when fandom isnt crazy
I usually lurk on the edges of my fandoms because by and large they are mental. But sometimes fandom does good. It does really really good.
A few weeks ago after the Haiti earthquake one of the fairly high profile writers in the Twilight fandom started this thing. She asked authors from the fandom to contribute a short story, a chapter, or an outtake to go in a special compilation volume which would be made available to anyone who contributed $5 or more to the Help for Haiti campaigns. You could donate to any organisation of your choosing that was somehow involved in getting aid to Haiti, in whatever capacity.
All you had to do was make your donation then email the receipt to the email address she set up and she would email you a copy of the compilation. The potential (for example if everyone who followed her on Twitter donated $5) was to raise about $8,000. Which would have been HUGE.
At last count the total that had been donated was over $75, 000. 00 Over seventy five thousand dollars!!!! Its staggering, really.
This morning i recieved my compilation in my inbox and it's 1806 pages long! I recognise a bunch of authors on there whose stories i read and a bunch more who i'm sure i will start to read.
Its such a simple idea really and i'm so pleased its done so well. You can read about it here if anyones interested.
The power of fanfiction.