Read On!
“Having books around to just pick up when I want makes me feel like a normal person.” Resident at a transitional housing shelter for women in Seattle.
Four years ago, in the tag-team way people make friends, a group of Seattle authors found themselves getting together once a month to complain about the book-writing-and-publishing business. Each of us had a traditionally published book or two or three, so we were all scarred by the various battles, snubs, delays and disappointments that accrue to an author, especially one on the west coast dealing with the major New York publishing houses.
Being published is not all beer and skittles, not by a long shot. However, we knew only too well that writers who haven’t been published have absolutely zero sympathy for these problems. And of course our friends in regular day jobs also have no tolerance for hearing complaints from people who could work at home in their PJs every day. We could only whine among ourselves. So we did, at a local bar on Capitol Hill, calling it our “wine and whine” time.
After a year or so of this, we started to even bore ourselves, so we decided to DO something. What? Well, something that would support and encourage writers, readers and booksellers in the Pacific Northwest. After all, that was the ocean we swam in—let’s make sure it remains healthy and productive.
So we named ourselves Seattle7Writers, became a nonprofit organization, put up a website and went to work. We give writing workshops, raise money for grants to local literacy organizations, and collect and donate books to homeless shelters, detention centers, recovery and transitional facilities, and food banks—anywhere people have less than perfect access to large libraries or bookstores.
To date we have distributed over fifteen thousand books to about twenty regional facilities. We collect books from our publishers, local bookstores, local book reviewers and from people who just hear about our work and want to contribute.
We pay attention to our recipients’ requests—shelters that provide only night-time use want only paperbacks because their clients spend their days on the streets and don’t want to haul around heavy hardbacks. Women’s shelter residents don’t want to read about graphic violence against women, because they’ve lived it and don’t find it an entertaining topic. None of our readers need books about ways to resolve rich people’s angst or how to plan a month’s vacation sailing in the Mediterranean.
What they do want is what we all want from books: to pass the time with a new friend, to learn about a new place, to meet a new idea. And to do it all safely in a world that hasn’t been particularly safe or comfortable in the past.
So here’s to giving away books on this holiday season! And here’s a toast to the most important people in the whole writing business: READERS!
See more about Seattle7Writers at www.seattle7writers.org
