Fireweed: Stories From the Revolution

By Dan Michael Fielding

Sixteen stories and poems of triumph, resistance, and revolution!

Feel the wind in your hair as a racecar driver sacrifices all. Learn about the long road to Jupiter, and a potentially brighter future for humanity. Rest alongside a young immigrant imprisoned by ICE as she begins to demonstrate strange powers. Reflect on the dreams and ambitions of revolutionary leaders in decades past. Bask in the peace and quiet as the news stops–for just one day.

These and more await you in Fireweed: Stories From the Revolution. Read, be inspired, and join revolutions already in progress!

Named for the tenacious fireweed flower, a plant that springs up on burned ground as a testament to life’s ability to flourish under fire, Fireweed includes work by Lorraine Schein, Tina Schumann, Fabiyas MV, Robert Beveridge, R.K. Duncan, Alexander Mercury, Jendi Reiter, H.L. Fullerton, Wesley Spears-Newsome, Gwen C. Katz, M. Darusha Wehm, Alex Zalben, Dan Michael Fielding, Kai Hudson, Fernando A. Torres, and dave ring. Cover art is by April Kalde.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lonely Cryptid Media
• Release date: Sep 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005485160

Book preview

Fireweed: Stories From the Revolution

Edited by Daniel Fielding

FIREWEED: STORIES FROM THE REVOLUTION. Copyright © 2020 by Daniel Fielding. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. For information contact Lonely Cryptid Media (LonelyCryptidMedia.com).

Cover illustration Copyright © 2020 by April Kalde.

www.lonelycryptidmedia.com

FIRST EDITION: September 2020.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to April Kalde and Evelyn Fielding.

Acknowledgement to Reprint the Following:

Rabble-Rousing, by Lorraine Schein. First published in Little Blue Marble, 2019.

The Difference Engine by Gwen Katz was originally published in Well Said, O Toothless One, 2018

Fireweed

/ˈfī(ə)rˌwēd/

noun

a plant that springs up on burned ground.

Table of Contents

Editor’s Introduction

Poetry

Rabble-Rousing by Lorraine Schein

American Supplication by Tina Schumann

The Revolutionary by Fabiyas MV

Get the Hell Outta Dodge by Robert Beveridge

Witness by R.K. Duncan

Time Machine by Alexander Mercury

The Senate Judiciary Committee Calls a Sparrow by Jendi Reiter

Prose

Assemble the Change, Like a Puzzle, Yeah by H.L. Fullerton

Me Verán by Wesley Spears-Newsome

The Difference Engine by Gwen Katz

Mx. Kotto’s Notes on the Outline for My History Term Paper The Road to Jupiter by M. Darusha Wehm

News Takes a Holiday by Alex Zalben

The Wheel by Dan Michael Fielding

Sunbringer by Kai Hudson

Tears for a Mist by Fernando A. Torres

A Flash of Light in the Darkness by dave ring

Author Biographies

Editor’s Introduction

As I write this, my governor has just issued a mandatory mask order. A week ago, one hundred miles to the north of me a small town welcomed several hundred people for an outdoor rodeo. People lined the stands holding signs protesting the governor’s mask mandate. To the south, Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police protests continue in honor of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the hundreds of black, brown, and Indigenous people killed by the police each year, demanding change and more than willing to fight to get it. Protestors find themselves tear gassed, shot, and corralled by police as they struggle to stay socially distanced from one another.

Now, as it has always been, is the time for us to explore the contours of revolution and rebellion.

I am pleased to be able to bring you Fireweed: Stories From the Revolution to inspire you during this time. These sixteen stories and poems were curated from a variety of inspirational authors, each with something meaningful to add to the landscape of our revolutionary potential.

This material is historical, contemporary, imaginative, and future-thinking. Many of the concerns raised by these stories remain relevant even during the time of Covid-19, months after the authors first submitted these stories for review.

Immigrant adults and children remain in cages, as Wesley Spears-Newsome explores in Me Verán, where an inability to be seen becomes a sudden asset. Walls and borders still separate humans from one another, but Robert Beveridge offers a glimpse into a future without those walls in Get the Hell Outta Dodge.

As environmental catastrophe looms large, Indigenous resilience continues to be a bulwark in defense of environmental justice. In Tears for a Mist, Fernando A. Torres highlights this resilience in an account of the Wiyots and the wild condor, and Tina Schumann responds to the clash between white privilege and Indigenous courage at the Lincoln Memorial in American Supplication.

Fake news and post truth continue to be important concepts for understanding our current moment. Alex Zalben gives us a glimpse of a world without news in News Takes a Holiday, where the overwhelming influx of news and information doesn’t just slow down—it stops completely. As we consume the news we might think back to the way resistance takes an active turn in Witness, R.K. Duncan’s response to the persistence of violence that occurs even when we are looking.

Calls to protest, to resist, come in a variety of forms. Lorraine Schein paints a picture of how this resistance can be inspirational—even playful—in Rabble-Rousing. Change takes on a fantastical sentience as it is built on a foundation of peace, while violence remains an ever-present threat in H.L. Fullerton’s Assemble the Change, Like a Puzzle, Yeah.

In The Revolutionary, Fabiyas MV invites us to recall the work of revolutionaries now passed while honoring the work of Liu Xiabo. Jendi Reiter highlights the everyday resistance of women like Dr. Christine Blasey Ford in The Senate Judiciary Committee Calls a Sparrow. Resistance may even be as simple as giving the enemy everything they ask for, as Gwen Katz explores through a conversation between an earth sprite and a military Admiral in The Difference Engine.

These works also highlight future potential. In Time Machine, Alexander Baird invites us into a hopeful, utopic future and urges us not to give up. M. Darusha Wehm provides a road map to an interplanetary future in the form of a teacher’s notes on their student’s History term paper. Dan Michael Fielding provides a speculative account of the progress that can be made when a poor white family suddenly realizes who is really to blame for their predicament in The Wheel.

The revolution can be carried by anyone, such as by a racecar driver in Kai Hudson’s Sunbringer, or by a depressed and suicidal researcher and his transgender roommate in A Flash of Light in the Darkness by dave ring. These stories highlight the complexity of our lives as we live through periods of transition and resistance.

As you take to the streets or quarantine yourself, as you struggle to find work or find yourself trapped in an essential job, as you feel isolated or finally part of a community, I hope that you will carry these stories and poems with you. The revolution is complex and varied. It dreams of a brighter future and it works to enact that future one piece at a time.

These are the stories from our revolution. What will be your story?

Dan Michael Fielding

September 1, 2020

Poetry

Rabble-Rousing

By Lorraine Schein

Call a strike against this world

for a bluer one, a purpler one;

one where