- What is your “day” job if you are not a full-time author?
I am always researching, writing, editing, and marketing. Even in my sleep.
- If you wrote a book about your life what would the title be?
I did. My science fiction autobiography, Fly Twice Backward: Fresh Starts in Times of Troubles. The important stuff is all there, if altered and expanded.
- What is the hardest thing about being an author?
Resisting discouragement and doubt to keep on writing when I don’t know how to make something work and don’t know if I can.
- What is the best thing about being an author?
Knowing I’ve written well, with feeling and knowledge.
- Have you ever been star-struck by meeting one of your favorite authors? If so who was it?
I’ve never met a favorite author. Guess I hang out in the wrong places!
- What book changed your life?
My first novel. I saw it was finished and good, that I can write well, eventually, after editing and editing. And editing.
- What were some of your favorite books growing up?
Misty of Chincoteague, which I read over twenty times, and Winnie the Pooh, which I had read to me and read myself more than that.
- What books are currently in your to-be-read pile?
They don’t sit idly in a pile. I have several I’m reading now: A century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage, A more Beautiful and Terrible History, The Half HaS Never Been Told, and Word Press for Beginners, 2021.
- Which do you prefer ebooks, print, or audiobooks?
Definitely ebooks: highlighting, looking up and linking, and so easy to slip in my man bag.
- If you could live inside the world of a book or series which world would it be and why?
Ender’s Game, and others in the series by Orson Scott Card, because he creates worlds in depth.
Far Beyond Woman Suffrage
The Prices of the Vote
Book One
David McCracken
Genre: Alternative History
Date of Publication: 8/25/21
ISBN: 979-8464929616
ASIN: B09DPSTN35
Number of pages: 104
Word Count: 32,514
Cover Artist: PixelStudio
Tagline: “It isn’t just about women in long skirts finally voting!”
Book Description:
It isn’t just about women in long skirts finally voting. The racists and the rich know that, and the politicians worry.
Mercy Martin has an inside view as the battle for woman suffrage nears a climax, but she encounters many puzzles.
So many women and Southern states oppose votes for women.
So many people are afraid it would bring on free love, abandonment of family, economic catastrophe, or communism.
So many suffragists are willing to abandon black women voters.
From an innocent teen to a young adult, Mercy has a central role in the campaign. She advances from confinement in a suffragist jail cell to the national campaign for the suffrage amendment. She campaigns around Tennessee, ending at the capitol for the explosive climax in the last state that might ratify the amendment and grant the vote to women.
Why should something so clearly right be so hard, and why were some bitter compromises made? Mercy is right in the middle, relied on by key players. Along the way, she acquires a husband, a baby, and better parents than she was born with.
This is an intimate view via alternative historical fiction, as accurate as it can be and as thoughtful and moving as it must be. In this first novella of a series, Mercy jumps into the campaign for woman suffrage and prepares for a vital role in the coming decades. She’ll continue on into the wider civil rights struggle growing out of woman suffrage.
Excerpt
Anita and I have taken a circuit northwest from Knoxville and
back around to the northeast. We’re canvassing as many legislators and their
key supporters as we can track down. Finding them is the tricky part. Sometimes
we go as far as the road goes and finish the journey to an isolated farmstead
on foot, with our dresses trailing in the dust. We’ve been drenched by
rainstorms, chased by watchdogs, and even had to change a flat tire, which
isn’t that easy in a long dress, but we find our men.
Some seem to be avoiding us, like Representative Cletus
Jacobs. He keeps barely visible off in his woodlot. We mark him as a “no.”
Senator Phil Gridley graciously, really graciously, says we are communists
betraying our gender, our state, and the country. Fortunately, the next two are
warm and positive. However, Sen. Billy Broadus says he is nervous the women’s
vote will support that anti-American League of Nations. He seems mollified when
we point out it would first have to go through a vote in the U.S. Senate, where
it is sure to fail.
“Anita,” I ask, back in the car, “why is there such a fear of
communism here?”
“Well, with the recent Russian Revolution and the widespread
unrest in European countries after the war, people are nervous, especially
people with property. You may not realize that Communism seemed on the verge of
sweeping across Europe after the war, with uprisings all over. I guess women
are considered softies who might vote communists in or go easy on them. Maybe
they’re especially sensitive in the South on the loss of property since their
human property, slaves, were ‘taken’ at the end of the Civil War.”
“I guess big business is hyping the fear for their own purposes,
against labor unions.”
“You’ve got it, Honey! That started before the Russian
Revolution, as a way to smear and foil labor unions.”
“I don’t guess we could ever reach people so concerned about
communism, however they got concerned!"
“ ’Not bloody likely,’ to use a term Alice Paul picked
up from a friend over from England. (The shocking phrase was uttered by Eliza
Dolittle in George Bernard Shaw’s new hit play, Pygmalion. Alice loves throwing
it out.)”
Driving east from Livingston, on a dim overcast day, we have
a scare. Three white-robed riders and horses are moving into position as if to
stand astride the road and block our path. Behind us, we see three more
horsemen trotting out of a grove we had just passed and following us. We
look at each other and gulp. It doesn’t look good, even if their robes look
rather shabby. A lonely road doesn’t seem ideal for a twilight chat with six
mounted Klansmen. Luckily, they hadn’t reckoned how fast our Blue Knight moves
or how well Anita can handle it. Just as the ones in front are getting into
position, Anita swerves far over onto the left edge of the road and races
onward. The nearest horse nervously dances back, then rears and throws his
rider as we roar around them.
“I thought the Klan was dead,” I say.
“Apparently, that Birth of a Nation propaganda film of
a few years back is reviving them. Next, they’ll burn a cross.”
“Well, they’re eating your dust. Great driving!”
“I hope we’ve seen the last of them. How’d they know where we
were?”
I think and respond, “Was Senator Broadus actually less
friendly than he seemed?”
“I wondered why he spent so long in idle chatter
before he let us go,” offers Anita.
About
the Author:
David McCracken became a political activist when the Supreme Court ruled
against school segregation. Fellow students joined him in urging the school
board in Winchester, KY, to integrate immediately. He campaigned for a
Democratic governor and joined the ACLU before he graduated from the University
of Kentucky. After debating at U.K., he got a degree in economics and a job
with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
When his daughters approached school age, he became increasingly concerned with
how he wanted them schooled. Researching that, he decided teaching was what he
really wanted to do. He got a master's degree in elementary education at Murray
State University. He taught for several years, until the fact that his girls
qualified for reduced-price lunches based on his salary got to him. Ronald
Reagan's anti-government policies prevented him from returning to government
work, so he took programming courses and shifted careers again. Programming was
like being paid to solve puzzles all day, but teaching eventually drew him back
until retirement.
For many years of this time, he was working intermittently at a novel that
became Fly Twice Backward: Fresh Starts in Times of Troubles. This concerned
his waking on his twelfth birthday, trying to figure out what had happened,
following his new opportunities, and ultimately outliving an evil president
resembling Donald Trump. After thirty-six years, David finally published it as
an interactive alt-history Kindle novel. He soon started Far Beyond Woman
Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote, an alt-history novelette dealing with the
campaign for woman suffrage. He finished this piece in just ten months. At 81,
he is bold(?) enough to plan this as the first of a six-volume set dealing with
the far-reaching results and implications of woman suffrage. His completed
novels and another in the works are presented for discussion on a new website,
DoFancifulFlights.com
David now lives with his third wife, stepdaughter, and step-grandson near
Winchester, VA. He has a son from his second marriage, six grandchildren, and
two stepchildren. And a funny black dog with four white feet.
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About
the Author:
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