Category Archives: Publishing

Con or Bust is an organization that helps people of color/non-white people attend SFF conventions. To summarize, the idea is to help fans of color* attend conventions that typically have been by, for, and about white people. Each year, of late, there is an auction to raise money for the organization to distribute all year long. At the heart of it all is diversity. You can read more at that link; anything I could say would just be stealing the organization’s words.

This year, since I’m short on cash, I thought I would offer up my time–and I hope that someone will find my time useful! I’ve offered a critique of a YA or MG speculative fiction manuscript here. I think this would be a useful item for an unpublished author, and I hope that my time will, in turn, help someone who wants to take part in the very, very important in-person conversations, discussions, and networks that happen at conventions. Bidding ends February 24, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

*Before you comment and ask why it’s not for everyone, let me respond that it’s not for everyone, just like nearly every fund in the history of ever. Nonprofits typically are organized for a specific purpose, and when that purpose is providing direct support to individuals, having a very specific purpose is necessary to the functioning of the organization, not to mention maintaining a U.S. nonprofit purpose. (A specific purpose is good for all nonprofits, actually, whether they’re organized for scientific research, education, religion, sports-but-not-sports-equipment, or one of the other reasons that, in the U.S., the government and people think is so very important that they excuse the organization from certain taxes.) All this to say that people often question why this–and other organizations–have a limited purpose, and I’m not up for a debate on purpose.