DEZEMBER ALL YEAR LONG WITH WILD CONVICTION

Note: Click on photos to enlarge

When you preorder Mary Dezember’s Wild Conviction and participate in her efforts to promote the book, you never know what you’re going to get. But as with most things Mary, you do know you’re likely to get more than you normally would from just about anyone else.

I was a lucky recipient of quite the package some days ago, and while you have to do a few things—participate in the novel’s promotional activities—to be the recipient of such a package, it was far more than I expected.

As has been the case with all things I’ve observed thus far (her website, blog, Creatives in Conversations show, etc.), when you get something stemming from Dr. Dezember, a perennial educator, you usually learn something as well. Case in point is her tidbit about Gallatin’s wallet I got via email.

But the goodies in the mail are just the tangible ones that you’ll get from Mary and Wild Conviction. Given the continued, seemingly ever-present fixation on “race” and “gender” in this country, Wild Conviction’s attempt to cast a different hue on both conversations is noteworthy. It will be up to the reader to determine whether the novel actually succeeds in doing so.

I won’t be a spoiler—even a little bit— here, because too much has gone into Mary’s effort for me to spoil that. But I will say that it’s good to read a work that seeks to contribute something fresh to the “race” and “gender” narratives, while remaining captivating and entertaining. It appears that Inkshares agrees with me, because Wild Conviction was a winner of the Inkshares 2020 All-Genre Manuscript Contest!

In her own words, Mary has “worked long and hard crafting this story so that it is engaging, well-written, sensitive and significant to historical and current issues of human rights, equality and freedom.” In my world, good, hard work that seeks to improve the human condition warrants a looksee at least. And when such efforts involve talent worthy of touting, I’m all in!

In addition to her fiction, Mary’s poetry and community works demand attention. Click on the above links to explore Dr. Mary Dezember’s world of art and community service.