Author Greg McQueen is putting his time where is heart is and leading a project called 100 Stories for Haiti. It is a book project whose sales proceeds (as an eBook and a paperback) will go directly to the Red Cross for relief efforts in Haiti.
I stumbled across this project on John Scalzi’s blog on Monday (the original due date for the stories) and just had to start writing. There is something wonderful about leveraging what ever it is you do to help (in this case writers donating stories and creating a book). I had wanted to do something, and we will be donating money directly, but this really spoke to me.
Another interesting aspect of this was the constraints: get it done now; 1000 words or less; and a story with “Heart, Compassion and Hope.”
They extended the deadline to today and I just finished and submitted “The Path of the Faerie King.” If the tears my wife shed while she read it are any indication, I hit the mark on the “Heart, Compassion and Hope” theme. I am hopeful they will select the story, and no matter what I am buying the book.
My hat is off to Greg and his team — this is an enormous amount of work they are trying to do in a very short time.
UPDATE: The story was accepted!