 85% of the time, attribute the dialogue.

Do not capitalize every letter in a word LIKE THIS. Do not bold words.

Oxford commas are always required.

Semi-hyphens are never required. There’s a hilarious Kurt Vonnegut quote about semicolons that I won’t post for fear of the PC Gestapo.

Try not to finish sentences with a preposition like I did in the eighth sentence of this post.

Finally, you are free to ignore all the shit I just listed bc no one should tell you how to write. Google Stephen King’s tips on writing and he will tell you the same thing.

People keep asking about deadlines—I would really like to have everything in before Christmas so I can spend my break fawning over your amazing, kick ass stories.

And again, thank you all for agreeing to contribute. This will be something we can pass down from generation to generation of nasty women. I am incredibly excited, and I hope you are too.

Finally, we still need some more Grammar Not-a-Nazis. PM me if you would like to volunteer.


****ANOTHER UPDATE****

And overnight, my spreadsheet went blue. Thanks to everyone who volunteered. We already have interest from a publisher, and the Polished Opal, a professional editing agency, has agreed to donate their services.

See what we can do when we direct our energy into positivity and light? This moment is historical. A nation of women’s voices is coming together in one amazing, honest piece of literature, and you have no one to thank but yourselves.

I have attached the link to the spreadsheet of names/states and given anyone with this link rights to comment. If I have misspelled your name, put you in the wrong state, forgotten you altogether, please comment in the doc and I will see the mistake is corrected. (So many of you volunteered in different comments/posts, it was hard to keep up!)

A couple of things:

…Get your story to me by Christmas Day. Think of it as a Christmas present to a person you have never met. Email it to me at info@erinpassons.com.

…There is not word count bc I want you feel free to speak your truth. However, I have a red pen and I am not afraid to use it.

…For you super organized types, I would also like to include a list of resources in the back of the book, divided by state. Resources would include organizations, numbers, political reps – any material that might be useful to the reader to help them get involved. If you are interested in helping to compile these lists, let me know.

...Also, we need to create a website for the book. This website will include the book’s summary, links for purchasing it, excerpts, press schedule, etc. If web design is your thing, let me know.

Thank you again!

PS I still don’t have any factual proof that people live in Delaware.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15RVq4okVHR7JiOnLipx9Ck2EP6maVNhUyj0zqbn9StA/edit?usp=sharing