Charity begins ad hoc

(I'd say charity begins ad hom, and I'd argue it's accurate, but since ad hominem is commonly used for negative, it's better to avoid it here)

My friend Peter Davis wrote this brilliant poem about Neanderthal charity.

My friend Shutta Crum started a wave of charitable contributions by writers for writers, when she offered, in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, to critique three manuscripts for free, and challenged other writers to make a similar contribution to the greater good of our readers.
Quite a few did!
Michigan's SCBWI email group was awash in offers of all kinds -- rhyming picturebook help from Debbie Diesen, magazine/internet help from Patti Richards, non-fiction help from Buffy Silverman, picturebook help from Boni Ashburn, school visit or independent publishing advice from Kevin Kammeraad, novel chapters and query letters crits from Kristin Nitz ... it's heartwarming.
Congratulations to those lucky writers who won the crits, and thank you to the generous writers who offered them.
I hope Shutta's idea spreads beyond Michigan.


Our daughter gave us some Italian cauliflower yesterday. It's the weirdest plant I've seen in ages. This link takes you to the Park Seeds catalog image. It tastes like soft broccoli. I hope Park Seeds will be charitable about letting me post the pic here.
I'd draw it but I'm supposed to be writing a book right now, and that's a pretty complex floret...

Back to work. <3