Dear Book Buddies,

School’s back in session, so let’s talk about something scholarly. Your word for today is dystopian. Now some of you smarty-pants probably already know what that word means, and I kinda sorta thought that maybe I did. But then a writer friend of mine who’s way smarter than I am used the word in a sentence during a conversation (well, emailing, but you know what I mean) and I decided it was finally Google-it time.

So here’s what I learned – a dystopian world is the opposite of a utopian world. In other words, everything in a dystopian world has gone to hell in a hand-basket. Now I should have figured that out. My tenth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Edna Mae Roten, would be horrified that I hadn’t used my Greek and Latin Word Clues to break it down and see that dystopian and utopian were two sides of the same coin.

Anyway, a book that presents a plot and setting where everything is terrible and sad and there’s only a small hope of salvation is dystopian. Some people even claim that our world today could be described as dystopian.

You’ll be shocked, shocked to discover I don’t agree. Yep, I’m the cockeyed optimist who is all about utopia, which I’m sure you know if you’ve read any of my books. I write it and I do my darnedest to live it, too. So if you’re looking for dystopia, you won’t find it here. In my corner of the world it’s love and laughter and pretty butterflies. Utopia.

Optimistically yours,

Dream no little dreams,
for they contain no magic.

--Anon