Monkeying Around in a Good Cause...with Benefits

See this monkey here?  (No, it’s not me. I didn't grow a beard overnight. Hush!) This monkey marks the start of a new Silence in the Library project: Monkeying Around fora Good Cause: The CJ Henderson Benefit Anthology.

If it were just an anthology, Dance Like A Monkey would be awesome.  The list of contributors at the basic funding level includes some of the biggest names in the industry: Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, Maggie Allen, Jack Dann, Ed Greenwood, Joe Haldeman, Nancy and Belle Holder, Tanya Huff (insert fan girl squee here—I’m in a book with Tanya Huff and Jack Dann!), Gail Z. Martin, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Jean Rabe, Mike Resnik, Hildy Silverman, Janine Spendlove, Michael A. Stackpole, Anton Strout, Kelly Swails, Robert E. Vardeman, Elizabeth A. Vaughan, Bryan Young, Jean Marie Ward, Gene Wolfe, and Timothy Zahn. And, of course, CJ Henderson. 

The artists contributing to the project include Christina Yoder (who drew the wonderful dancing monkey topping this article), Alan M. Clark (who contributed the beautiful cover shown below), Mark Dos Santos, Ben Fogletto, Thomas Nackid and Matt Slay.

But wait!  Like the classic TV commercial says, there’s more!  Beyond the Veil’s own Sheryl Nantus is one of the stretch goal authors for the project. Yes! If you contribute now—and we make our stretch goals—you’ll receive another book’s worth of wonderful stories, including Sheryl’s!  And you know she writes wonderful short stories.  If you don’t believe me, check out the selection on her website.

The other stretch goal authors ain’t exactly shabby, either: Aaron Rosenberg, Alan M. Clark, Allan Gilbreath, Alma Alexander, Tera Fulbright, Cynthia Ward, Davey Beauchamp, Dylan Birtolo, James Chambers, Jeff Young, Jennifer Brozek, John Hartness, Maxwell Alexander Drake, John L. French, Jonathan Maberry, Keith R.A. DeCandido, KT Pinto, Michael Ventrella, Misty Massey, Patrick Thomas, Pete Prellwitz, Stuart Jaffe, David B. Coe (aka D.B. Jackson), Vicki Steger, and Mike McPhail. 

And every single story by every single author will feature a monkey.  Even I got in the act, as you can see from the excerpt of my story "Burning Down the House" here.

Why? One of CJ's favorite sayings is "I'll dance like a monkey for a nickel."

But why CJ? Why now? And what makes this project any different than any of the other crowdsourcing projects I've been involved with recently? I think Silence in the Library publisher Ron Garner said it best:

“The purpose of this anthology is to provide...support to author CJ Henderson. Let me start off though, by saying that this is not charity. We are not simply collecting money and handing it off to a needy individual to help pay medical expenses. No, what we are doing here is endowing a grant. A grant that will allow CJ to continue to produce the kinds of stories that CJ writes. Stories with the power to entertain and captivate us all. We are making an investment in CJ."

An investment with dividends for you.  Are you an aspiring writer, or do you know one?  Bestselling author Gail Z. Martin and writer/publisher Janine Spendlove are offering mentoring programs.  Both programs include an in-depth review of the first 200 pages of your novel-length manuscript.

Or how about a short cut to immortality?  You can be Tuckerized--have your name and characteristics assigned to a character in a published story.  Monkeying Around offers three Tuckerization options.  You can get written into anthology editor Jean Rabe's next novel, The Cauldron, or Danielle Ackley-McPhail's upcoming novel, Daire's Devils.

You want more?  How about a certain author and her equally demented spouse doing their best to live up to the anthology's title?


How about making them stop?  

I thought that would do the trick. J Just so you don’t have to scroll back, the URL is: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/monkeying-around-for-a-good-cause .  

Click it.  Share it.  Help out.  I guarantee you won't be sorry.

Jean Marie Ward