Karen Sandler

Category: Strongly Held Beliefs

  • Greatness in Diversity

    A while back, President-Elect Trump’s staff posted a page requesting feedback on how we Americans thought we could “Make America Great.” I took the opportunity to respond. My response is below, with some minor editing.

    you-belong-here-11x17What makes America great is its people. All its people. We are a nation of immigrants, and we must respect the rights of all–those who arrived in the last few months, few years, few centuries. After all, no one but those indigenous to this nation are native here. We all came from somewhere else.

    So first, acts like this must stop.  You, President-Elect Trump, have a powerful pulpit. While all Americans must speak out forcefully against racist, sexist, homophobic attacks, your voice in particular must be heard loud and clear.

    Some of your supporters seem to think your election has freed them from human decorum and kindness, allowing them to say or do whatever hateful thing they wish. It has not. We still must be respectful of one another. Kind to one another. Hateful acts worsen and coarsen our country. They bleed away our greatness, making us LESS THAN the magnificent country we can be.

    Once you’ve done your part to restore civility and kindness to our nation, then you can begin to put in place the policies you think will make this country greater. But please keep in mind you are not just president of the ones who voted for you. You are president of the ones who didn’t vote for you and the ones who didn’t vote at all. Not all of us will agree that your policies are what’s best for our country and its people. We may speak out against them. That’s our right as Americans.

    So do your best, Mr. Trump, for all Americans. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

  • Solace in Cats

    dsc_2680cssI’m one of those who’s still dealing emotionally with the election last month. I’ve been reeling from horror story to horror story, my stomach in knots. I can’t say things are looking any brighter close to a month afterwards.

    I’m finding a modicum of comfort in my cats. Yes, I’m an admitted Cat Lady, even though I only own two. With our empty nest and my grandkids living so far away, pressing my ear to the side of a purring cat and petting their soft fur can be a welcome distraction.

    tenka-bedI’ve been doing a terrible job as a blogger and sometimes would just as soon shut it down. Especially now when things are looking dark for our country. But I’m taking another stab at it. Not sure where I’m going from here, and I hope it won’t be nothing but cats. But for now, here are a couple of contented felines that make my world a little brighter.

  • 7 Jewish Authors Get Personal About Anti-Semitism

    Anti-Semitism: hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group. —Merriam-Webster

    When I was asked to put together a roundtable discussion on anti-Semitism, I admit I felt like a fraud when I agreed. My Jewish dad “converted” to Catholicism when he married my mom (although the conversion never really stuck), so my three sisters and I were all raised as Catholics. I remember arguing with a Jewish girl in my grade school class about Jesus (not trying to convert her, but in disagreement as to his significance). And I never set foot in a synagogue while I was growing up.

    But then there was that time when I was six or seven when the Brownie troop told me that there wasn’t any room for me (although there was for my best friend), and my mom told me it was because my dad was Jewish. There was that day I learned that the care home where my Alzheimer-afflicted dad lived had included him in a church activity despite his records indicating he was Jewish. And then there was the very scary day when Nazi-Twitter attacked me and my friends came to my rescue and got the hateful tweets blocked.

    So I may be a stealth Jew, but I’m Jewish. And when I asked seven Jewish authors to write essays on their everyday experiences with anti-Semitism, I was startled by how familiar their stories were to me.

    We’re lucky that in the United States anti-Semitism is only rarely expressed violently. But the most recent ADL Global 100 study, a survey commissioned annually by the Anti-Defamation League, found that ten percent, or about 24 million individuals in the US harbor anti-Semitic attitudes. And as you’ll see in the essays below, there are likely many more people who would never consider themselves anti-Semitic, but who confront the Jewish people they meet with micro-aggressions that can be exasperating, heartbreaking, and even frightening.

    Here’s the question I asked these seven authors:

    How have you seen anti-Semitism expressed, either in the media, on the internet, or in your personal lives?

    And this is how they answered. Read more.

  • When Life Turns on a Dime

    SticksSometimes life imitates fiction. For instance, you’re tooling along, everything as usual, expecting to grill a couple burgers for dinner, then kick back and watch the ball game And out of the blue, something happens that throws you a curve, all your mundane expectations scattered like pick-up sticks (click here if you’re too young to remember pick-up sticks)

    IV RackI’ve had that life-off-the-tracks experience a number of times, most recently a week or so ago when a family member was unexpectedly hospitalized (he’s fine).

    TOSHIBA Exif JPEG
    The ill-fated horse I never bought.

    There was another shake up a couple years ago. I broke my ankle moments before I’d planned to leave to check out a horse I was thinking of buying. That break not only stopped me from buying that horse, it kept me from riding for several weeks.

     

    Wrecked Car1Thirty-five years ago while driving to work, someone turned left directly in front of me. The collision totaled my car and when I slammed on the brake pedal, I fractured my foot (same one I later broke the ankle of). That particular accident led indirectly to me meeting my husband of three-plus decades, so it wasn’t all bad. 😉 But I ended up in the hospital rather than work that day.

    When you’re writing a story, you’ll want send your characters into a similar life-off-the-tracks situations right from the beginning. They can start out in an everyday, humdrum experience, but within pages, everything has to change for them. Whether they’re fired from their job or barely escape being flattened by a piano, an inciting incident had better yank them free of their moorings. And their travails have to continue, building in magnitude to keep your reader reading.

    I wouldn’t wish a car accident or a broken ankle on anyone. But when it comes to my fictional characters, sometimes a trip to the hospital is just what the doctor ordered. 🙂

     

  • When Your Characters Come Out to You

    3 CoversI recently guest blogged at GayYA.org and wanted to share. In the post, “Are They LGBTQIA? Let Your Characters Tell You,” I talk about how I discovered the sexual orientation of characters in my Tankborn Trilogy as I wrote the books and got to know the characters better.

    You can check out the Tankborn Trilogy at Lee and Low’s website. You can also find TANKBORN, AWAKENING, and REBELLION on Amazon.