It’s here - Banned Books Week, celebrated from September 26, 2009 through October. The first Banned Books Week organized by the American Library Association (ALA) was celebrated in 1982 when there was an increase in books being challenged is schools, libraries, and stores.

Censorship continues to be a serious problem in the U.S with the ALA reporting an increase in book challenges. In 2008 the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom recorded 517 challenges, up from 420 in 2007. While most challenges are unsuccessful, they are a violation of the First Amendment and intellectual freedom.

What is intellectual freedom? The freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular, and is the foundation of Banned Books Week. As an author I’m celebrating Banned Books Week by reading a banned book.

ABC News carried a story on a very different type of book. Scheduled to be released Thursday, May 21st The Obama Time Capsule recounts President Obama’s historic campaign and election with one distinct difference - each book is personalized with the buyer’s photographs and text. No two copies of the coffee table book will be alike because each copy is printed one at a time, after the book is ordered.

What the book does is weave together the story and photographs of the Obama campaign with those of the buyer/author. Publishing insiders believe such books herald the new wave of publishing, where books are personalized to the unique end user.

When President and Mrs. Obama danced to “At Last” as sung by Beyoncé at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball, the significance of this gorgeous song at a historic moment was lost on no one. In the novel, Tim and Kay dance to Etta James singing “At Last” at Paul and Pamela’s wedding. Observing her blissfully happy brother, Kay notes, “I hear this song, and I think ‘at last’ is right. We are so lucky, Tim. I really didn’t think he’d after recover.” Kay refers to her family’s joy at Paul finally moving beyond his grief and embarking on a new life.

‘At Last’ is favored by my husband and me as our special song as well. We share the song as it was originally intended - two people finding each other and building a wonderful life together. Since we were slightly older than most couples when marrying, ‘at last’ summed our feelings perfectly. One very memorable song beautifully sung, with so many meanings.

After nearly two years of too many campaign stops, too many debates, too many negative ads, and far too much money spent, another change Americans and elected officials should give serious thought to is a vastly shortened election season.

Look no further than the British system - a 10 week campaign season, a vote, and quicker transition period. Research indicates the majority of American voters don’t really begin to pay attention until after Labor Day of a presidential election year, the perfect time for the beginning of a 10 week campaign season.

Political party conventions would take place in late summer as they always have, and only after presidential nominees are chosen would the campaign season begin. A shorter campaign season could make for far more intriguing conventions - delegates would actually have to choose a presidential nominee, rather than simply showing up for a process decided weeks or months in advance. From Labor Day to the first Tuesday in November is more than plenty to time to discuss the issues and select the candidate of your choice.

Other benefits are obvious - fewer campaign dollars raised and spent fewer annoying ads and political telephone messages, less campaign fatigue among candidates and voters. Change is definitely coming, and in January with a new President and Congress in session, one of the first items on the agenda should be a complete revamping of the election season. Ten weeks from start to finish can work. Just ask the Brits.

HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET…..IF WE EVER KNEW…?
by Deloris Wright

This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers, as they lived only 90 years ago.  It was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.  Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’  

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold.  Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail.  Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.      

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly?  We have carpool duties?  We have to get to work?  Our vote doesn’t matter?  It’s raining?

Read Deloris Wright’s complete essay on the difficulties and brutality our foremothers faced in fighting for the right to vote, by clicking here.

This election day, remember how lucky we are and how far we have come. More so than any other election year history is being made and you can be a part of it by exercising your right to vote for the candidate of your choosing.

Now that the 2008 election is finally in its last 10 weeks, news abounds regarding the candidates vice presidential choices. Of particular interest to authors is the story from 1996 when Sarah Palin, newly elected mayor of Wasilla, Alaska asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books. The Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, replied that she would definitely not be all right with banning books.

While Palin never actually banned books from her local library, the story should be a reminder to writers everywhere that there is always the potential for books, perhaps even one you’ve authored, to be challenged. A recent example is J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, which came under strong attack into the 2000s. The American Library Association also notes the Harry Potter series is the number one most challenged book series of the 21^st Century.

In 2006, there were 546 attempts to remove books, and more than 9,200 attempts since 1990, when the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom began to electronically track and publish information on book challenges in 1990. Again, according to the ALA, throughout history there have been people who don’t want information to be freely available.

But it’s more than that. As we prepare to elect a new president and vice president, we would do well to remember the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects freedom of the press and freedom of speech: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech; or of the press; . . .” Every writer should understand their rights and challenges.

In approximately three weeks, the 2008 election season kicks off with the Republican Convention held in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and soon after that, the Democrats select their nominee in Denver. The confetti won’t be swept up off the convention center floors before the Presidential Election gets under way in earnest.

The story arc of Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace covers five years and three elections. Set in Minnesota, home of the nation’s highest voter turn-out, the Pierson family understands that voting is not a right but a privilege, and one they exercise regularly.

Nationally between 1960 and 2004, voter participation in presidential election years declined from 63.1% in 1960 to 55.3% in 2004. There were encouraging blips, as percentages rose between 2000 and 2004, from 51.3% to 55.3%. Still, that pales in comparison to Minnesota where a whooping 76.8% of the population voted in 2004, leading the country in voter participation.

The decline in U.S. voter participation didn’t occur overnight and tangible factors contribute. In the age of YouTube where every politician’s foibles can be looped endlessly on the Internet, voter cynicism is high. Other factors in the nation’s political system also come into play, most notably the weakening of traditional party allegiances. Both the Democratic and Republic parties have been losing clout for years, but with a never-ending war, weak economy, the foreclosure mess, and rising unemployment, this election year stand to be very important.

In the novel, it’s also clear that the Pierson family is active in DFL politics, hosting fundraisers, handing out candidate literature, and answering phones. Because Minnesota has such stellar turnout, it seemed important to include this subplot. Rather than focusing on the family’s political affiliation, I wanted readers to remember why it’s so essential to exercise a privilege too important to ignore.

The presidential election of 2000 was a true cliffhanger, too close to call the morning after. At the time, I was working as a course developer for an international consulting firm. A few days before the election, I asked a co-worker if he was planning to vote. He said no, that his vote didn’t matter. I mentioned in passing that was too bad, because in other parts of the world people are willing to die for the privilege to cast their vote in a democratic election. The day after the 2000 election, as the world waited in anticipation to see who the next President of the United States would be, Chris informed he had decided to vote after all and was glad he did.

The voting sub-plot in Shades of Darkness helps describe the Pierson family’s political activism in a progressive state. But it also serves as an impetus to get readers involved in their community and the world at large by implementing one of the most important privileges we as Americans are lucky to have.

One year ago Friday, August 1, a number of Minnesotans lives changed forever. Thirteen died in the Mississippi as the I-35W Bridge buckled and collapsed into the mighty river. Another 100 or so were injured, some severely. That night, the Minnesota Twins played the Kansas City Royals so that 25,000 fans wouldn’t pour out of the Metrodome and gum up even more traffic already snarled from the bridge collapse.

The most harrowing aspect was that a major bridge had come tumbling down in the United States of America. This, of course, was not supposed to happen here. But it most definitely had and the collapse of the I-35 Bridge had affected the lives of many, many people just by leaving a huge gap over the Mississippi River and altering traffic pattern until a new bridge could be built.

In my novel, a passing reference is made to how the Twin Cities are literally linked together by a vast network of bridges that cross the Mississippi, Minnesota, and Saint Croix Rivers, plus numerous lakes. The book notes that rush hour is always slow over the Wakota Bridge that ferries traffic on I-494 over the Mighty Mississippi. Without the bridge, the Twin Cities could not be melded together on the East side of the Metro.

When the bridge collapsed last year, cities all over the country got a brutal wake up call - this calamity could happen anywhere. Large numbers of bridges were inspected, some closed down for good. At the end of 2007, the Minneapolis Star Tribune ran an article on another bridge in dire need of replacement, the bridge spanning the Mississippi in downtown Hastings, MN.

Over the last weekend in July, large chucks of cement fell from the Maryland Avenue Bridge near 35-E and downtown St. Paul. Two vehicles were hit — one on the windshield, one on the hood — and debris from the chunks, which fell from the underside of the bridge, choked off traffic on Interstate Hwy. 35E for more than eight hours as crews inspected the overpass and knocked off other loose concrete as a precaution.

Bridges connect numerous cities across the United States. The only positive to come out of the Minneapolis 35-W bridge collapse was the inspection of similar bridges. Still, even having endured a national tragedy, the once proud state of Minnesota still doesn’t have enough money to fund and maintain crucial aspects of roads like bridges.

The GOP Convention scheduled for August 30 - September 4 in Minneapolis and St. Paul is a mere five weeks away, as family who reside there constantly remind me. On the one side is the argument  that suicide bombers, chemical or biological attacks, lone gunmen, terrorist attacks, riots, blockades, or all of the above could shut down the Republican National Convention scheduled for St. Paul/Minneapolis August 30 - September 4.

From the beginning planning stages, St. Paul officials and protesters have been engaged in a prolonged dispute over granting a request by antiwar demonstrators (the Coalition to March on the RNC to Stop the War) requesting a change in the route and time of a Sept. 1 march they want to take place right outside the Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul.

On the opposite side, officials claim they have up-to-date Intel on the plans of anarchists to disrupt the convention by blocking the 12 mile stretch of I-94 between downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis. If I were an anarchist, I would definitely let authorities think they had the upper-hand in the intelligence department and move deep underground.

Since winning the bid for the RNC, the Twin Cities have had difficulty recruiting enough law enforcement personnel (currently at less than 3,000), while complaining about the overtime pay such security will cost. No doubt the anarchists and others planning to cause havoc during the convention are well aware of this dilemma, as the shortage in security has been publicly discussed for months.

Do I want see the RNC disrupted by anarchists bent on destruction and chaos? No, if only for the selfish reason that I don’t wish to see my hometown humiliated on the world stage. But even growing up in Minneapolis/St. Paul I heard repeatedly that the Twin Cities simply didn’t offer enough hotel rooms, police, and other venues for an event of this magnitude. As in the novel, my family works in real estate in the Twin Cities and over the years they’ve explained the National Association of Realtors refuses to host their annual convention here for exactly those reasons.

If you’re a political junkie, there are sure to be some fireworks, and not only with the protesters at the GOP Convention. Besides the RNC in progress, during the exact same time span, the Minnesota State Fair will also be taking place in St. Paul and several universities start up the new school year. If I were an anarchist, those are the exactly the kinds of details I would be noting.

Don’t believe your vote matters in November 2008? Jesse “The Body” Ventura didn’t become Governor of Minnesota in 1998 because no one went to the polls. Just the opposite.  For some, the realization of how important each and every vote is came when Ventura won the three party race.

Some other great examples of a few votes making a big difference:
In 2002, Dan Sparks was elected to the Minnesota State Senate by five votes, and Mike McGinn won election by 35 votes.
In 1999, Leslie Byrne was elected to the Virginia Senate by 37 votes.
John F. Kennedy won the presidency in 1960 over Richard Nixon by a margin of less than one vote per precinct.
One vote per precinct passed women’s right to vote in California in 1911.

Don’t think you know enough about the candidates and issues to make a well-informed decision? Besides the voter-related organizations listed on this site, here are some additional organizations providing non-partisan information on the majority of political races this fall.

Declare Yourself is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign to empower and encourage every eligible 18-year-old in America to register and vote in the presidential primaries and 2008 presidential election.

Vote-USA provides voters with non-partisan information on where candidates stand while offering voters the opportunity to compare candidate’s positions on hot issues such as the economy and ongoing Iraqi war.  

Project Vote Smart is similar to Voter USA in providing information on candidates of all parties in a multitude of races.

Voting is a privilege, not a right, the very reason for its inclusion as a sub-plot in Shades of Darkness, Shades of Grace. One of the positive aspects of the 2008 U.S. election is the immense interest among voters, particular from younger generations. Americans have long been apathetic in regards to voting, and this election year is the perfect time to change that.