A fundraiser I'm supporting

 

Courtesy of author and friend Michael Z. Williamson, I learned of a fundraiser by Keith DeCandido and Shoshana Edwards to help pay for some really nasty medical bills.  They write:

Shoshana Edwards, the author of the Harper's Landing series (Easy as Pie, Madness of Trees, Death Lives in the Water, Deathly Waters, The Secrets of Water), as well as a veteran of the Society for Creative Anachronism and a superlative quilter, is struggling at the moment. She has many medical bills and a business deal that would have enabled her to sell books has fallen through, leaving her with a big pile of science fiction & fantasy books taking up a great deal of space. Unfortunately, doctors don't take books for payment....

Therefore Shoshana -- who is one of the nicest, sweetest, most generous people you'd ever want to meet -- is asking for help, not just to help pay the bills, but also to clear out all these dang books. When you make your donation, if you take a screenshot of it and send it to shoshana at whysper dot net, along with your mailing address, you may find yourself with a book!

There's more at the link.

Friends, I know how crushing medical bills can be.  Last year I underwent no less than four surgical procedures to try to deal with kidney issues.  They didn't work, unfortunately, and my kidney will have to be removed later this year.  However, even though the procedures didn't work, my wife and I still had to pay for our share of their cost, and that was a real problem - until a very generous reader, unasked, offered us a donation that helped pay them off.  We'll be forever grateful for his help.  Now another writer needs the same sort of help, and we think it's a sort of "paying it forward" to ask for you to help her in her turn.  We've already made our donation.

If you feel so inclined, particularly if you've had to face medical bills that threaten to submerge you (financially speaking), please click over to the fundraiser and offer what you can.  Also, whether you can help or not, how about mentioning the fundraiser on your social media accounts, to spread the word?  What goes around, comes around, and we all may need such help one day.  My wife and I have learned the hard way, on far too many occasions to count them, that if we help others, we will be helped in our turn, as the Good Book promises.  It's a spiritually and mentally healthy way to live, IMHO.

Thanks in advance.

Peter