Day: May 12, 2021

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Writers Are Never Just Writers

carolyncordon


Yes I’m a writer, but I’m a wife, daughter, mother, dog lover, community person, and many other things too. I am also a person living with Multiple Sclerosis.

As that last one, I’ve just begun fundraising for the MS Society SA & NT, and held an event at the most recent Gawler Poets at the Pub event on the last Sunday of April. A reasonable amount of money was raised, and I say thank you to everyone there who helped with giving my fundraising a good boost!

I’ve set myself the target of raising $1000 by the end of May, and currently have more than $220, so I’m on the way, but I have to keep moving with it, or my efforts will peter out, and not be as exciting (and useful) as I’m hoping for.

I’ve never really done a big fundraising thing before, and I’m grateful for the help from my writing colleagues, the MS society, and the two venues I attend regularly, the Prince Albert Hotel in Gawler, and Gallery 14 in Hamley Bridge, who have assisted me with this.

I will have my official collection tin, and brochures and stickers, and I will be chatting with people about how MS is for me, and how it can be for other people, some of whom have far worse symptoms than I currently am having.

My MS life is not that much of a trouble at the moment, my medication is easy to take (one tablet a day) and it seems to be working well for me. I live a relatively stress-free life, and try to eat a nutritionally sound diet (most of the time, oops with that lovely waffle the other day at the Prince Albert Hotel! It was worth it!)

So yes, I am now a fundraiser, and will be for all of May, if you see me, ask me about MS, and if you can, put some money in my tin. Raising awareness is important as well as raising money. Did you know that of the people in Australia with MS, 3 out of 4 of them are women? And even though men are less likely to have MS than women are, men tend to be more badly affected than women …

Why is this so? Who knows, not me, but I’d love to chat with people about some of my ideas on the subject, and others, relating to MS!

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Anthology Getting Even Closer To Being Print-Ready!

carolyncordon

OK, so if you know me and my writing, you may well know what the Anthology mentioned in the heading of this post is. For those who don’t know, this particular is possibly the biggest and most important writing thing I’ve done yet.

The Anthology is “Plague Invasion” subtitled “Creative Writing Responses to Covid-19”. I put out a call for submissions to this project last year, and the submissions rolled in, and kept on rolling in right up to the end date for it. I was overrun by an amazing variety of fantastic works all about Covid-19, the thing that has turned so many things upside down, and sideways.

So I had poetry, and prose, fiction and non fiction, and had to organise it all in a way that makes sense, and is easy enough to navigate for the interested reader. I could have gone with ‘theme’, but that would have been beyond me in terms of the work that might require, and I feel that may be limiting to some extent anyway.

Instead, I took the easiest way, and split the anthology in two sections, Poetry first, then Prose. And the pieces are in alphabetical order, based on the surname of the relevant writer. Simple, easy to work with and now almost all done!

I’ve spoken with the printer I wanted to use, and they have agreed to do the work, and have seen a first draft of the anthology, as has the person I approached for a foreword for the book, who has done that, and sent it to me, so is in the anthology, and the same for the person I approached for the back blurb.

So, I have the back cover done, a front cover on the way and almost done, and almost all of the inside matter of the book in place and ready. The next thing I needed to get done was getting the official agreement to publish, from each contributor, which is almost all done.

Most of the pieces in the book are from Australian poets and writers, but it was a thrill to get great works from writers overseas as well. Having such responses adds to the anthology, in terms of greater ‘oomph’ and cachet. it adds to the cost of sending the free copy out to each contributor too, of course, but I’m fine with that, and feel further book sales will cover that.

Contributors will be able to purchase further copies at a reduce rate, and the book will be available for purchase by the public, and libraries. So obviously i am going to have to be the book marketer, as well as the editor, and contributor also. And for such an important work, I am more than happy to put money into the project.

So, there is a date set in place for the launch of the book, and as soon as I have this anthology with the printer, (which will happen by mid next week, I hope), I will announce the details of when and where “Plague Invasion” will be launched. I’m so close to announcing this, it is exciting, and feels incredible that little old me, could achieve such a big and important thing!