We celebrate Thanksgiving here in the US on Thursday. And although we could all stand to celebrate a day of thankfulness, the history of the Thanksgiving holiday is fraught with issues.
You can read about some of the misinformation about the history of Thanksgiving (see this National Geographic article titled “A Few Things You (Probably) Don’t Know About Thanksgiving”).
In fact, it wasn’t until the Civil War that President Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a national holiday, and the feast many of us associate with Thanksgiving became an annual tradition.
What has also become tradition is families battling over differences in their religion and politics over that Thanksgiving dinner table.
How ironic. A holiday meant to bring people together (inspired by the need for unity during a very divisive time in our country) will, in today’s political climate, likely drive many families even further apart.
I hope not. I won’t be celebrating Thanksgiving with my family this year, but mainly because of logistics (they live on the East Coast, and I’m on the West Coast). But I have a feeling, if I did, I might have a hard time following my golden rule of interpersonal relationships: no politics, no religion.
Just in case your holiday is fraught, let me offer you a means to escape: The Valor: Military Science Fiction Bundle from Storybundle.
Curated by Dean Wesley Smith, this bundle offers ten titles sure to spark conversation.
There are three WMG books in this bundle, including Fiction River: Valor, edited by Lee Allred; Skirmishes: A Diving Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Dean’s Life of a Dream. The rest of the titles are: Perihelion by Tami Veldura, Can’t Shoot Straight Gang Returns by Blaze Ward, Battlenaut Crucible by Robert Jeschonek, Trial Under Fire: A BattleTech Novel by Loren Coleman, Guilt in Innocence by Keith R.A. DeCandido, Invincible by David Bruns, and Stealing from Pirates by Stefon Mears.
You can read all about this limited-time bundle here.
As Dean says about the bundle: “You’ll make someone’s life a little brighter, and have hours of wonderful science fiction reading going into the holidays.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.