2020 wasn’t a good year for most of us. When I saw the submission call for Shannon Page’s Black-Eyed Peas on New Year’s Day anthology and its focus on hope, I knew I wanted to contribute to this antidotal book. “The Boggart of Campsite C47” examines how one good apple in a barrelful of rotten ones can make a difference.
This is a wonderful, diverse, and extensive collection of short stories (and a few miscellany) based on the theme of Hope. Which is understandable, and in some ways mandated by the past year of Covid, racial injustice and tension, political divisiveness, conspiracy craziness, and simple mean-spiritedness that has permeated almost all levels of culture. Of course, there is another way to view the past year, and that is the unfettered creativity and triumph of the human spirit that emerged in front-line workers, parents, teachers, and a whole host of others. And this is where the Black-Eyed Peas Anthology is situated. On the positive side of the line. It is, quite simply, an antidote.
– Paul S. Piper, author of Dogs and Other Poems and The Wolves of Mirr
Black-Eyed Peas on New Year’s Day is a multi-genre anthology. Fantasy, science fiction, literary, even nonfiction – all bursting with optimism.
Find it at Book View Cafe.