Hey you guys,

There's only one day left until the deadline for Love, Wide Open submissions. I'm very excited to see what you all have for me. :) If we don't have enough to work with, we may extend the deadline, but I wouldn't bet on it if I were the gambling sort, so do your best to get it in before 11:59 PM Eastern on Tuesday night. (A few minutes over won't make me delete it, but just for a guideline's sake.)

Thanks for the time and effort you're putting into this. We definitely appreciate it.

We're about halfway through the time submissions are open, so I thought I'd check in and see how everybody's doing. (Doesn't anybody want to say hi, even? *laugh*)

How'm *I* doing? I, uh, don't have anything written yet. Or any ideas for a photo shoot. I have an idea for a piece I might write, if I can get myself untangled long enough to do it. It's a very sticky issue that has a lot to do with my personal history, and I tend to freeze up anytime I go near the subject mentally. Watched a movie about it tonight, actually, and came close to setting off a panic attack with the way my skin was crawling.

(Just in case you ever thought that ex-gay therapy was harmless, let me assure you, it has lasting effects, even if they're not the ones they claim to have.)

So that's it. Just checking in to say hi, basically, and see how you guys are doing. Thanks for being with us so far. :) It's very appreciated.

So yesterday was officially the first day that Love, Wide Open is accepting submissions for the anthology. Please, please tell all your friends, enemies, and frenemies about it. Take out an ad in your local newspaper. *laugh* And if you want to leave a little encouragement on this community or at our email address, it definitely wouldn't go awry.

Thanks for all your support so far, and for sticking with us. I really think we can make this happen.

If you need publicity aids, don't forget our Informational Flier, downloadable, printable, reproducible.

Hello everyone!

As you all know, submissions for the Love, Wide Open anthology begin in less than a month. January 1, 2009 marks the beginning of accepting pieces of work. We've received a lot of encouraging feedback and also have been in contact with Jody Huckaby at PFLAG National.

Part of me is convinced that this project is going to be a rousing success - and another part of me is afraid it's going to just sort of fall flat, that nobody's going to submit anything (I mean, *I* haven't come up with any ideas yet for what I could write), that it's just going to peter off into nothing. I sincerely hope that does not happen. How much of a success it is partially depends on how many people know about it, so I hope you're all being absolutely obnoxious. ;)

(Try not to get arrested, though. I can't afford to pay anyone's bail!)

There's been a lot of talk about gay rights in the media, but it's been mostly focused on equal marriage rights. I'm all for that, of course. I'm not entirely convinced I'll ever want to be married, but if I do, I want the option! And really, the fairness factor of it.

I do think one of the things that needs to happen, maybe even on the road to equal marriage, is helping people realize that being gay is not any different than being left handed. It's something that happens in a minority of genetic transfers that makes someone different than the majority of the population. You can force different behavior (making a left-handed child learn to write right-handed), but it never feels natural. You know being left-handed used to be thought of as a sign that a person was a witch in the service of Satan, right? People got burned at the stake for being left handed.

How ridiculous. Parents have learned not to be afraid of their children being left handed. I'm hoping this project can help them learn not to be afraid if their child falls in love with someone of the same gender.

I really hope this project is a success, you guys, and I'm really happy that you all are helping make it one.

OK, so I have made the corrections to the URL given in the fliers.

The corrected version is available for download here at Mediafire.

So sorry for the inconvenience! Please resume your enthusiastic sharing of the project now. *laugh*

I have the wrong URL on the new fliers for the blog, 'cause I'm smart like that. Corrected ones will go out this afternoon, so curb your enthusiasm for a few hours.

I promise you updated fliers... I give you updated fliers.

For download here at Mediafire is a flier that greatly resembles the first one we put out, except without the requests not to begin publicity and fundraising. As we are now equipped for both of these things, the current flier only gives information on the project and when we will be accepting submissions. In the interest of keeping everything on one page for ease of distribution, there isn't a lot of information on publicity or fundraising included in the text, but there are directions to our blog on LiveJournal and this email. This flier is approved for distribution to as many people as you like, in whatever form you wish, paper or electronic.

Happy Holidays for those of you with holidays to celebrate soon. As it's Thanksgiving in the States, let me just say we're thankful for you.

As always, questions and comments welcome.

ETA: Also, the initial post on the community has been updated to reflect the most current information.

All right, so I promised we'd have the financial side of things sorted out soon, and I was right. Here are some things you need to know.

I. HOW DO I DONATE?
I am SO glad you asked. We have a secure PayPal account set up using our email address, lovewideopen@gmail.com. Just donate however much you'd like there, using your bank account or credit card or PayPal account, and voila. The money comes straight to us. If you're not comfortable with the online thing, email us and tell us you'd like to donate via check or money order, and we'll tell you where to send it. (Because this happens to be my home address, being that I'm the one with the separate bank account set up for LWO donations, I don't want to just put it out on the web. You understand, I'm sure.)

2. HOW MUCH MONEY DO WE NEED TO RAISE?
We don't have a solid figure on this yet, but we think we're looking somewhere in the ballpark of $700-$1500. There's a big gap between those numbers, I know, but not as big as the gap between $700 and, say, $10,000. (I sincerely hope we don't end up needing that much, omg.)

3. HOW DO I TELL PEOPLE ABOUT IT?
That's up to you. I will be making up flyers (I say this a lot, don't I?) with information on how and where to donate, but I want to wait until my number figures are a little more solid.

4. IS SOMEONE KEEPING TRACK OF THIS STUFF?
You bet. My dear friend hermionesviolin, who is a very organized and responsible person, has agreed to keep up with all the donations that come in.

5. ARE MY DONATIONS TAX-DEDUCTIBLE?
We are not registered as a charitable organization with the IRS. Being that this is, for the moment, a one-time project, there's no real way to do that. If this evolves from a project into an organization, or a repeat project, I will talk to somebody about registering for non-profit status. However, the money will eventually be going to benefit PFLAG, who IS a charitable organization, so you might get off on a technicality there. To be honest, I'm not a lawyer and I don't know. I am in the process of opening up dialogue with people who know about this stuff and can advise me. For now, think of it as buying Girl Scout cookies.

6. CAN I DEDICATE MY DONATION TO SOMEONE?
Yeah, yeah you can. There is a space on the PayPal page where you can add a special comment for the staff, and there you can put in a short dedication if you like - ie, "In Memory of Matthew Shepard," or "In Honor of My Sister, Jill", etc. We'll be having a webpage up soon in addition to this LJ community, and the dedications will go up on the page as well as on a special post here on the community.

7. YOU'RE NOT SMART AND DIDN'T PREDICT MY QUESTION IN THIS FAQ. WHERE DO I GO TO ASK?
Comment here, or email us. :)

So, yeah: The short story is, we're open for donations now, and will appreciate any money we get. Anything above and beyond the cost of production will go straight to PFLAG.

I have the irrepressible urge to begin this with "Thank you all for being here." I really do feel that very strongly. So --

Thank you all for being here. I am intimately aware that this project is going to go absolutely nowhere without the energy and support you put it into it, so I appreciate your very presence. We have a few updates to things like the timeline, publicity, and fundraising that I'd like to address.

I. TIMELINE. My co-chair and I talked it over, and we now have a projection for the dates things are going to happen. We will begin taking artistic submissions on January 1, 2009. Start the year as you mean to go on, you know. ;) Submissions will close on June 30, 2009, so that gives you six months to get stuff in, and also gives me a month or so to wade through everything before fall semester at university begins in August. Not to mention giving our editing staff some time before our hopeful publication date -- which is October 11, 2009. We chose October 11 because it is National Coming Out Day in the US, and I thought that would be rather appropriate. It will also be one year to the day from the conception of the idea that grew into this project. Also, I hope to have the volunteer staff doing real-time screening, proofing, and editing as the submissions are coming in so we're not swamped

II. PUBLICITY. I think we're ready for you to start getting the word out now. We have an email address set up to handle inquiries - lovewideopen@gmail.com (in fact, if you're on that email list, you're probably getting a duplicate of this post in your email) - and I have people whose arms I've twisted into helping me if the email load gets to be too hectic for me to respond to by myself, though there may still be a reasonable lag time between your email and our answer. So tell all your friends about it - go wild. I'll be putting together a PDF flyer similar to the first one without the call for editors and proofers. We're still accepting those, of course, but these flyers will be just to help you out with publicity for the project. It will be available on this community and also by email to anyone who specifically mentioned publicity in their email to me.

III. FUNDRAISING. We're not quite green-to-go on fundraising yet, but I thought I'd let you know that we are in the final stages of setting that up and getting ready for it. It will definitely be ready by the time submissions go live in January, and maybe even a little before. You may be wondering why, exactly, we need fundraising for the project. (Most likely you understand, but just in case.) This being a not-for-profit anthology, and also being the brainchild of a Psychology major in her junior year of undergrad, we don't have a lot of start-up capital, and these things take money. The artwork for the logos, as well as the artwork that is now being created for the covers of the book, are done by a professional artist that we're paying. We will be publishing through a vanity press, so that's going to be money up front from us. (Rest assured, one of our volunteers is experienced with vanity publishing and has been recruited to shop around for the best deal for us.) Proceeds from the book would first have to go to covering the costs for these things before we worked up any donations for PFLAG, and I'm hedging my bets. So fundraising helps cover the start-up and overhead costs for this sort of thing. Will the volunteers (myself included) see any of this money? Only to briefly wave at it as it passes by. Anything that is donated above and beyond the expenses the project itself incurs will be added directly to the donations going to PFLAG. We're not seeing a penny of it. So I'll be sure to let you know when that starts - you'll be able to donate easily and securely online through PayPal, and I'm trying to work out exactly how you can donate through check or money order in snail mail if you're iffy about the online thing.

So, thanks again, y'all. With your help, I think this is going to make it.

Also, feel free to ask any questions I haven't addressed here.

Hey y'all,

Wow. You know you're a dork when you look at the community for your new project and go, "Oh, wow, five people who aren't on my friendslist who I've never met before! This might actually work...!"

So this is my way of saying thank you to everyone who's already showing your support. It means so much to me. I'm nothing special, a college kid who writes stories and occasionally sells them. I don't have any star power (yet!) to use to give this project the push it needs to really succeed. So having you guys support this and push it? Is awesome.

Feel free to chat on this community. You all have posting access. As far as I'm concerned, this can turn into an informal support group along with advertising the project. I'll be popping in and out, under this username as well as the one I'm more commonly under, mjules. (By the time I got around to selling anything, my mjules journal had five years and a mess under its belt, so I figured having a separate journal would be the easiest way to keep things simple.)

( A little about me, and why I started this project. )