Happy holidays, friends. I hope you’re finding peace, warmth, and some measure of joy amid those you love.

I know holidays can often be a mixed bag for many people, and this may be an especially challenging year. Messages trumpet peace on Earth and goodwill toward man, at a time when both may seem to be thin on the ground and far from our current collective default setting.

Many celebrate this time as an observation and celebration of faith, and yet religion has been used in recent times as a cudgel to marginalize and judge and a shield to hide behind, while attacking “others” for their faith, their way of life, their very selves.

This is supposed to be a time to gather with family in joy and love, yet for many their experience may be different, amid family divides and distance—and for some this time of year might be a painful reminder of the lack or loss of family or loved ones.

At a time so many of us are supposed to—want to—be filled with uplifting holiday spirit, many may be riddled with weightier emotions: anxiety, anger, pain, fear, despair.

And yet to me the holidays always hold out that brightest of promises: hope.

Writers and other artists seem to me to be the purveyors of hope. That’s what art so often is. The best stories show us what we might be capable of, how the world could be. They make us think, help us grow, broaden our understanding of ourselves and one another.  They connect us with our common humanity and offer a glimpse of the best within us: our resilience and even heroism, the chance for grace and forgiveness, second chances, redemption—the shining possible.

Even the creation of art is in itself one of great faith and enormous hope: exposing the deepest, most vulnerable, most naked innermost parts of ourselves on the page for others to see; hoping it might find a receptive audience, hit a chord, make an impact.

On the way home from visiting my own family for the holidays, I read a beautiful book by Daniel Black, Don’t Cry for Me, about a father near the end of his life who desperately longs to reconcile with his estranged queer son, but has been constrained by his own fallible human limitations.

In the author’s note at the beginning of the book, Black talks about how the book came about from his grief and unfulfilled longings to connect with his father as Alzheimer’s disease slowly claimed his dad’s mind and memories. Unable to achieve the outcome he’d longed for during his father’s life, Black said, he wrote a version of it in the novel—the way he imagined and wished it might have happened.

The novel moved me deeply, reminding me that despite our foibles and flaws, if there is love then perhaps there is hope.

And it reminded me of the power we wield as writers: to remake reality, improve upon it. To imagine what could be—what should be—and bring it to life. To illuminate, to heal.

To provide hope.

Perhaps this holiday season will mark a new awakening for humanity where we remember what connects us and that we are more like than we are different and we begin treating one another as the brothers and sisters we are, with respect and decency.

Perhaps those of faith will reconnect with the messages of their religion and work to live more of those tenets in their everyday lives, treating others as they would want to be treated, loving one another as their brother, judging not, living in the true spirit of generosity and goodwill that so many religions teach.

Perhaps this will be the year our families come closer together, let go of old resentments, accept one another for who they are and celebrate being together, and those who may be alone find themselves on the receiving end of inclusion and caring.

None of it can ever happen if we can’t imagine the hope of it. And writers are so often the ones who shepherd the flame of that hope, keep it lit, and help ignite that spark for others.

Happy holidays, my friends. I’m so grateful for all of you and the work you do. And I wish you the warmth of that spark for yourself, if yours is flickering this year.

With love,

Tiffany