(no subject)

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Ways To Give:

aelfgyfu_mead linked to a_phoenixdragon, who has been running a little short on money and is doing tarot readings by phone, email, or skype.

starlady linked to gchisom, who is raising money to attend the Lambda Literary Foundation's Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices this summer in Los Angeles, a one-week intensive immersion seminar for up-and-coming queer writers. Her post about her acceptance is here and her fundraising page is here.

Amy linked to an Indiegogo campaign for the brand new Kansas City Opera Institute, focused on bringing opera to Kansas City and providing professional development and exposure for young opera singers (college grads up to age 36) free of charge for participants and the public. .

subluxate linked to an Indiegogo campaign to finance the evacuation of ancient manuscripts from Timbuktu, due to rising violence in Mali. It only has a few days left; it is a flexible funding campaign, so they'll get everything that's raised regardless, but more is always better!

Ink linked to a grant campaign for Sport Social, an athletics program for people with autism. They've just recovered from an arson attack and are in competition to win a hundred thousand dollar grant, which would go a long way towards supporting and expanding their program. You can vote here to help them win the grant -- apparently they're competing with a motocross racing app for the money.

Help For Free:

shanaqui is collecting names of people who have died of cancer to write on a t-shirt to wear during a fundraising run. Everyone is welcome to contribute names.

Just For Fun:

moyakite has just published a collection of stories called Unmaking. In her words, "it spans retold myths to urban fantasy to post-apocalyptic fairy tales to a novella with time-and-reality-bending lesbians having adventures on motorcycles. So there's a bit of something for everyone, I think."

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can always post items for my attention in comments here (or on any post) or email me at copperbadge at gmail dot com. If you're not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help (or ask for help!).

(no subject)

As with many of the books that I have in digital format on my "traveling" laptop, I don't know where Calico Joe by John Grisham came from. But I read it. Because, as the great Edmund Hilary said, it was there.

The thing about my experience of reading Calico Joe is that somehow I mixed up the author. I know who John Grisham is, I've read other books by him, but with the file open and the author not evident I managed to get it into my head that this book had been written by Stephen King -- I think I mixed it up with The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Which did lend a delightful air of anticipation to the story. I kept waiting for some monsters to show up.

Despite the fact that the monsters never did show up, Calico Joe was a pretty interesting read. It's told from the point of view of a man named Paul Tracey, the son of Warren Tracey, who in this fictional world was a pro baseball player for the Mets. And the rest of the summary is a bit of a spoiler, so I'll put it behind a cut.

( Calico Joe, by John Grisham )

Final Verdict: Calico Joe is a book meant for baseball fans and it's a book very much about men and their relationships to each other. The exploration of Paul and Warren's life, and of the way baseball has been played in the past, was less subtle than it could have been. But I have to admit I kept turning the pages and I never got bored with it, which is kind of rare for me. So -- flawed, but if you're in the mood for a sports-oriented tragedy, or if you like baseball history, it's a reasonably good read.

Exclusive (Avengers; PG)

Title: Exclusive
Rating: PG
Summary: Heroes In Manhattan: From Captain America's Hidden Talents To The Truth About The Hulk, We Debunk The Myths And Expose The Daily Lives Of The Avengers.
Warnings: Some discussion of childhood trauma and depression.

Here at Dreamwidth | Here at AO3

(no subject)

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY DAY and how I almost got into a shouting match with hotel customer service.

Wait, no.

Let me present you a fanfic instead.



Title: Exclusive
Rating: PG
Summary: Heroes In Manhattan: From Captain America's Hidden Talents To The Truth About The Hulk, We Debunk The Myths And Expose The Daily Lives Of The Avengers.
Warnings: Some discussion of childhood trauma and depression.

Here at Dreamwidth | Here at AO3