Category: Dystopic Future

About "Heart Wood"/Children's Health Trends/Climate Change/Dystopic Future/Environmental Activism/Future Health Trends

Can We Raise Healthy Children on an Unhealthy Planet?

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I’ve been thinking about how my medical background influenced the writing of Heart Wood – prompted by a recent invitation to participate on a panel of UC San Francisco Medical Center Alumni Fiction Writers – a Zoom event on March 15, 2022, at 6 pm. (Details are below).

In my eco-novel Heart Wood, I used family women from three centuries to show the steady progression of health concerns over time in the past, present, and future. Like the frog in cold water where the water is heated slowly until the frog boils to death, it’s easy to accommodate to changing health conditions as they slowly creep up on us – until they become alarming problems.

I saved this cartoon from 2012 – little did we know that 10 years later, we’d still be breaking records for the hottest year ever!

One of the benefits of being 76 years old is having the perspective of time. Starting in the 1980s, I worked for 20 years as a traveling school nurse in small rural northern California communities. Although I didn’t have a mule to tote my equipment down canyons and across rivers, my car was always piled high with file boxes and testing equipment. I served five small schools stretched between the Middle and South Yuba Rivers – all previous sites of the Gold Rush era’s practices of washing away hillsides and polluting rivers with heavy metals used to extract gold.

In those 20 years, I observed trends in children’s health. In the 1980s, children’s health problems were mainly allergies to bees and peanuts, vison and hearing problems, head lice, and assorted injuries. Fast forward to the 2000s where we now have an explosion of allergies and intolerances to foods, asthma, diabetes, cancers, attention deficit disorders, autism, anxiety, and suicide. Seeing these dramatic changes over time alarms me.

Imagine Eliza in Heart Wood in the 1800s reading a box of today’s breakfast cereal: “Does NOT contain gluten, GMOs, artificial flavors or colors, preservatives, pesticides, etc.” I’m sure she’d be incredulous that anyone would put those in foods in the first place!

Yet today, we take for granted having a list of what is NOT in our food so we can navigate the food aisle for the best choices, thankful for the growing number of grocery shelves devoted to food intolerances.

Turn up the heat and fast forward to 2075 where Amisha’s food choices consist mainly of colored Pharm.food packets specifically developed for the multitude of intolerances that the corporate-pharmaceutical industry was responsible for creating in the first place.

One of the underlying premises in Heart Wood is that it’s difficult to raise healthy children on an unhealthy planet. It matters to our children’s health that the atmosphere and oceans are infused with plastic nanoparticles, that drinking water is contaminated, that oil spills into the ocean or lakes, that rainforests are cut down, that food ingredients are manipulated. These seemingly small changes accumulate over time into lethal doses. But small positive changes accumulate over time as well. Let’s each now do what we can to care for the earth and our children’s future!

Here’s registration information for the panel discussion I will be on of three UCSF alumni authors of fictional work 
https://ucsf.regfox.com/aacs-spotlight-on-fiction-writers

Tuesday, March 15, 2022. ONLINE   6-7 pm Pacific time

A woman alone in Brooklyn during the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic. The connection between a small, oak writing desk and three family women whose lives are joined across centuries and generations. A cadre of peers fighting a coup in a dictator-controlled West Africa. These very different scenarios share a surprising link – all are snapshots of published fictional works written by UCSF alumni.

Join us for a panel discussion with three UCSF alumni authors led by moderator Sarah McClung, head of collection development at the UCSF Library. During this conversation, Shirley DicKard, BS ’68, RN; James Gottesman, MD ’70, resident alum; and Larry Hill, MD ’67, will share an exclusive glimpse into their stories’ fictional worlds and what brought them to life. We will also learn directly from these creative minds about whether their experiences at UCSF played a part in the stories, what their writing process was like, and how they navigated the publishing world.

This program is brought to you by the UCSF Office of Alumni Relations and UCSF Archives as part of the virtual event series in which distinguished UCSF alumni authors discuss their recently published books

REGISTER HERE

Purchase Heart Wood:

Locally to support your independent book stores!

On AMAZON (paper, ebook)

Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award’s Montaigne Medal for the most thought-provoking books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought.

Winner of Visionary Fiction -National Indie Excellence Awards

BLOG:  https://shirleydickard.com/blog/

WEBSITE:  https://shirleydickard.com/

Climate Change/Dystopic Future/Natural Disasters/Power Outages/Wildfires

Are We Under the Weather?

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While feeling a bit under the weather recently, I had a small “ah-hah” moment thinking about the phrase “under the weather.” As weather is becoming more erratic and powerful around the world, I realized that it’s probably not the prophesied “peak oil” or lengthy drought per se that will change our way of life, but it will be the escalating threats from weather – too much, too little, too hot, too cold.  

Take our reliance on electricity. Do power outages seem to be happening much more frequently? My husband and I have lived in the Sierra for 48 years. We’re used to dealing with occasional winter outages caused by rain, wind, snow, and trees falling onto power lines.

We’re entering new territory now with power outages occurring regularly during the summer months as well. Over the last decade, we’ve been accommodating to record high temperatures, massive wildfires, and Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events meant to protect us by preemptively shutting off our power on Red Flag Days.

Back in 2018, I wrote this section of Heart Wood where Harmony muses on what will be the demise of civilization. “Luna Valley, 1987.  During our communal dinners, we first catch up on each other’s week, then turn the conversation to what’s happening in the outside world. Last week we brainstormed how to eat lower on the food chain to avoid the accumulation of man-made toxins in the fish and animals we eat. This week we’re back to the prophesized great collapse of all society due to the impending depletion of oil….We’re so prepared for the prophesy that lack of oil will be civilization’s downfall, that I ignore my dreams where it’s always the lack of water.“

If I were writing this today, what would I say? Not lack of oil or water, but chaotic weather extremes?

I think about the escalating number of natural disasters where people are without electricity, water, or communications for long periods of time: hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildfires, flooding, even an ice storm in Texas. Huge blocks of the power grid were physically wiped out in a very short time. Can you prepare for these?

After living ten days without power during the mega snowstorm in the Sierra last month, I wrote this in my journal:

“The power’s out again. I’m almost getting used to this. Almost. I’ve got a routine down: Unannounced, the power goes out; I text neighbors to see how widespread the outage is; turn off the beeping powerpack at our computers; phone PG&E to report the outage before our landline goes dead; then re-plan my day.

I must admit, my first thought is usually how long can I go without needing to turn on the noisy generator?  How long can I be content with this peaceful silence, perhaps curling up with a book slanted to catch the window’s light. At some point, the siren’s call of the Internet beckons me to turn on the trusty generator and the spell is broken.”

I may not have answers, but I do have questions.  Sure, we can prepare on the personal level: fill our “Go-Bags” with important documents, food, clothing, emergency supplies, etc. But I think the writing’s on the wall. How do we plan for the chaos of large weather-caused events where huge numbers of people are physically fleeing from the emergency and others are stuck in place without food, water, communication, or power?

Regardless of whether you feel these events are related to man-fueled climate change or are part of the earth’s cyclic nature, we still need to respond. I’m counting on man’s ingenuity and resiliency – like the growth of alternative energy and the energy of youth climate activists

When I get to this point in my thinking, I risk dropping into denial or despair. I know it’s time to close my computer and go outside where I’ll be greeted by early budding apple trees and two Red Shouldered Hawks calling to each other from the pine tops. (Is it mating season already?)  Time to take a deep breath, grab a trowel, and dig into the earth.

Despair/Dystopic Future/Environmental Concerns/Plastics in the environment/Speculative Fiction

My “One Small Thing” Project

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I’ve stopped watching the news for awhile – tired of the endless political background noise like kids squabbling on the playground. Who has the ball now? They’re not playing by the rules. They’re just thinking of themselves. I’d laugh, except the ball they’re holding hostage is our planet, with mankind fast becoming an endangered species.

I’ve been surprised that so many Heart Wood readers say they’re really disturbed by what the future looks like in my speculative novel. When I wrote those scenarios over five years ago, I looked at current trends, then projected them out into the future, imagining what life would be like for my great-granddaughter if we did nothing to change the course on our planet.

But the future is already here – much faster than any of us imagined. Take your pick: crazy destructive weather patterns, sea level encroaching on our dwellings, plants and animals slipping away forever, diseases ramping up-fertility down…on and on.

I hate living in despair. Like Harmony in Heart Wood’s present time (yes, she and I have a lot in common) I could fill my desktop with scientific studies, sign email petitions, and donate money to organizations with the strength to apply pressure. But that does not satisfy my soul’s need to do something tangible.

That’s when I developed my “One Small Thing” project. It’s not much, but it’s something I can do.

Does printing this warning to consumers on the plastic mailing envelope absolve the producers of having to find non-toxic solutions?
Just whose problem is this?

My Small Thing #1: I don’t drink water in disposable plastic containers.

If I’m offered one, I politely decline, then briefly share why: I’m concerned that hormone disruptors in plastics are leaching out and altering reproductive systems. Microplastics are now everywhere: high in the atmosphere, deep in our oceans, even baby poop is loaded with microplastic particles (1). No plastic (including disposable water bottles) ever goes away. They’re more likely to saturate our lives as microplastic particles or end up in the humungous island of floating garbage in the Pacific Ocean.

 So now I ask: “Is your tap water safe to drink?  Do you have a glass? Yes?  Then I’ll have some of that, thank you!”

My Next Small Thing #2: Eliminate plastic containers for food storage.

Now that #1 is under my belt, my Next Small Thing is eliminating plastic containers for food storage. This is a bit harder, but I’m about 95% there in my refrigerator. It drives my husband crazy, but he has the job of removing the glued labels on empty food jars so I can reuse them for food storage.  Sadly, it’s getting much harder to buy food in glass containers anymore (like catsup and mustard). Plastic is easier for shipping – it’s lightweight and doesn’t break.

A sneak peek at my refrigerator shelf

Whenever I can, I bring a glass container to stores (like natural food stores) where I can refill them. There’s even a local store entirely devoted to refilling your containers with personal care, cleaning, and other non-food products. (Gaia SOAP Supply:  https://www.gaiasoapsupply.com/ in Nevada City, California), where over 97,000 plastic bottles have been reused and refilled since 2010! 

If you’re thinking of starting your own Next Small Thing project, here’s a few things I’ve found helpful:

  1. Keep it simple and doable.
  2. Involve your family and/or friends.
  3. Lead by example and share what you’re doing whenever you can.
  4. When it becomes a way of life, go on to the Next Small Thing.
  5. Keep in mind that what you don’t do can be as important as what you do.

I’m now deciding what my next small thing will be. How about you?

(1) https://www.wired.com/story/baby-poop-is-loaded-with-microplastics/

Purchase Heart Wood at your local bookstore

(support independent bookstores!)

Print and eBooks from online retailers: HERE on Amazon.

Contact the Author at: heartwoodnovel@gmail.com

BLOG – Sign up to follow at:  https://shirleydickard.com/blog/

WEBSITE:  https://shirleydickard.com/

About "Heart Wood"/Brain Implants/Dystopian Fiction/Dystopic Future/Inner Listening/Speculative Fiction/The Future

Elon Musk’s Neurolink: Harbinger of the “Nib”?

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Elon Musk has bold visions for the future of humanity. His inventions include the Tesla electric car, Space X Starship, and Starlink– space-based internet. But when he unveiled the latest developments of his Neuralink – a wireless implant into the brain that could someday let human brains directly interface with digital devices, my skin crawled with goosebumps.

Elon Musk describes his “Neuralink” brain implant

I went back to my early 2016 drafts of Heart Wood – to Amisha’s future world (2070-2090) in which everyone has a “Nib” implanted at birth behind their ear– a miniscule micro-chip that eliminates all need for external electronic devices. It would be like having a continual “Siri,” “Alexa,” or “Google” active in your head, clouding or overriding your personal thoughts, providing you with information and giving directions in anticipation of what you might or should want. With less need for other humans, eye contact and physical touch would wither from disuse.

Amisha was a young child when she was retrofitted with the new, mandatory Nib…

“Amisha hardly remembered the time of silence, before her parents took her to the tall building, the line of other little children, the sharp stab in her neck, the prickles that grew behind her ear beneath her skin, and the new voice she began to hear.” (Heart Wood)

I pondered what to call my imaginary implant. “Chip” was too predictable. My friend Mark Jokerst helped me come up with the word “Nib” (Neural Implant Bot Sensor).  I like that “Nib” also had a brief appearance in the late 1800s as the nib of Eliza’s fountain pen – both communication devices, two centuries apart.

Musk describes his Neuralink as like a Fit Bit in the skull with tiny wires that connect the brain to computers/phone via Bluetooth. To insert, an advanced robot surgically implants the Neuralink (0.9” wide/0.3” tall) and its 1,024 miniscule electrodes into the brain matter. Its battery life lasts all day; you charge it at night. Like your Tesla.

“Amisha nodded to the rain pelting the bedroom window and, with a right-flick of her eyes, queried her Nib: Didn’t it already rain twice this year? Last rain: April 14, 2075. Four point six inches of precip in one hour temporarily raised the Bay five inches. Seawall was moved back two feet. Your closest umbrella stand is corner of Grove and . . . Amisha halted her Nib feed with a left-flick of her eyes.”

 Musk is serious about his invention, predicting it will enable people with spinal cord injuries to control their prosthetic limbs. He goes on to say that future applications will cure blindness, seizures, depression, and other mental health conditions. Eventually, he speculates, you’ll be able to record, replay, and upload your memories. Neuralink may one day upload and download thoughts. People with implants would be capable of telepathy—not just sending and receiving words, but actual concepts and images. “The future’s going to be weird,” Musk said.

“Menting” in Heart Wood is a version of telepathy. Like mental texting.

“Orion!” she called from the bathroom. Of course, he was still gaming. She sent him a mental message but got no response to her ment. Breathe in . . . out . . . in . . . out. She left Orion an urgent ment to contact her. –I.P. hours in thirty minutes, reminded her Nib. A pedi.cab is passing in eight minutes. Amisha dropped a handful of general purpose Pharm.food packages into her aquamarine crocheted bag for her midday food, then checked her route for shootings and outbursts and decided it was safe enough to walk. She needed to clear her head from last night’s dream.”

How close is the Neuralink to reality? With great fanfare, Musk held press conferences on August 28, 2020 to show off the Neuralink implanted into normal-acting pigs, and on April 12, 2021, showing a monkey playing video games with its Neuralink-enhanced brain.  Links to these are below.

As new technologies like Neuralink infuse into our future, I see bioethical red flags being raised regarding privacy invasion, consent, and misapplication by military, political, commercial, and government interests.

But I have an additional concern: that something essential to being human will be lost.

As Amisha grew up, she modified her Nib’s voice:

” …first upgraded as girlfriend Talia, then briefly Jordan, until she got tired of hearing a man’s voice. Eventually she installed a nameless voice, programmed to be both competent and comforting to her. Over the last few months, however, she had detected something new, a murmur so faint she thought at first it was static from her Nib. Now and then, a word would break through, then just as quickly be covered over by a wave of Nib drivel. Something was weaving through her dreams at night like a root tip seeking water, seeking her. She’d wake up shivering.”

It’s our inner voice that we stand to lose – the source of intuition, nudges, insights, and the unique expression of our spirit.

Technology will integrate deeper into our daily lives: A.I. leads us to our destinations, Google searches distract us down rabbit holes, podcasts fill our quiet moments, and every click adds to our profile. These probably won’t change. For me, the question is how do we keep our inner voice alive and vibrant?   

I wrote Heart Wood in part as a reminder that beneath all the technology, we have our unique, still, small, voice. The small oak desk is a metaphor for what connects us to a deeper, more universal, earth-based wisdom.  We can ignore it or pile our “stuff” on top of it, but when we finally sit quietly with no distractions, our inner voice can be heard.

I feel this is one of the most important things we can share with our children: to make time every day for the bliss of boredom. Just sit quietly, perhaps out in nature. Notice what you see and hear around you. Maybe close your eyes. And as Shima’a said to the future…

Listen to the Silence

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future

Winner of the National Indie Excellence Awards for Visionary Fiction.

2021 Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award’s Montaigne Medal for the most thought-provoking books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought.

Finalist – Self Publishing Review and RECOMMENDED by the US Review of Books

Purchase Heart Wood at your local bookstore (support independent bookstores!), here on Amazon, and in Nevada County, California, at JJ Jacksons, Reflections Skin Oasis, SPD, and of course, Harmony Books and The Book Seller.

Please consider leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads. It’s a great way to support independently-published authors. Thank you!

To read more about Elon Musk’s NEURALINK:

About "Heart Wood"/Dystopian Fiction/Dystopic Future/Speculative Fiction/The Future

Three Books that Shaped “the Future” in Heart Wood

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I’m often asked, “what influenced your creation of a dystopic future in Heart Wood ?” Although I’ve read speculative novels by amazing authors (think Margaret Atwood), my answer is always the same:

The three dystopic novels forever branded into my memory are:

“Earth Abides,” “The Great Bay,” and “Feed“

Each novel influenced how I wove the 2075 journey of great-granddaughter Amisha into my vision of the future. Coincidentally, two of the authors described a great pandemic that wiped out most of mankind – a premise that now gives me chills. That wasn’t the premise of Heart Wood, although I did mention “the flu” as something Amisha often endured as a child.  In Heart Wood though, there’s a sense of something else….

“EARTH ABIDES” by George Stewart. Written in 1949, Stewart details the earth’s transition and rebuilding after a virus wipes out most of civilization. Saved by the venom of a rattlesnake bite, the character Ish survives the virus and wanders through Northern California in what civilization has left behind. In vivid detail, Stewart describes the waves of transition the earth experiences, now freed from mankind’s influence. This book helped me let go of what I assumed is vital for the future. “Men go and come, but earth abides.” (Ecclesiastes, 1, 4)

“THE GREAT BAY” by Dale Pendell. Written in 2010, the late Pendell who lived in Nevada County, details the Great Collapse in California from 2021 to 16,000 years later. This takes place after a global pandemic in 2021 kills most of mankind – more than 200 million die in the U.S. in the first month alone. Chillingly prophetic!  Pendell moves forward decades and centuries at a time with detailed stories of survivors and maps that show the steady filling in of Central California to form a “Great Bay.”

“FEED” by M.T. Anderson. Another prescient book written in 2002. Although this Young Adult novel was written before smart phones (introduced in 2007), Anderson absolutely nailed how insidiously this communication technology would infiltrate and control our lives. Like the Nib in Heart Wood, almost everyone has a chip implanted in their brain that connects them to “The Feed.”  I listened to this as an audio book first and was hooked.

About Heart Wood – From Sandra Rockman, Theater Director

“Wow! What a feat! A really good read, mammoth detail and impressive imaginings with the Nibs, etc. Although sobering to read right now in the midst of the pandemic and the election – such an important story and sensibility. Thank you for all your work on it. The world needs this book right now.“

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future

The perfect gift for holiday giving; the perfect read for the times we’re in.

You can purchase your copy of Heart Wood at all local bookstores.

HERE: To locate your local independent bookstore. (Available at The Book Seller and Harmony Books in Nevada County) And HERE for Amazon (ebook and paperback)

Visit me at: www.shirleydickard.com

If you enjoyed Heart Wood, please consider giving a review on Amazon or Goodreads. It’s one of the best ways to support me and all indie authors. Thank you!

Climate Change/Dystopic Future/Environmental Activism/League of Conservation Voters/Wildfires

Wildfires are our future?

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Turbulent clouds from the North Complex Fire cover our Northern California sky – September 8, 2020

The sun hides its fiery crimson ball behind the gray pall overhead and I can hardly make out the ghostly outline of pines beyond my window. Friends report the sky over San Francisco is a dystopic burnt orange. We’ve all been breathing smoky air for days along the entire west coast and as I write, the Air Quality Index in the Sierra is Hazardous at 303.

So much for my original plans for this Blog: Is Elon Musk Musk’s controversial Neurolink the precursor to Heart Wood’s Nib? I’ll come back to that later. Today I want to write about something more pressing: Is there anything we can do to lessen these massive wildfires, or should we and our children’s children expect to live with them from here on out? Here’s what I’ll cover: 1) Wildfires in California’s future – my artistic literary vision and some scientific projections. 2) How the Paris Agreement is designed to help us locally and world-wide (which the president withdrew the US from, but many states are pushing ahead anyway) 3) One tangible way to impact how our legislators vote for the environment.

So here we are. It’s mid-September and I remind myself that wildfire season in California has only just started. As much as I’m grateful we’re not one of the tens of thousands who have lost their homes to this season’s wildfires already, and I’ve sent donations to the Red Cross to help those who have, I’m so aware that we all share in the destruction of our air quality, respiratory, and environmental health.

I “saw” an eerily similar scene years ago when I was writing about the future in Heart Wood and envisioned Amisha moving about in San Francisco in 2075:

The old vase on her dresser was shimmering red the next morning when Amisha raised her head from the pillow. Most days started this way. Though the rising sun was rarely seen, its warmth caused micrometal particles suspended in the air to scintillate in a vague morning glow, casting a sense of dawn across the city.     (Heart Wood, p 14)

“Micrometal particles” suspended in the air? Though I left the details up to the reader’s imagination, it’s not hard to envision a ghastly mix of wildfire smoke and the toxins emitted from a burning civilization, as well as pollutants from industry and indestructible micro-plastics.

By 2075, wildfires have already burned most of the Sierra as Amisha and Charlie head up into the Sierra:

Amisha took another swig, then returned the canister to its hiding place. “What’s up there?” she asked, pointing to the hint of peaks in the distance. “You askin’ ’bout hills? Not much.” “People?” “They’ve come and gone, mostly farther north.” “Oregon?” “Farther. Canada’s still deciding its immigration policy.” “They say fires took out most of the foothills. Anything survive?” “A structure here and there.” “Trees? People?” “Can’t say,” Charlie climbed back into the wagon. “Why are you going up there?” Amisha asked. “Can’t say that either.”  (Heart Wood p 93)

These 2075 scenarios were heavily influenced by the study: California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, 2018 sent to me by Ashley Overhouse, River Policy Manager for SYRCL (South Yuba Citizen’s League: https://yubariver.org/)  The study gives projections for California in 2100 (temperature, water, wildfire, sea level, public health, communities, and governance). Here’s what they say about future wildfires in California (https://climateassessment.ca.gov/)

Projections: Wildfire

From: https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2019-11/Statewide_Reports-SUM-CCCA4-2018-013_Statewide_Summary_Report_ADA.pdf

Impact: Climate change will make forests more susceptible to extreme wildfires. By 2100, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, one study found that the frequency of extreme wildfires burning over approximately 25,000 acres would increase by nearly 50 percent, and that average area burned statewide would increase by 77 percent by the end of the century.

TABLE 9 | CLIMATE IMPACTS IN CALIFORNIA UNDER DIFFERENT EMISSION SCENARIOS

Table 9 presents estimated impacts to California assuming compliance with the Paris goals, as compared to a historic baseline and RCP 8.5 scenario. (RCP 8.5 is a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario that would result in atmospheric CO2 concentrations exceeding 900 parts per million (ppm) by 2100, more than triple the level present in the atmosphere before human emissions began to accumulate).

SCENARIO
CLIMATE IMPACT IN CALIFORNIABASELINE: 1976 – 2005RCP 8.5 End of CenturyPARIS AGREEMENT 1.5°CPARIS AGREEMENT 2°C
Annual Average Temperature14°C (57ºF)19°C (66ºF)15.2°C (59ºF)15.6°C (60ºF)
Number of extreme hot days: Sacramento1.614.32.42.9
April 1st Snow Water Equivalent18.8 inches-74 %-22 %-22.8 %
Soil Moisture11.8 inches-10 %-1.3 %-2.5 %
Wildfires: area burned484.5 thousand acres+ 63 %+ 20 %+ 20 %
Sea-Level Rise (2100 relative to 2000: mean values)NA137 cm (54 in)28 cm (11 in)41 cm (16 in)

Considering the Paris Agreement on Climate Change Mitigation, you may remember that in June 2017, President Trump announced his highly controversial plans to withdraw the US from the 2015 Paris Agreement. He wanted an agreement on terms that were fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers – in accordance with his America First Policy.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Paris_Agreement

No mention of being fair to the health of our environment.

Twenty-four state governors formed the United States Climate Alliance to continue working collectively toward the goals of the Paris Agreement, including California, Oregon, and Washington.

What can one person do? – Start by supporting the League of Conservation Voters and by voting!

I love this group because they work hard to elect politicians “who stand up for a clean, healthy future for America,” and defeating “anti-environment” candidates – at both federal and state levels. The League of Conservation Voters tracks the voting records of members of Congress on environmental issues in its National Environmental Scorecard, and it annually names a “Dirty Dozen,” a list of politicians whom the group aims to defeat because of their voting records on conservation issues, and their political vulnerability. (The group also names a state-level Dirty Dozen.)

Check them out: https://www.ecovote.org/

Like Harmony in Heart Wood’s present time, I have despaired that one person can make much of an impact. Yet collectively we have more power. Vote to elect decision-makers who will work for the earth!  

Purchase your copy of Heart Wood:

HERE: To support your local, independent bookstore

HERE: Amazon (ebook and paperback)

California History/Charles Rossiter Hoppin/Climate Change/Dystopic Future/Eco-Novel/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Environmental Concerns/Feminine Power/Yolo, California

Open House at shirleydickard.com

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You’re invited to an Open House at the newly remodeled website dedicated to my eco-novel: Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future.

Years ago, when Heart Wood was in its infancy, I created my first website and blog. Having since outgrown the space, I’ve been working with a web designer to give it an updated look with new rooms and décor. Please stroll around and take a look!

There is one last room I want to remodel and I’m hoping readers can help me. If you click on the “Research” tab, you’ll see tabs for Past, Present, and Future. These are where I’m gathering Present data and evidence of mankind’s cumulative impact on the Future, as well as my family’s historical documents from the Past.

If you’ve read Heart Wood, you may share my concern for what we’re doing to our air, water, food, and earth, and the impact on our health and longevity – especially of our children. You can contribute by sending articles and links that I can post. Discussions welcome!

Thank you to Sky (who actually spent her first years in the mythical “Luna Valley”) for this first article: Why the World is Becoming Allergic to Food  https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-the-world-is-becoming-more-allergic-to-food?utm_source=pocket-newtab.  Cue the rise of Pharm.food!

For history buffs, especially my family, I will post all the documentation I gathered about my great-grandparents, Emily and Charles Hoppin of Yolo, California – the inspiration for the characters of Eliza and Silas in Heart Wood. In my research, I found previously unknown speeches, writings, and interviews with Emily Hoppin. She was a woman before her time and now, 100 years later, her voice can be heard! I invite anyone with information about Charles and Emily Hoppin to add to this documentation on my website.

Please sign the guest book by leaving a comment. If you see any corners that need attention, let me know. I’m learning how websites nowadays must work across all types of screens: computers, tablets, and mobile devices – rather like a three-dimensional tic-tac-toe board! My appreciation to Katie (who also grew up in the “Luna Valley”) and her design team at Urban Sherpa Marketing: www.urbansherpa.marketing 

Back-to-the-Land Movement/California History/Climate Change/Dystopic Future/Eco-Novel/Environmental Activism/Feminine Power/Heart Wood - Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future/Speculative Fiction/The Future

Heart Wood has Arrived!

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Now that social isolation has become the norm, how about curling up with a good book? The coronavirus will continue to alter our lives in unimaginable ways, but at least we can still enjoy reading! 

Heart Wood will transport you into the lives of three women of the past, present, and future as they cope with their changing worlds. No viruses, I promise! The most common reaction I do get to Heart Wood is “this gives me goose bumps!”

You can order Heart Wood on Amazon Here

The ebook version will be available online soon and Heart Wood will eventually be available in local independent bookstores. Be sure and ask for it and support your local indie bookstores!

“To my own surprise, I don’t expect new authors to be so sly or quick in engaging, holding, and enlightening their readers. Whenever I pick Heart Wood up, I always regret having to put it down. Shirley DicKard is extremely good.”
             – Gary Snyder, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet, essayist, environmental activist 

SYNOPSIS

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future

Deep in the heart of a small oak writing desk is a legacy that mysteriously connects three family women across centuries and generations in their fight for the future.

     Shima’a, an ancient woman with disturbing visions of the Earth’s demise, sends a message of warning, and a seed of hope, forward in time within the heart of an acorn to three family women:

     Eliza: Post Gold Rush in the Sacramento Valley, late 19th century.

     Harmony: Back-to-the-land homestead in the Sierra Nevada, late 20th century.

     Amisha: Dystopic San Francisco and the Sierra Nevada, late 21st century.    

Writing on the heartwood of the old desk, each woman is influenced by the ancient message as she views mankind’s escalating destruction of the natural world through the eyes of her time. The women learn to listen to the silence, hold the earth in their hands, gather the women, then do what must be done.

Heart Wood is a compelling family saga set in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada. Its characters shift from one generation to the next, as do the struggles they face in saving their homestead from the ravages of climate change, fire, and human greed. But it’s mankind that poses the most dire challenges to the land and to those who seek life upon it. Heart Wood speaks of the collective power of feminine energy to protect the Earth. If you feel you’re not doing enough or that it’s already too late to make a difference, Heart Wood may change your mind. An eco-speculative-historical-magical-feminist novel.