Help the Economy: Sponsor a Writer

All across the world, living in conditions that are scarcely imaginable, suffering emotional hardships that no human being should be asked to endure, are millions of writers who could use your help.  Act now: For less than a dollar a day, you could sponsor a struggling author through the HopeWriter Initiative. Think of it. For about the cost of a used paperback at a library rummage sale, you could offer a ray of hope to one of the millions of scribes living in wretched apartments with five roommates or down in the cold, dusty basements of their parents’ houses.

Your generous donation can provide them such things as:

  • Printer paper
  • Top Ramen
  • Toner Cartridges
  • Gift cards to Goodwill
  • Subscriptions to Writer’s Digest
  • Crisis intervention with distraught parents and/or marriage counseling
  • Personal hygiene kits

As a HopeWriter sponsor, you are connected to one special writer who will know your name and be warmed by the thought that they have at least one dedicated reader in the world.

In return for your kindness, you will receive monthly, well-written emails from your sponsored writer, including snippets from their works in progress, as well as the occasional photo of them sitting at a computer.

You are also encouraged to correspond with your writer, and your letter, email, or Facebook post will offer these wordy souls a moment of hope in their daily struggle against a brutal, heartless regime that threatens to crush their spirits. In the end, your generosity might make the difference between a life of obscurity and bestsellerdom. You could be the answer to a writer’s prayers. Act now.

One of the many writers you could sponsor . . . 

Scott William Carter from Oregon

Gender: Still married male
Grade: Some post grad
Country: United States
Health: Very pale due to lack of sun exposure
Word Processor: Microsoft Word

 

 

 

 

  

New Story in July/August Analog

“The Bear Who Sang Opera” has appeared in the July/August issue of Analog.  The story itself was a lot of fun to write — a sort of Travis McGee in space.  (And if you haven’t read any of John D. MacDonald’s excellent Travis McGee books, you really should).  I’d been wanting to create a series character for some time and it took me a couple attempts to finally get it right.  In fact, I just finished another story featuring Dexter Duff, my intrepid interstellar investigator, so we’ll see if Stan Schmidt, the editor of Analog, likes that one too.

For those of you who have read some of my other science fiction stories, it’s set in the “Unity Worlds” universe, which I’ve used for a number of tales.  Each one stands completely on its own, but some of the shared details give the stories a little extra flavor.  Maybe I’ll put all of these stories into a collection one day, who knows.

Here’s the first page of the story . . .

The Bear Who Sang Opera
by Scott William Carter

The bear wanted his voice back. That’s what I thought he said, and I asked him to repeat it. The cochlear implant in my left ear had been acting up a lot lately — I blamed it on Targal’s frequent lightning storms — and I assumed he must have said something else.

“My voice,” he said. “I think someone’s stolen it.”

I took my boots down from the desk and leaned a little closer. “Your voice?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“But you’re speaking right now.”

“Yes.” He bobbed his big furry head. “Oh. No, I see the problem. Not my voice. My singing voice. I need your help getting it back. You do help people find things, don’t you? That’s what I heard.”

His voice was deep and gruff, but he sounded sincere. Of course, I was no expert on bears, so how would I know? Maybe bears were good at lying . . .

If you’re interested in subsribing to Analog, you can do so here.