Authors For The Philippines

On Monday 11th YAF author Keris Stainton put up a post on Facebook saying that fellow YAF author,  Keren David, had suggested that she ran an auction again for the people in The Philippines who were suffering so much following Typhoon Haiyan. Keris had previously done this when Japan was hit by tsunami and had raised £13,000.

For many of us the Philippines had become very familiar to us due to the ever bouncing and inspirational Candy Gourlay and her book Tall Story, which was partly based in the Philippines and where she originates from. This seemed personal now and suddenly masses of children's authors were offering whatever they could. Candy was our friend and her country was in trouble.

It is now the 14th November and at the time of writing there are 206 items on the auction list with still more being added all the time. There are gifts from authors of signed books, manuscripts (Meg Rosoff), the opportunity to name a character, school visits, meet down the pub (Anthony McGowan and Andy Stanton) to name a few. There are agents and publishers offering a chance to have your MS looked at. At Golden Egg we felt we wanted to do something so I contacted Keris and she kindly agreed that we could offer a place on one of our workshops

I cannot imagine that Keris had any idea how huge this was going to get again.  Even the likes of Armistead Maupin, who offered an advanced copy of his latest book, are getting involved. And according to her latest status still more people are contacting her.

Thank you Keris for doing this.

These Days by Jackson Browne just as a reminder of all those things we have forgotten to do.