About 20 years ago, I penned (literally) a short about an older woman who, through a series of misunderstood communications, encounters her nemesis from years before. Alas, I lost those pages in one of my many moves. In 2016, however, the main character revisited me, and I wrote a new story about her—Mabel, an underestimated woman who’s fiercely independent, appreciative of beauty, and tenacious when her sense of what’s right and good is challenged....
Imagine a story about Melody Baker, an unemployed woman living in New York City. She has a PhD, huge student debt, and no professional job prospects. Deborah Ann Woll speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore (Creative Commons). (Picture Debra Ann Woll playing her in the movie version. She’d be perfect in the role.) Out of desperation she applies for a research assistant position upstate—and finds herself smack dab in the middle of a political campaign run by cynical operators, eccentric aristocrats, and absurdly horrible partisans and hangers-on, all scheming to elect an unwilling but convenient old-money recluse who has these quaint ideas about integrity, compassion, and justice....