Used to be that writers channeled reality into a form that people recognized and empathized with. I’ve long worked towards doing this by telling our stories in different worlds. I work in fantasy and science fiction, but nothing is so strange as the present reality. I wasn’t around for the cold war. I missed basement bunkers (the first iteration) and bomb drills. Now I am living through the end of a pandemic and the beginning of a hot/cold war which is likely a year away from spiraling into a much larger global conflict–one that will be impacted deeply by our own elections.
I am living through a reality where sitting congressmen are openly attending white nationalist conventions (or at least those run by the people who run those organizations and hide behind the mask of far right ideology). I am living through a reality I would’ve never guessed at and I don’t know what to do with it or what do write about it.