Image: 100storiesforhaiti.org
Seven days after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Greg McQueen, a UK writer living in Denmark, posted a video on his blog in which he said, “I woke up this morning with the idea that we could make a book and donate profits to help relief efforts in Haiti.”
On March 4, just over six weeks later, that idea will become a reality with the publication of 100 Stories for Haiti, an 80,000 word collaboration of writers and editors worldwide. Bridge House Publishing in the UK is handling the paperback release, Smashwords will handle the ebook, and the entire project has been done on donated time and material, with proceeds going to the Red Cross relief efforts.
So, where do the geeks come in?
How about Nick Harkaway, author of the bestselling post-apocalyptic, mind-bendy and ninja-packed novel The Gone-Away World? He contributed a story and wrote the introduction.
Tania Hershman, former science journalist and student of mathematics and physics and author of The White Road and Other Stories is in there, too. So are Alex Irvine (The Narrows, A Scattering of Jades), MCM (Vector, RollBots) and Pseudopod horror podcast host Alasdair Stuart.
Other contributors have publishing credits and pedigrees across the board, from first-timers to old hands, and the end result should be a wildly varied read (Harkaway has already referred to “the sheer weight of unrefined awesome contained within these covers,”) for a good cause.
