Publishing the Resistance
Dissident writers need brave publishers
Books are being banned everywhere. Before a book or story can be banned, it must be written and published. During the first Trump Administration, my friend Bob Brown started a small press, B-Cubed. Many of the books he’s published are anthologies directly hitting back at Trump. The most recent is “Alternative Liberties.” The day Trump was elected, Bob called on his friends and authors to write for it, and the book was released on January 20, 2025; inauguration day.
On the surface, Bob looks more like a standard conservative. He’s from the South. He has a decided drawl, a bushy beard, and a folksy way of talking that’s downright rambling sometimes. He tells stories. He bakes cakes for people. He’s not, in any way, the epitome of a city liberal. I love it that he’s an oddball with a passion for speaking up and helping others to speak up, too.
I asked Bob why he started the press. He said:
When Trump was elected, I wrote a disposable story about his inauguration and posted it online. It was suggested that I make an anthology. I said okay. That’s how it started. I keep doing it because somebody has to, and there is a team of people dedicated to supporting it that I don’t want to let down.
He does have a great team. I know Bob, and most of the team. We often attend the same writing retreat in Washington state and go to many of the same science fiction conventions. Bob has published some of my work. One of his co-editors is the Seattle writer, Karen Anderson. When I asked Karen why this work is important to her, she said…
….it’s simply instinctive. My father, a physicist, raised me to think analytically, to look at something that feels wrong and ask “Why?” And “What’s could happen if this goes on?” “What are the costs and risk of trying to do something about it?” He taught me to read using Herblock political cartoons. And he took me to hear Shirley Chisholm during her 1972 presidential campaign.
The risks of publishing dissent are growing. When Bob started B Cubed, it didn’t feel dangerous to publish…well, anything. America bubbled and frothed with speech of all kinds. Left wing. Right wing. Buddhism. Christianity. Music. Cooking. Whatever. It was okay for almost anyone to say anything, in print or otherwise. Which is a fundamental part of America.
It doesn’t feel quite so safe anymore. Before I sent Bob the story for Alternative Liberties, “A Better President,” I hesitated. But I was already known for this kind of work (among other writing). So what was one more story? I checked with my wife, took a deep breath, and pushed send. Silence is worse than danger.
Bob intends to keep publishing. He has a blog every Sunday morning, which almost always has a political undertone (or overtone). It’s quirky. You can find it on YouTube.
It takes courage to publish stories that actively disagree with an increasingly authoritarian administration. Trump is no friend to the arts. He’s attempting to deeply damage the Smithsonian, and what he’s done to the Kennedy Center is a travesty. The National Endowment for the Arts may be cut by 80%. The list is longer than this.
Still, I haven’t seen or heard anything credible about the current administration targeting neighborhood artists and writers yet. At least not those of us who arean’t wildly famous. That doesn’t make it inconceivable.
Way back in the first Trump administration, in her April 6th 2018 blog post, Heather Cox Richardson mused about the same topic in response to news that the Department of Homeland Security was compiling lists of influencers including notations about their “sentiments.” She added, “I do know that it’s a funny thing as an American to realize that saying or writing something could lead to imprisonment torture, or death.”
By the way, if you aren’t following Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters’ from an American" yet, I suggest you pop over and take a look. That’s the non-fiction version of speaking truth to power, and in a very factual and measured way. You can find it on Substack and elsewhere.
Back to fiction, Bob Brown’s B Cubed press is creating a strong outlet for dissident voices. This may be becoming a dangerous thing to do, even here in America. I’ll close with a comment from Karen:
I’m now getting ready to publish Patti 209—Fifteen Tales of the Very Near Future, a collection of my politically themed short fiction. Two-thirds of the stories were originally published in B Cubed Press anthologies. And, yes, I now have people asking me if I really want my name on the cover of a political anthology about resistance. I'm privileged in many ways, and don’t have children, so I figure it’s a risk worth taking. If just one reader is inspired to constructive action by one of the stories, I feel as though I’ll have a serious win.
In case you want to pick up some of Karen’s work, she writes as K.G. Anderson. Consider dropping by and purchasing anything B Cubed has published. The entire team at B Cubed is as courageous as Bob and Karen, and the work they are doing matters.
Full disclosure: I have had two stories appear in B Cubed Press anthologies. One is “A Better President,” in Alternative Liberties, and the other is “Maybe the Monarchs,” in After the Orange.
Related and supporting links:
CNN: Trump’s retribution sends a chilling message to dissenters