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Friday, November 16, 2012

Over 70 M/M Books Donated


Hi guys :)

Yesterday, my cousin Þóra and I went to the LGBT center in Iceland and delivered the 63 books we brought back from GRL 2012. 63 books!! With the books that have been sent directly from authors and the ones on the way, there will be over 70 new m/m books at the library before Christmas.

What am I talking about here? Earlier this year I did a donation call to my fellow m/m writers to ask if some would be willing to donate a print book for the LGBT-exclusive library at the center. It's a fairly large library considering that it only contains LGBT titles. They have non-fics, magazines, yaoi, DVD's, articles....and a very old fiction section. They haven't had money for years to buy new fiction and the most recent title I was able to find was from 2003. None of the amazing contemporary books by my fellow authors were available and it was saddening. So I did the call and got around 20 responses. I offered to take the books back with me from the conference to give to the center. At the conference, however, more than those who signed up gave books. Some gave their whole collection (one gave 10 books!), Riptide generously gave a whole bunch and I gave bunch of books I won/bought. The majority, however, was from individual donations and I am SO thankful for the generosity. This will be a great Christmas for the library and the people who read the books from there. 

Sadly, Arni - the director - was sick and was unable to receive the books. There was an annual meeting later in the evening, so I stacked the boxes in Arni's office and the board of the LGBT organization officially received them instead. We got a big round of applause for all the books and they thank you from the bottom of their hearts. Since this was in the evening, my cousin was unable to attend and therefor I had no photographer. So, no pictures from the delivery. I did take a picture of the 63 books we lugged with us back to Iceland (header picture), so you can see the pretty pile. 

Again, a big thanks to everyone - and the ones who asked me for the center's address to send books. Here are the people/publishers who donated books (I sincerely hope I didn't forget anyone):

Ally Blue
Anel Viz
Anne Tenino
AR Moeler
Bella Leone
Cherie Noel
Christopher Koehler
Clancy Nacht and Thursday Euclid
DC Juris
Edmond Manning
Em Linley
Erica Pike
Geoffrey Knight
Jessica Freely
JP Bowie
KC Burn
Kiernan Kelly
Kim Fielding
Marguerite Labbe
Mercy Celeste
MLR Press
NJ Nielsen
Prism Books
Ranae Rose
Resplendence
Riptide
Sara York
Simone Anderson
Taylor V. Donovan
TC Blue
Torquere
Total E-Bound
Z. Allora

14 comments:

  1. Just glad to be able to do something. Thanks for giving us the opportunity. Big hugs, Z.

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  2. Awesome, awesome! Thats some exciting news ^_^ you did good Erica

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    1. Thanks Darien. Believe me, it was a fun mission, hehe.

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    1. Yes, I'm feeling very accomplished ^.^ But I know the ones who donated also feel very good about it and I couldn't have done this without them.

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  4. Erica, you gave us all a lovely opportunity to do something tangible in order to promote something we believe in. Thank You for the opportunity. :) Oh, and did I give you a copy of Tian's Hero? I meant to. I'll be sending them some more books when I get print versions of the ones I'm working on now. And again, thank you.

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    1. You're so generous, thanks Cherie. You gave a copy of The Soldier and the State Trooper at GRL.

      How'd you like the chocolate licorice thing?

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  5. Thank YOU for lugging all of those back and I'm excited and hopeful that the books will be read :)

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  6. Great work Erica, I can't imagine having to get those books back after GRL. If I ever get a book published (or even finished...) I'll be sure to send a copy over.

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    1. Thank you, Kelly :)

      It was a lot to haul back, but so worth it. They're still registering the books to their system, hehe (it's all done in donated time - and only official librarians are allowed to register the books, so it's taking longer than I hoped :/).

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