Humanity has been driven into the wilderness by the ‘Invaders’. They have been forced to live as colonies in the wilderness where survival is a daily struggle. Hope becomes harder and harder to hold onto as the years pass.
Then one day, a young man tells a story to an injured friend and the Hopeteller is born. Unsure of the power of his words, he finds himself moving the colony with his fairy tales. He will see his people through death and fear as they continue to fight for survival.
Enjoy this novella that is half post-apocalyptic journal and half fairy tales.
When my son Christopher came home with it from school, I asked him if it was Mr. Potato Head. He looked at me as if I was crazy and said, “It’s a clown!”
I’ve had this … head sitting on my kitchen counter for about three months now. It goes from making me sad, to creeping me out and back again, sometimes within the space of minutes. This disembodied head is my companion when I cook, when I wash dishes, and whenever I go looking for a snack. Unfortunately it’s never distracted me enough from a midnight snack however, to prevent me from getting one.
So where am I going with this post?
It makes me think about the lives our kids lead when they’re not at home. They have this whole other world when they go to school where they probably never think of us, except in terms perhaps of whether or not we’re going to make their favourite dinner that night, or did we go pick up the thing they wanted at the store. The way they slowly separate themselves from us as the years go on is both scary and comforting. To know that they may just have enough interests that have nothing to do with us, enough to one day have lives of their own secures in my mind at least that they’ll be okay when we’re gone.
Even if their lives away from us consist of creepy disembodied heads. As long as they’re ceramic, I’m happy.
The Hopeteller (Cover by Tracy Carrig) 
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