Miko Johnston is the author of A Petal in the Wind and the newly released A Petal in the Wind II: Lala Hafstein.
She first first contemplated a writing career as a poet at age six. That notion ended four years later when she found no ‘help wanted’ ads for poets in the Sunday NY Times classified section, but her desire to write persisted. After graduating from NY University, she headed west to pursue a career as a journalist before switching to fiction. Miko lives on Whidbey Island in Washington. You can find out more about her books and follow her for her latest releases at Amazon.
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This blog is not about politics, but unless you’ve been comatose for a year, you’re aware of the recent U.S. presidential election and its outcome. It’s fair to say many are unhappy with the result, although it would be equally fair to say that it would be the case no matter which candidate won. Still, it’s hard to deny that this election represents a significant shift in direction for our nation, leaving many unsure and apprehensive of what’s to come.
Again, this isn’t about politics; it’s about writing. Major events have always influenced our culture, from books to visual and now social media. I wonder what trends and influences the new administration will have on writing in the future.
Biographies of the President-elect and the candidate formerly known as the presumptive President should be forthcoming, as will analyses of the incoming administration. It’s also safe to forecast non-fiction works devoted to the election, the mood of the voters that led to the results, and what the change in leadership portends for the country.
Let’s consider fiction. What sorts of themes will become popular and what will fall out of favor? I’ve asked several writers for their opinions.
Author and blogger Terry Carr predicts there will…“be less futuristic fiction”, instead we’ll have more “fiction that goes back to a simpler time… my kind of escapism.”
Gordon Labuhn, whose books range from mysteries to memoirs, suspects there will be more graphic sex and language than before as barriers to what had been taboo are lowered. He sees a trend toward attacking and weakening the media for any negative coverage of the new White House. However, when I asked him if this would put a chill on writing anything that might be viewed as unfavorable toward the President-elect, Labuhn was noncommittal.
Several writers I spoke with who prefer to remain anonymous agree that some people will turn to nostalgia and the safety of the past for escape from the present, as Carr suggests. And still others will lose themselves in lightweight comedies and mindless action as a distraction from the reality of here and now. I confess I did just that, on an overseas flight home, the day after the election.
One of the most considered responses came from writing instructor and fiction author Wayne Ude, who surmises, “Some may focus on what unites us as human beings; others on what unites us as Americans—not necessarily the same thing…(and) others will surely focus on what divides us.” He thinks one approach would be akin to Ray Br
adbury’s Fahrenheit 451 or George Orwell’s 1984: “In light of a Supreme Court which has ruled that money is a form of speech instead of property and that corporations are entitled to the same rights as are human beings, a similar work might present a country which has become an oligarchy entirely controlled by the wealthy.” Another would be “the approach John Steinbeck took in The Grapes of Wrath, which was a very realistic exploration of the lives of people left behind by economic change…(and) a third approach might be satirical novels about the wealthy, in the vein of Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater or, earlier, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s The Gilded Age.”
I agree with Ude regarding political and social satire, which has long been part of our culture. I believe it will become more caustic now, and that debate will erupt over whether a liberal bias in the media or the words and actions of the new administration is the cause. This will create a more fluid divide between legitimate news and parody, which itself straddles fiction and reality. And while, like Ude, I expect big institutions that exploit the downtrodden will continue to be vilified, I hope we don’t begin seeing the downtrodden portrayed, not as heroes like in The Grapes of Wrath, but as villains. Casting certain groups as scapegoats during unsure times has occurred for centuries, but what’s different now is that it would effectively kill political correctness. I’ve never been a P.C. fan; I believe it creates a false impression of civility and holds its own biases. However imperfect it has been in balancing freedom of speech and protection from hate speech, why destroy it when you have nothing better to replace it with?
A clue to where we’re headed came in a recent news story. Executives at several television networks have decided to break with tradition and not take questions from critics at their semi-annual press conferences. Many networks have come under fire for their lack of racial and cultural diversity, both on and behind the screen, as well as their depiction of violence, particularly against women. This is not new. Neither is the overrepresentation of well off, educated professionals as primary characters on most scripted programs. However I do think these concerns will go unchallenged by the new administration.
Will any of these scenarios come to pass? Ultimately it depends on how we writers decide to react to the new political reality. We can be cautious, or courageous. We can block out the real world and focus on the worlds we build in our stories, or we can bring some of that reality into our characters’ lives, no matter where they live, or when. As we are about to enter a new era, I’m asking writers: What trends in fiction do you foresee in the future? Will the change in leadership have any effect on what you choose to write about? And if so, how?
And indeed, this may be something only I “hear.” A concept only important to me. And there are enough hurdles and “things” to think about already in writing—I certainly don’t want to build artificial new ones. But bringing music to your writing is something to think about—especially for those of you who can tell C from D, and a flat from a sharp when you’re singing all those lovely Christmas Carols!
Often, before diving into a scrumptious feast, the host of a Thanksgiving celebration will ask her guests to pause and answer this question.
by G.B. Pool
Or how about A Christmas Carol? Kids might like the Ghost of Christmas Past and Present and maybe even the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, but it will take a while before they understand what the story means on a more adult level.
Years ago I worked at Walden Books in the Glendale Galleria. At the beginning of the holiday season the mall had a Santa who sang songs when he wasn’t talking to kids. I moved the Santa to Las Vegas in the book The Santa Claus Singer and made him a lounge singer who gets laid off and who ends up playing Santa at the mall and sings to the customers. He meets a young girl who is need of an operation. He is just the right blood type and he volunteers for the gig. At the same time, he gets a job singing in one of the hot night spots on Christmas Eve. A once in a lifetime opportunity. Only thing is, he promised to visit the young girl that same night. And then his car breaks down…
The newest book is called The Santa Claus Machine. I got the idea from a Christmas card. In order to modernize his image, Santa builds a series of Santa robots that are sent to stores around the world. They are programmed to tell Santa’s stories and record children’s wishes. An unscrupulous sales manager at the largest department store chain in America, along with their computer engineer, kidnap the real Santa and hide him in an ice cave. They reprogram all the Santa Claus Machines to encourage children to ask for more and more toys. When Santa learns about the change, he becomes disheartened and thinks he might have to cancel Christmas.
And I have been working on a new story for next year. The idea came when I bought a Christmas ornament, a small dragon. I found a tiny wreath on the sidewalk while walking one of the dogs and slipped it over the dragon’s head. Then I set him on the roof of the Santa castle and said, “Every Castle Needs a Dragon.” That’s the name of the book. I bet you don’t know that dragons are the protectors of something very precious in the world. If they have the wrong champion, they can go astray and do great damage, but if they are taught well, they do nothing but good. Now someone wants to capture this one particular dragon… You will get to read the rest of the story next Christmas.
A former private detective and once a reporter for a small weekly newspaper, Gayle Bartos-Pool (G.B. Pool) writes the Johnny Casino Casebook Series and the Gin Caulfield P.I. Mysteries. She also wrote the SPYGAME Trilogy: The Odd Man, Dry Bones, and Star Power; Caverns, Eddie Buick’s Last Case, The Santa Claus Singer, Bearnard’s Christmas and The Santa Claus Machine. She teaches writing classes: “The Anatomy of a Short Story” (which is also in workbook form), “How to Write Convincing Dialogue” and “How to Write a Killer Opening.” Website: 
Where do you escape to when it all gets too much? When that sleep that you really, really need alludes you? For those stressed with over-work, with family or money worries or health problems – a respite is definitely needed. Other than flying away from it all and off to an exotic desert island, what are we ordinary mortals supposed to do? I have discovered my best escape is found between the pages of a book.
And in the middle of the night, instead of tossing and turning and sheep-counting – reach for a book. I do. I currently have a favorite Rhys Bowen novel about Molly Murphy in the turn-of-the-century New York mystery series. In a different mood, I will re-read Rosamund Pilcher’s The Shell Seekers, a Maeve Binchy novel, a Marcia Willet story, one of Carol Drinkwater’s books set in the South of France, or Victoria Hislop’s The Island and her other Mediterranean-set novels. I just love anything set in the sunny Mediterranean. No rush-hour traffic jams, no screaming police sirens, angry crowds pushing and shoving. Just gentle walks though olive grows, planning delicious simple meals, folk watching the tides come in and go out again under breath-taking sunsets. What’s not to like?
Although my all-time favorite remains the childhood classic, Heidi, by Johanna Spyri, about the little girl who goes to live with her grandfather in the Swiss mountains. Some years ago I learned to refocus my mind while in the dentist’s dreaded chair – and would whisk myself off to that Swiss mountain side with Heidi and her goat-herd friend Peter.
The author of Best Selling non-fiction Hollywood Then and Now and Los Angeles Then and Now, English born ROSEMARY LORD has lived in Hollywood for over 25 years. As an actress, her credits include Monty Python, Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Days of Our Lives, L.A. Heat and more. She did voice-work on Titanic, Star Trek, Shakespeare In Love, The Holiday and Pirates of the Caribbean amongst many others. A former journalist, she is published in many magazines such as Woman’s Journal, Atlantic Review, Woman, Films & Filming, Jackie, Field newspapers and more in the UK, USA and Australia, where she wrote about Hollywood’s Golden Age, interviewing such luminaries as Cary Grant, James Stewart, Tony Hopkins, John Huston. She was a Senior Publicist at Columbia Pictures. Rosemary lectures on Hollywood history and is the Historian of the Woman’s Club of Hollywood. She is a member of MWA, Sisters-in-Crime, SAG, BAFTA and contributes to The Writers In Residence Blog.
Jacqueline Vick is the author of over twenty short stories, novelettes and mystery novels. Her April 2010 article for Fido Friendly Magazine, “Calling Canine Clairvoyants”, led to the first Frankie Chandler Pet Psychic mystery, Barking Mad At Murder, followed by A Bird’s Eye View of Murder. Her first Harlow Brothers’ mystery, Civility Rules, is out in ebook format and paperback. To find out more, visit her website at 
Dave Rosenfeld brings us the Andy Carpenter mysteries. His character is a defense attorney who inherited a pile of wealth, so he spends most of his free time with the Tara Foundation, a dog rescue. The rescue is the launching point for the mystery, such as when a dog is stolen from the foundation only to turn up next to a corpse in Who Let the Dog Out? And yes, I do plan to purchase The Twelve Dogs of Christmas for my holiday reading list.
picked up Ashley Weaver’s Death Wears a Mask based solely on the cover, so I guess good covers do matter. I found a fun world that revolved around Amory Ames and her playboy husband, Milo. The back cover described it as Agatha Christie updated, and I thought it came close. This is the second book in the series, so I’ll have to go back and start with number one.
L. Hecker’s Yankee Peddler is more of a farcical social commentary than a mystery, but it’s so funny I had to include it. Ambassador Elizabeth Sullivan Wexford Adams sets out to sell the Litanians on “The American Way.” Hard to do when these isolated islanders have never heard of the USA.
The Writers in Residence 
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