Some Good News...
...like a last-minute holiday snow.
I just found out that you have, so far, collectively donated sixty (60!) Story Club scholarships. Thank you so much for your generosity.
I’d appreciate your help in figuring out who we should award these to.
I’m thinking students (high school or college), big readers/writers, not able to afford it otherwise.
So…I know some of you are teachers - do you have anyone who might benefit? Or if anyone else has a suitable nominee…
I’ve set up an email account for this purpose:
storyclubwithgeorge@gmail.com.
For now, please only use this email to send me suggestions. (We’ll use it later for other things.)
If we get more than 60 names, I’ll draw names out of a hat or something, to randomize.
Thanks again to all of you who donated, some of whom gave multiple scholarships.
Happy holidays to all of you and thanks for making this last month really wonderful on this end. I honestly didn’t know what this would be like, and to say it has exceeded my expectations would be to greatly understate things. Has it made me happy? Inspired me? Improved my opinion of mankind?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Fondly,
George
P.S. Get in on the fun here:
A sad note: Joan Didion died today at age 87. All the more reason to support future writers. The world needs you; we need you; I need you. Pens and pencils at attention, typewriters greased and ready, here's to the many writers, with us and now gone, who have given so much. Thank you Joan, and thank you George.
Perhaps prisoners who are using writing programs as part of their rehabilitation would be especially grateful for the opportunity of a scholarship. The image of journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal immediately came to mind as someone who has endured his life sentence through the act of writing and telling stories of his experiences.
I had not heard the news of Joan Didion's passing. The opening lines of "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream" (SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM) are something I cherish and return to over and again. It strikes me now how well that passage of Didion's would rival "Cat in the Rain."