Barbara McMichael

My latest novel, MAYA DARLING, is my good gift to the world. I wrote the novel in the aftermath of getting shot. Getting shot and almost dying had nothing to do with the story, but it does impact how I feel about gun violence. The image of Santa Claus wearing a bullet proof vest captures the surreal sense of unease pervading our culture during these precarious political times, both in America, and all over the world. Please check out the Campaign Video of Santa Claus suiting up on Christmas Eve. 

In our cover story this month, Barbara Lloyd McMichael writes about H. Morgan Hicks, the owner of a yarn shop in Des Moines, Washington. In Toward a New Social Contract for Our Endangered Species, Dr. Peter A. Corning argues that we are on a road to collective self-destruction unless we make a radical course change. Annie Searle takes a look at all of the fires that are burning in her article The Fire This Time. My essay, It’s Too Bad, Tommy Wooten, is about a Yonkers teen who died long ago, tragically and foolishly. Profound, heroic, or tragic, there is more than one way to make your mark in life. – Patricia Vaccarino