The book I am currently working on

I am currently about 75% finished with my next book.  The title is "Sowing Freedom, Reaping Joy", and it is the first book in the "As It Could Be" series.

The book starts in the year 1854.  I think I may have created a new genre.  This book is somewhat Utopian historical fiction.

There are many post-apocalyptic dystopian stories.  I understand where they come from.  I understand that in creating a post-apocalyptic world, there can be no one to argue with the world that the writer creates.

I know that people will read my book and say "but that is not how it really happened".  What we know is that it is not how it was recorded.

I want to believe that there were communities like the one I am creating in my book.  Communities who sequestered themselves from societal norms by geographically isolating themselves.   Communities where people lived together as God's children, regardless of skin color, or national origin or the prevailing attitudes of the United States.

This community may not have existed, but I believe it could have.  And the residents of my community will experience the historically accurate horrible attitudes of the times when they venture outside their home.

And as the series progresses forward from 1854 to present times, the residents will continue to experience all the horrors that have been visited on indigenous peoples, people of color, and the white people who supported them, outside of Belle Terre.

Inside of Belle Terre will be a community where people treat each other the way I think people should treat each other.  With dignity and respect.  With genuine appreciation for the gifts that each person brings.  With no prejudice. 

I hope people can accept this historical fictional place as what it is meant to be - a place where we as a people could have done right by our brothers and sisters and not perpetuated the horrible discriminatory practices that dominated the years since 1854.

I'm not trying to rewrite history.  I am not and will never say that this story is not fiction.  But I think if we can imagine future broken worlds, maybe imagining past worlds where we didn't break the future so much is worth something too.