Health Stories

The book matters to us because people matter to us. This is one way for us to use our love for writing to help others, and we are so thankful that you’ve become part of that effort.

Everyone working on this project (writers, editors, cover artist, advertising designer, etc.) is a volunteer. We really are sending ALL proceeds straight to disaster relief charities, which means we have no “budget” for advertising, sending out review copies, posters, and so on. That’s coming out of the writers’ pockets. As such, the best way you can help us is to let others know about this project.

Tell your local librarian or bookstore manager that you hope they’ll order it. Send a copy of our press release (coming soon) to your local newspaper or radio station. Review the book on a website, or post info about it on a message board or e-mail list. Put up a flyer or two around town, or add one of the buttons and banners below to your website.

And of course, please think about buying copies of the book itself. Many people have mentioned that this book makes a super holiday gift, especially with Christmas, Hanukah, and the other winter holidays on their way. It’s a practical way to keep the donations coming in to help people rebuild their lives, and get a great read in the bargain.

You could also donate a copy of the book to your local library or community center.

This book was born on the AbsoluteWrite.com message boards, where many of us gathered during the days after Hurricane Katrina and agonized over how helpless we felt. I suggested this anthology project. If we could get enough compelling stories to fill a book, that book’s sales could go on for years to come and keep donations rolling in to charities to help with disaster relief. My simple suggestion was met with amazing enthusiasm and we got to work immediately.

The world seems like a callous place sometimes, with strangers cutting each other off in traffic, neighbors arguing about fence lines, and people fighting about everything from favorite sports teams to political views. But things change in times of crisis. Almost instantly, we forget our pettiness and remember that we all belong to the human race and are, in some way, brothers and sisters. And we long to help even when we don’t have much to give.

This book was born on the AbsoluteWrite.com message boards, where many writers gathered during the days after Hurricane Katrina and agonized over how helpless we felt. Those who had money to give did so, but it didn’t feel like enough. Those who didn’t have money donated blood, or sold things on eBay to raise money, or gathered items to send to evacuees. But we kept watching those images on television, and the problem didn’t go away. It became clear that it wasn’t going to go away soon, and we wanted to find a way to help long-term.

I suggested this anthology project. If we could get enough compelling stories to fill a book, I figured, that book’s sales could go on for years to come and keep donations rolling in to charities to help with disaster relief. My simple suggestion was met with amazing enthusiasm and we got to work immediately. This project belonged to all of us, and we were going to make something beautiful happen.

What you’re about to read comes from writers the world over. Some are long-time professional authors whose names you may recognize. For others, this is their first publication ever. I asked writers to submit essays, poems, and short stories about strength, and within a week, we had more submissions than we could ever fit in this book.

But the generosity didn’t end there. No one just submitted a piece and disappeared. Instead, people stuck around and offered help in other areas. A graphic artist offered to do our cover art. Numerous editors wrote to offer to share the duty of editing the work on a quick deadline. Writers spoke to their colleagues and friends to ask for help with formatting, advertising, publicity, corporate sponsorship, and bookstore distribution.

The book matters to us because people matter to us. This is one way for us to use our love for writing to help others, and we are so thankful that you’ve become part of that effort.

May you always find the strength you need, and enough strength left over to lend to others. I hope the stories you read here will inspire you and remind you of just how little it can take for strength to blossom in unlikely places.

Wow! My first blog post for Stories of Strength. I’m delighted to see our beautiful new site– thank you, Richard Cobbett, for the great design and for donating the hosting! Which is a fitting start to what I’d like to say first:

You’d be amazed by how many people have offered to help with this project. It’s humbling and exciting to find letters in my inbox every day from people who believe in this book and this cause and want to be involved. It’s clear to me that people from all over the world know what it means to be part of a global community and to look out for one another.

I know people who donated $10 and people who donated $1 million to relief efforts. I know people who went to the affected areas to distribute medical supplies, and people who opened their homes to evacuees. Yet none of them felt like it was “enough.” We all want to do more and give more.

This is one way we’re giving more. We have high hopes, sure, but what fun is it to have “reasonable” hopes, anyway? Our hope is to raise a whole lot of money to help people rebuild their lives. Our hope is to raise so much of it that the person who opens the envelope with our first check inside will faint. (Um, and recover quickly, of course.)

Thank you to the generous souls who offered to lend their talents to this project. We had publishers offering their cover designers; photographers and painters offering their work; dozens of proofreaders, copy editors, and developmental editors offering to put their own work aside to help us meet an unbelievably tight (self-imposed) deadline; writers offering to distribute press releases and fliers and write reviews and articles about the book… in short, we were inundated with caring and support.

We definitely made the right choice when we decided to publish the book through Lulu, a printing company that could help us get the book out quickly. They not only responded with no-holds-barred enthusiasm, but they jumped right on board with our intentions and offered to donate their profits from the book, as well. We’re in the proofreading stage right now, and Lulu is helping us to format the book and get it ready for distribution by November.

With all of you cheering us on, there’s no way we can fail. We hope to make you proud.

Thank you for helping us make a difference.