Glass House Press

HAPPY MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY, BLOGOSPHERE!!!

(a personal note from publisher Carrie White-Parrish)

And while we're at it, happy Inauguration Week as well. I mean ... IS there such a thing as a happy Inauguration Week? Possibly not, but it does transition very well into what I'm here to say. First, a moment to remember Martin Luther King, Jr. and what he meant to this nation. A man who fought for his rights, and those of his people--and did it with respect, peace, and love. It's something that, in this day and age, seems out of place and hard to believe.

But look at the results he gained. Look at the freedoms he won. Sometimes, it seems, love is truly the best way to win a battle.

At this point in our country--and our world's!--history, it's important to remember the words of MLK, and the idea that "We may all have come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now." We've seen so much hatred and divisive behavior over the last six months, and though it's broken our hearts--and will continue to do so--we must remember that our country is built on people who fought for what was right ... and won. Our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, were built on a grand idea of equality, rather than tyranny. Of freedom of speech and thought, rather than dictation and cruelty from our government. And above all, as Americans, we've been taught never to keep our mouths shut when it came to doing the right thing.

That's why, this week, Glass House is holding a not-annual (because how could it be annual??) #InaugurationBlitz, where we're going to be speaking up about the Constitution, how it happened, what it meant--and why it's so important to protect it moving forward. We believe in our rights as Americans, as women or minorities or immigrants or LGBTQ+, or people with different political opinions ... and we're going to focus, this week, on how our country was BUILT to accept and embrace those differences rather than holding them down. In celebration, we have blogs, interviews, book excerpts, sneak peeks, facts, and character Q&As queued up and ready to go--and we're talking rebellion, revolution, and fighting for right! This is a deeply personal topic for me, but we're going to work to make it work for everyone, because we believe in the rights of our future generations--and educating our youth about what this great country was built to do!

Starting tomorrow, we'll have pieces from PT McHugh, Linda Foster, Mary Fan, George Ebey, JD Wilcox, RK Brainerd, Kimberly Mitchell, and Sonya Craig, as well as a blog from me about a VERY special thing I'm doing tomorrow afternoon, and lots and lots of facts on the Twitter feed about our Constitution and the role of a true President--as well as the dangers our country is looking at, and the need to #Speakup! Keep your eyes peeled, readers, b/c we're plunging boldly into the thick of life (one of my favorite quotes from Goethe) and letting the world know what America was built to do!

Love,

Carrie and the GH fam