The Most Subversive Thing One Can Do...

I generally avoid discussing politics, especially partisan politics: it's too divisive and it ends up with people angry and annoyed (granted, I want people to have emotional reactions to my work, but I'd rather it involved chills xylophoning up and down their spines or a shiver of wonder running through their limbs, and not getting all graa-raah-argle-bargle). But this time, I'm going to talk about it in as non-partisan a way as I can.

These are strange times we live in, for us in the United States of America, and those affected by them (translation: the rest of the world). I'm not here to influence people's opinion, but I am urging you to do something subversive and world-changing.

Read. Read books. Read lots of books, as many as your schedule allows. Find ways to listen to audiobooks when you're doing things that keep your hands busy but your mind unoccupied. Physical books, digital books, audiobooks, parchment scrolls, bark folios, vellum manuscripts, clay tablets, subway halls and tenement walls - whatever the format, read them. Read books that introduce you to different people, different cultures, different worlds, especially people different from you in some way. Read books that broaden your horizons and shine lights into the corners of your mind and world that usually remain in the dark. Read books that make you think, that make you laugh, that make you cry, that anger you (in good ways!), that challenge your perceptions.

“Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths.” ― David Mitchell, "Cloud Atlas"

Read. Keep reading. I know I'm probably preaching to the choir, but sometimes the choir needs a rousing speech. If politicians insist on putting down intellectuals because what they have to say shatters their convenient fantasies about the world and who resort to "alternative facts" in order to prop up their shaky positions, keep reading, keep getting the real facts, build yourself up with the truth.

I know, how can an author with horror and dark fantasy titles to her name have any stake in the truth? But here's the thing: horror teaches us to face our fears, even when the outcome of doing so is uncertain, and dark fantasy helps us to accept the fact that not everything in Faeryland is pleasant or beautiful (if I might paraphrase G.K. Chesterton...). Fiction in general helps us to rehearse the real world in all its ugliness and splendor and the mediocrity in between, helps us to see the world through the eyes of other people. There's a study out there that shows that readers of fiction are often more compassionate people than those who don't, and the world could sure use more compassionate people.

"You want weapons? We're in a library. Books are the best weapon in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself!" -- Russell T. Davies, "Doctor Who: Tooth and Claw"

I applaud the people who rose to the challenge that these times have thrown at us and who boosted George Orwell's 1984 to the top of Amazon's best seller list, and who cleared all copies of it from the shelves of a library where a friend of mine works. It's a book that's inspired me since I was a high school junior, that I read more thoroughly in college, and now I'm taking the time to go through it a third time, to remind myself what it was that inspired me, the notion that truth and facts can be the most valuable commodity that we have and thus the most dangerous substance on earth. I hope it helps them in their quest for the truth and in their struggle to protect it at all cost.