Kamala Harris’ gender is almost a minor point in the current presidential contest. The two candidates differ so widely that the common ground may only be that both of them are adult humans. And even those attributes might be up for discussion.
To digress: Eight years ago I watched a debate, and later the 2016 election returns, with my then 98-year-old mother. Having accompanied her mother to the polls in Boston in 1920 after women got the vote (I’m pretty sure my grandmother voted for Harding) my mother was all set to witness history again. She fully expected to see Hillary Clinton become the first woman president.
Seeing Clinton stalked onstage during the debate had shocked my mother. The election returns (we were watching in Florida, where most folks in her retirement community were swaggering around in red hats) devastated her. My mom died in early 2023, at the age of 104. So she didn’t get to see what happened this July. It would have delighted her.
In June, just before Harris emerged as the Democrats’ candidate, I worked on and contributed a story (more on that, later) to the B Cubed Press‘ anthology Madam President. The short stories in the book, selected and edited by Debora Godfrey, are about the many ways that woman achieve and maintain leadership. The female protagonists in the book handle alien invasions, difficult book clubs, a contentious Home Owners Association, and intergalactic politics. Foremost among the tales, I think, is “War Zone,” David Gerrold’s story about a female politician handling an international crisis—only it isn’t the crisis she thinks it is.
Many of the stories, like “War Zone,” have breathtaking twists. I rarely write stories with dramatic twists, but for Madam President I told the story of a seasoned White House press secretary who doesn’t notice a history-making story that’s developing right under his nose. You’ll have to read “The Second Term” to find out what happened—and how the press secretary dealt with it.
If you buy Madam President, please leave B Cubed Press a quick review. And give us credit for the June-published cover that spookily appears to predict Kamala Harris’ candidacy.
