Becoming a patron of the arts

[pegkerr]

There was an interesting discussion on Steve Brust's blog recently, prompted by a letter he sent to Miss Manners which Miss Manners actually printed and answered (Steve was asking about the etiquette of putting a donation button on his website). As a number of Steve's readers pointed out, Miss Manners in her response didn't perhaps entirely

Comments

[kate_schaefer]

Glenn and I make donations to a number of arts organizations, and we volunteer for some of them as well. The most entertaining way that we're patrons of the arts, though, is that there's a writer we know who's working on a novel. We've subscribed to that novel, and every time she finishes a chapter, we get the chapter, warts and all, and she gets a certain amount of grocery money from us.

I recommend this method to all and sundry, if you know an author with a book you'd really like finished.

[avengangle]

I'm a member of PBS! Well, I think it just expired, but we'll be re-upping it after all this Xmas spending is done. As good as the public radio is in Cleveland (and it is), it's amazingly better up here in Minnesota.

Also, I regularly donate to the music festival I used to help run at my alma mater. For a while, I was going to donate to the institute that runs it solely to be put into a fund to get them new carpet because the old stuff was so ugly, but then the school changed it a few years ago on its own. Phew.

[comrade_cat]

I always wanted to do that too if I won the lotto. I still remember Harlan Ellison's painfully vivid obituary for Avram Davidson, my favourite writer. Davidson's writing was rich and chewy and like eating a chocolate brownie of the mind. His prose style always cheered me up when I was depressed

[skylarker]

I've had to focus lately on keeping one artist/writer/musician in operation.

[dichroic]

In Brust's case, as I saw it, the other difference is that people who love his books were begging him to make it possible for them to give him money.