mettle fatigue at the Daily Kos gave a shoutout to the writers in all three Low Down Dirty Vote anthologies!
“…I admire the hell out of these authors, both for their commitment and for spinning a good yarn that puts across a democratic ethos.”
The thing is, I admire the hell out of each of them, too. I mean, of course I do, I published them. But objectively, every one of them understood the assignment. Of the 52 writers, some were beginners, and some were so experienced that the stories they told ended up in Best American Suspense and Mysteries in 2021 and 2023!
The assignment was simple: use a short story to tell the truth about how silencing people’s voices kills democracy.
Lately, as the midterms come rolling up on us like Moriarty at the falls, I’ve been thinking about these three anthologies, and the early days of deciding to create the first one. The two most common reactions from fellow writers and publishing professionals in the early days:
1. “Low Down Dirty Vote? What does that even mean?” (I don’t get that question anymore.)
2. “Won’t all the stories be the same?” My heavens, they were not. Even the two stories that involved pets rights were wildly different from each other.
Three writers appear in all three volumes. For the first volume, I asked people whom I trusted to say yes or no, but not to yell at me for asking. For the next two volumes I was a little braver, and the response was incredible. One of the most beautiful things in these books is the intro that Scott Turow very kindly wrote for Volume II. He’s amazing.
I sent copies of the first books to Hilary Clinton. I never heard back from her, so I’m guessing either she only likes longer fiction, or her 2018 was much more chaotic than mine.
I’ll never forget these writers’ talent, nor their generosity in writing these stories and sharing them with the world.
If you missed them, they are all for sale in ebook format on the non-oligarch Curios platform.
See you at the polls!
