In spite of everything…
I originally started this newsletter on Dec 28, intending to send it out on January 2, 2026, as a welcome to the new year letter… but then all sorts of life happened. So here it is, the middle of January, and I know I’m not the only one who feels pummeled by the atrocities in the daily news and the stresses of family and work life.
I have drafted at least 5 different versions of this newsletter over the past two weeks, trying to find a way to say that “in the midst of it all, I have to keep looking for the good.”
Like many, (but apparently not enough), I read Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl while in junior high school. But I also did a lot of community theatre during my teens, and one of the plays we did at the Globe of the Great Southwest was “The Diary of Anne Frank” in November 1994, 31 years ago now. I played Anne’s sister, Margot, alongside my mother Terri playing their mother, Edith Frank. Our director, Lynn, was a wonderful librarian in her day job, and she guided the cast and crew through the incredible heart-wrenching storytelling of bringing a young girl’s written diary from the early 1940’s to the stage in West Texas, 50 years after Anne Frank and most of her family died due to the horrors of the Holocaust in WWII.
We tried our best to bring such a dramatic piece of history to life on that stage every night, and I know it impacted everyone who worked that show. It is a stage play based on a young girl’s written diary, words she never expected the world to read, much less perform. Anne, scared and locked in an attic in an attempt to hide from the Nazis who were going door-to-door to take people from their homes and killing millions, was writing her hopes and fears in the only outlet afforded to her at the time.
The current administration promised such torture, repeating the atrocity of Nazi Germany not even a century ago. And the people who voted for it are complicit in the horrors we see each day in the news – decimating societal supports like healthcare and jobs, masked “enforcers” abducting humans from their homes and jobs, beating people, harming children, and killing people in plain sight.
This is not a stage play, this is not an attempt to bring history to life in order to learn from it and shun it. This president and his administration are killing people and they want to kill more.
And every day it’s terrifying. Each day dawns with more fear and tears and wondering who will stop them, how will we stop them, and what can we do to stop them? This is what our country fought against, 80+ years ago.
My heart and donations go out to the communities who are dealing with those fascist boots on the ground, kicking their doors in, breaking their windows, slamming citizens – HUMANS – to the ground. Because I know, from history, that they won’t stop there, they will keep going until they are stopped. Any one of us could be killed because a weak man feels he has been disrespected by a person who refuses to bend to their perceived authority, by a person who is trained to de-escalate, by a person who is scared and fighting to survive. It’s a scenario too many people, especially women, have dealt with over the centuries.
It’s exhausting living through this repetition of horrible history knowing that we could do better for our communities by creating universal health care and universal education. That we could be better humans to each other, providing meals and shelter to those who need it instead of creating more starving and more unhoused.
To me, it’s basic humanity. Apparently some people need more lessons in how to be better humans. Apparently some people don’t actually believe in the teachings of their religion they proclaim so loudly. Jesus loves the little children, but only in a nursery rhyme?
I’ll keep editing and working with authors and creators who want to try to make a difference in the world by sharing their stories, writing the history that needs to be told, creating the art that depicts the range of human experiences and emotions. I’m not worried about losing a potential audience, because if anything, the people who voted for a rapist felon and support the atrocities that ICE and “Homeland Security” are doing are not reading anything that we produce anyway. They’re busy destroying lives, not helping communities and neighbors.
It can be angering, depressing, frustrating, and exhausting fighting against these evils. But we have to keep going, for ourselves, and for others. And we have to keep writing and creating to share the stories of what is happening now, what has happened in the past, and guides to find and do and be better humans so that others can find some hope, and that others may learn from our mistakes and navigate a better world for all.
As Anne said on July 15th, 1944: “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again.”
Goodbye to an Author
As 2025 drew to a close on the calendar, I received news that one of our authors had passed away after his long illness. I enjoyed working with Bill Martin and his working partner and co-author Christine Gorychka on their book Occasional Papers: Teaching Writing in a Way That Students Embrace Enthusiastically over the past two years.
Bill Martin spent his career as an English teacher and he and Chris wanted to share their knowledge and experience with other teachers so they created a wonderfully structured workbook for other teachers to use in the classroom. Their book, Occasional Papers, is a perfect guide to engage students with everyday writing and avoids the impact of the current trend of AI- or LLM- “assisted” writing, so teachers know the writing is real and personal. Bill provided some deeply fascinating insights and suggestions on their edits. It’s hard news no matter when you hear it, and I send my condolences to his family and to Chris.
Constant reminders of why I do what I do:
I believe that creating is one of the fundamental things about being hum
an, and creating an independent book publishing business allows me to help other people create their own things to share with the world. It’s fundamental to being human, to being alive on this planet, despite the people yelling that we should sit down and stop rocking their boats of full of abuses and false power.
Rock the boats. Be radicalized against the harms perpetuated by those who are angry and mean. Look for the blossoming flowers and people handing out food to those protesting for freedoms despite their own personal risk of being beaten or abducted. Look for the words that inspire you to take a stand against the rapists, the fascists, the assholes who steal and enslave and demand more.
By being human, you are part of the community of creatures on this one planet that we call home. Why, oh why, would anyone want to spend time starving or harming anyone else? With your one life, what will you do? Destroy and cause damage? Or create and share?
I’m looking at the projects I’m working on, the people I work with, the people who passed this past year, and I’m making sure I’m searching for and sharing the things that can make a difference to someone. Sometimes the receiving audience may only be one or two people, but I know I can keep trying to share the good and trying to be better at being human.
A different historical journal point-of-view book
Some of the books we have published include history books, and My Summer Vacation: The Victorio Campaign Journal of Robert Grierson 1880 is a diary/journal from a young man who followed his father, a Civil War veteran, into West Texas in the summer of 1880.
The reason anyone keeps a diary or journal is to document daily life, and historically people jotted down their thoughts and feelings the way some people use social media or video platforms now. But having a written record from 80+ years ago, such as Anne Frank, or 145 years ago, such as Robert Grierson, allows us to learn from their first hand accounts of what was going on.
If you’ve been writing your own daily life – the struggles, triumphs, fears, and hopes that you experience – someone may read those words at some point in the future and learn from them. Or they may not! You may write for your own records, never intending to share, just writing as a form of therapy for yourself. But if there are stories you want to share, consider writing those down and creating your own book. Even just family stories need to be told to the family.
You’re welcome to purchase via https://bookshop.org/shop/PurpleFeatherPress or review what we have on our website at PurpleFeatherPress.com
I plan, and hope, to get this newsletter routine, but since I refuse to use funnels or icky marketing techniques, I don’t yet know if you’ll see the next newsletter in February or March! Either way, look out for your neighbors, no matter their skin color or religion, and Make Good Trouble.
https://purple-feather-press.kit.com/posts/january-notes-from-purple-feather-press-jan-15-2026