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Showing posts with label #AltHistory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #AltHistory. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote by David S. McCracken - Book Tour - Book Sale - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!

Hello, lovelies!!  It gives me great pleasure today to host David S. McCracken and his new book, “Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote,” here on FAB!!  For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.

Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!  Also, come back daily to interact with David and to increase your chances of winning!!

This eBook is on SALE for ONLY $0.99 during the book tour!!!  See below for more details.

Thanks for stopping by!!  Wishing you all lots of luck in this fabulous giveaway!!

Far Beyond Woman Suffrage:

The Prices of the Vote

by David S. McCracken

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GENRE:   Alt-History / Coming of Age

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BLURB:

Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote

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.

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EXCERPT ONE:

Progress? 1/12/1918

I excitedly wait before my shift on the line to discuss with Miss Sue news I heard about, that the House approved the woman suffrage amendment 274 to 136 two days ago! “So, we’re almost there?” I ask her when she’s passing by, checking how we pickets she’d assigned for the day are doing.

Her mouth tightens: “Sweety, we’ve just begun. That’s just over the required 2/3, and I understand the Senate will refuse even to debate it until October.”

“How can that be? Don’t they know it’s right … and important?”

“They’re afraid of the heat they’ll get from both sides and probably can’t line up the votes to pass it. In Southern states, a vote for woman suffrage is political suicide because negro women there would be able to combine their votes with Northern liberals.”

I look down: “Then it’s hopeless?”

“No, an election is coming. If they postpone a vote until after the election, we might win the few more seats we need.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry. We’re not letting any of them off the hook, especially not Woodrow Wilson. It’s his Democratic party, his responsibility. No excuses. He’s got to produce the votes.”

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GUEST POST:

My Two Favorite Scenes in My New Book, “Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote,”

I have two favorite scenes: the opening scene in the jail and the climactic one in the Tennessee House. The opening one was a challenge, to get an exciting start with a delicate topic and to set up its relation to denial of woman suffrage. Innocent Mercy doesn’t realize what happened to her with no friends in the police van on the way to the jail, in a life-changing event. Making it believable with an intimation of noise, fear, pain, and confusion was tricky. But I got no complaints after I finalized it. I hope readers realize the important connection between what happened and woman suffrage.

The final vote in the final state needed had to have a lot of drama and a lot of information. I blended these together to make it work. I think I succeeded: reader comments indicate so, and it still chokes me up to read what these women accomplished.

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AUTHOR BIO:

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 wonderful black dog with four white feet.

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CONNECT WITH DAVID:

Website:

http://www.DoFancifulFlights.com

Goodreads Author Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/702749.David_McCracken

Goodreads Book Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58870535-far-beyond-woman-suffrage

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AMAZON BOOK BUY LINKS & BOOK SALE INFO:

**The Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote eBook is on SALE for ONLY $0.99 during the book tour!!!**

Amazon US Kindle eBook:

https://amzn.to/3AXWBY2

Amazon US Paperback:

https://amzn.to/2YZ8IGZ

Amazon CA Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.ca/Far-Beyond-Woman-Suffrage-Prices-ebook/dp/B09DPSTN35

Amazon CA Paperback:

https://www.amazon.ca/Far-Beyond-Woman-Suffrage-Prices/dp/B09F1FY74T

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

David will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this blog.  This does not cost you anything, it just helps pay for all those fabulous community outreach projects and awesome giveaways on here**

This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions.  Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Fly Twice Backward by David McCracken - Book Tour - Book Sale - Author Interview - Giveaway - Enter Daily!


Hi, lovelies!  It gives me great pleasure today to host David McCracken and his new book, “Fly Twice Backward”!

Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!  Also, come back daily to interact with David and to increase your chances of winning!

This eBook is on SALE during the book tour for ONLY $0.99!!!  See below for more details.

Thanks for stopping by!  Wishing you lots of luck in this fabulous giveaway!


Fly Twice Backward
by David McCracken

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GENRE: Alt-History/Sci-Fi

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BLURB:

You wake back in early adolescence, adult memories intact, including ones that could make you very wealthy now. Your birth family is here, alive again, but your later families are gone, perhaps forever. What has happened, what should you do about coming problems like violence, ignorance, pollution, and global warming? You realize one key connects most, the fundamentalist strains of all the major religions, disdaining science, equality, and social welfare. You see that there are some things you can change, some you can’t, and one you don’t dare to.

Fellow idealists help you spend your growing fortune well--such as an artistic Zoroastrian prince in the Iranian oil industry, a rising officer in the Soviet army working to find a way to destroy his corrupt government, a Bahai woman struggling against Islamic brutality, a Peruvian leader working for a liberal future, and a snake-handling Christian minister, grappling with doubts, sexuality, and destiny. They are supported by an ally who develops essential psychic powers. The group faces familiar-looking corrupt politicians, religious leaders, and corporate czars, but there is an ancient force in the background, promoting greed, violence, hate, and fear.

This exciting, emotional, thoughtful, humorous, and even romantic sci-fi novel weaves progressivism, music, movies, and literature into a struggle spanning the globe. Vivid characters propel the action back up through an alternative history toward an uncertain destination. Experience the unique story and its novel telling.

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EXCERPT ONE:

Waiting for breakfast, reading the Sunday paper at the table, I realize Mom’s not heading for the kitchen: Oh, oh! It’s church day. Mass. Fasting. Acolyting! What’m I going to do about that?

“Mom, am I supposed to serve today?”

“Of course!”

“Well, I can’t. I have no idea how to do that anymore. I guess we need to call Padre and tell him I’m sick.”

“No, David, we’re not playing that game today!”

“Mom, I hate to say this now, but I have no choice. I don’t know how to serve, so I can’t do it, and, frankly, I’m not ever going to do it. I’m an agnostic, a Unitarian, actually.”

She’s slamming the pots I washed and put in the drainer last night as she puts them into the cabinet under the counter. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t know enough to be an agnostic.”

Fortunately, Dad has come in and heard this exchange.

“Nev, whether his story is true or not, or he knows enough or not, he has a right not to go. He was old enough to be confirmed, so he’s old enough to choose. I’ll serve in his place.”

“Lie about being sick, on Sunday?”

“Mom, it’s a temporizer. I can’t reveal to him why I’m not going to today, much less why I’ll never again do it, and I know you wouldn’t want me to be open about it. I might not even be here next Sunday.” I chuckle. “Maybe I’ll have fallen back to age four, with Dad off in the Navy!” What a sharp look I get!

“We need a few days to sort this out, Nev.”

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW:

Good morning David!  Welcome to Fabulous and Brunette!  We are thrilled to have you here and can’t wait to learn more about you and your new book, “Fly Twice Backward.”

Tell us about your book cover and how it came about.

The cover, two eagles ambiguously lifting off or landing, was the best idea I could come up with showing twice backward, as the title promised. The execution of it I got done with the help of an artist at Fiverr.

What is your favorite scene in your new book?

I’ll pick when my Soviet general at last is reunited with his wife, which I made into a kind of dance, as he eagerly approached and she nervously resisted, torn with guilt over using him and leaving him. I could have also picked a firefight in Vietnam and a rescue of two women about to be burned as witches, both involving complex details. Actually, there’s another involving a discovery in a cave, but it would be too revealing to describe it here.

What has writing this book taught you?

Eventually I can write very well, but I must work very hard to do it, especially for such a complex novel. Next maybe I should try children’s books.

What is the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of research?

I drove around in West Virginia to get the feeling of  the place of a small but significant part of the story. I guess I should have faked it, fictionalized it. I also drove around my boyhood home back in Kentucky to refresh my memory. I would have loved to have done similar in-place research in Israel, Central America, and Peru. Sanity and finance prevailed. I might not have come back from Peru, an incredible place as I came to see.

What are your favorite memories spent at the local library?

Well, my research was done mainly with books ordered from Amazon, with Amazon Music recordings, and with Wikipedia articles, all while sitting comfortably at my computer. And going to my kitchen for fuel or distraction as needed.

How do you overcome writing obstacles?

My main obstacles were getting trapped in the fascination of researching, and there was a lot, and getting puzzled in writing a passage, unsure how to bring it off. The researching problem I handled many times by just stopping, by dropping the unknown that was vexing me or fictionalizing it, making it up. The puzzled problem I handled by trying to write through it or by shifting to another passage—sometimes permanently.

Thank you so much for spending time with Fabulous and Brunette readers and sharing your exciting new book with us!  We wish you all the best on your book tour!

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AUTHOR BIO:


David McCracken was born in Louisville, KY, in 1940. Raised mostly in Winchester, KY, he now lives in Northern Virginia, with his third and final wife. He has three children, two stepchildren, and six grandchildren.

After three years in the U.S. Navy following a lackluster academic start, he graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1963, in Diplomacy and International Commerce. He then worked as a Latin American country desk officer in the U.S. Department of Commerce until he returned to school to earn an M.A. in Elementary Education in 1970 from Murray State University, having always been intending to teach. Eventually realizing his children qualified for reduced-price lunches based on his own teaching salary, he studied computer programming at Northern Virginia Community College and worked as a programmer until shifting back into elementary teaching.

He began working on what became Fly Twice Backward in 1983 and finally finished it in 2019! At 79, David strongly doubts he'll be doing another novel of such scope and complexity, but is preparing to work on a children's science fiction novel with a progressive bent, being a devout progressive in politics and religion, as well as a lover of learning.

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CONNECT WITH DAVID:


Facebook:

Goodreads Book Page:

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AMAZON BOOK BUY LINK & BOOK SALE INFO:

**The Fly Twice Backward eBook is on SALE during the book tour for ONLY $0.99!!!**


Amazon:

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

David will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.


This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions.  Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.