Buy Hagridden and help fight hate

In the past month, Americans have seen our darkest underbelly — our racists, our hate groups — crawl out from under their rocks and take to the streets to incite and commit violence and, in some cases, to commit murder and terrorism. Really, this has been bubbling up like some foul odor from our boggier subcultures for at least a few years now, if not longer, but it’s been especially visible in recent weeks. It’s been an ugly thing to confront, as a nation, but the uglier truth is that these people have always been here. For years, for decades. They’re just feeling braver these days, so it’s up to all of us to remind them that they were hiding under rocks all this time for a reason.

Some of us are issuing those reminders with our bodies, taking to the streets to peacefully outnumber the hate groups. Others are donating money to organizations that fight these hate groups in the courts. Others are putting their words to work. I’m trying to do all three, but right now, the latter two options are more readily available to me, so I am using my work as an author to help support the Southern Poverty Law Center.

One of the primary missions of the Southern Poverty Law Center is to fight back against white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other hate groups, which is why I’m a member. But their work is getting larger and so I am trying to give them a little more funding, which is why I have decided to donate all my proceeds from Hagridden for the month of September to the SPLC. All my royalties, all my profits from the books I sell at readings, everything.

Every time you buy a copy of Hagridden — for yourself or as a gift, or both — I’ll donate the profit from that sale to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

That’s not going to be a lot, honestly — we writers don’t make much — but how much that amount winds up being depends mostly on you all. So if you already have a copy, buy one for a friend, or ask your local library to put a copy on the shelf, or tell other people about it so they can buy a copy. Write a review on Goodreads or Amazon and share it on social media so other people can find the book.

Or — and I mean this — skip the book and just donate directly to the SPLC. I’m not worried about how many books I sell in September because I’m not keeping any of that money anyway; I’m only interested in directing money to the SPLC, so if you would prefer to donate to them directly, please do!

We’re not in September yet, but I’m starting the fundraising early (if you follow me on social media, you’ll know that I technically started this on August 19, which is Hagridden‘s birthday). I will continue this fundraising offer through the whole month of September. In fact, on October 3, I will be a featured reader at the 3rd Annual Creative Colloquy Crawl here in Tacoma, Washington (see my Events page for details), so I’ll stretch this out an extra few days and donate my sales from that event, too.

Of course, this work will carry on long past a one-month fundraiser. We all need to be out there doing as much as we are able to stand up to hate, speak out against racism, and condemn violence unequivocally. So whatever you do, dear readers, please keep doing that.