No Hibernation Allowed

There has been lots of turmoil in 2016 and it will get worse. Many of the rights we have only just now begun to enjoy are threatened. This is true not only for the LGBT community, but for other minorities as well. Let's face it; for the next four years at least, we are in for it.

So let's do what we can to help each other through what are sure to be trying times. One way to do this is to contribute to progressive causes such as Planned Parenthood, wildlife conservation groups, and LGBT organizations nationally and in your local areas.

It would help also to buy books from independent or small-press LGBT-oriented authors. Give good reviews to those that deserve it--and many do. I try to make the books I write a credit not only to literature, but to the LGBT community--whether the story takes place in a tiny town, such as I write about in my Small Town series of novels, or a larger area like Miami or Tallahassee, which are the settings for my later books The XYZ Mysteries, The Five, and Swamp Girl *(forthcoming in 2018). This is my way of getting the word out about fairness and equality.

In other words, now is not the time to go back into hibernation, but the time to make our voices even louder and more insistent.