100 Stories for Haiti - An International On-line Collaboration for a Humanitarian Cause

A couple of weeks ago, long-time authonomy member Pete Morin got in touch to ask whether we'd let him guest blog about a particularly meaningful, creative project. We were happy to oblige, so here's Pete with more...



Since joining Authonomy in September of 2008, I’ve met thousands of people from all over the world and been enriched immeasurably in the experience.

This is, above all else, a social community – and aside from the scrum for the Editor’s Desk and all of the current food fighting that goes on within the walls of this place, some marvelous and inspiring things have occurred here. More than one group has gone off to form their own independent publishing enterprise. One, Diiarts, has published the novels of four authonomy members – Paul House, Matthew Dick, M.M. Bennetts, and Jason Horger. Dan Holloway (Songs From the Other Side of the Wall) wrote a complete novel interactively from his Facebook page (The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes) and spurred the creation of Year Zero Writers, a roster of current and former authonomy members too long to list here. And as Mike Wells reported last month, his Biggie’s Big Anthology Project is cranking along right now, thirty-five or so authonomy writers collaborating on a short story anthology.

Now, hundreds (thousands?) of current and former authonomists are conversing, joking, sharing and reading together daily on Facebook, Twitter, our own blogs, and other writing community sites too. I’ll bet Facebook has a dozen writer’s groups made up of former authonomers. To me, these are exhilarating and inspiring events.

But far and away the most inspiring example of what can occur when a writing community comes together is the project known as 100 Stories for Haiti. It is the brainchild of Greg McQueen, a British writer living in the Netherlands who watched the cataclysmic events unfolding in Haiti and could not sit idly.

On the morning of January 19, Greg posted a video on his blog saying: “Dear Twitterverse, I can't keep watching this on the news or trending on Twitter without doing something. I woke up this morning with the idea that together we could make an e-book and donate all the profits to the Red Cross.”

He called for submissions of short stories with uplifting messages. Within hours, news spread throughout Twitter and story submissions began arriving. Nick Harkaway, author of ‘The Gone Away World', contributed a story for the book and penned the introduction. Lorraine Mace, co-author of The Writer’s ABC Checklist(and former authonomer), and award-winning environmental journalist Sarah Lewis-Hammond volunteered their time to help with the editorial process.

By the submission deadline a mere week later, the project had received over 400 submissions. Those were whittled down to one hundred during the following week, and the full 80,000 word manuscript was edited and assembled within two weeks of Greg's first announcement.

The book will launch on March 4th, on Smashwords.com as an ebook and published as a paperback through Bridge House Publishing. All proceeds of book sales will go to the Red Cross. The writers hail from Austria, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, Botswana, Australia, Canada and the United States.

Among the authors are several current and former members of authonomy – Dan Holloway, Karen Milner, Lorraine Mace, Maureen Vincent-Northam, Danny Gillan, Jane Dixon-Smith, Greg McQueen, -- and I squeezed in there somehow.

We hope that the 6,000 members in the authonomy community will help us translate this effort into real assistance for the people of Haiti.