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When you’re thousands of miles away from a problem you want to solve, you do what you can. Although I live in California, some months ago I had the good fortune, quite by happy accident, to become involved with a book project for Japan March 11th disaster relief called Quakebook. It’s a powerful collection of true stories and images about what people in Japan felt and experienced during and just after the earthquake and tsunami. I helped edit the book, which you can learn more about here. Well, the world spins, and things were more or less settling back into the comfortable routine I had established writing news pieces for this humble website, when another happy accident occurred. Through the friend of a colleague on Facebook, I heard about a project called Kizuna: Fiction for Japan, an anthology conceived by an American expatriate in Niigata, Japan. His idea was to do with original, fictional short stories what Quakebook had done with true-life narratives. And he needed stories. Fast. He had only given himself a few months to put the book together and get it published, first as an Amazon Kindle, then as a printed hard copy. Well, seeing as how I had a short story about Japan lying around, and that the purpose of Kizuna would be to donate all proceeds to disaster-related Japanese charities, I figured I might as well send my story to Brent Millis, the project’s creator and editor, and see what would happen. And I’ll be damned if he didn’t decide to publish it. But for me it got even better. I soon found out that not only was I to be published, but my story would be in some pretty prestigious company. Very prestigious company. We’re talking science fiction and fantasy writers like Michael Moorcock and John Shirley. Yeah, the guy-who-wrote-the-screenplay-for-The-Crow John Shirley, and THAT Michael Moorcock. And these two guys aren’t the only amazing, world-class writers in the book. Some of the writers you may know, many of them you won’t but should. But as I did, I urge you to discover that for yourself. Although I am a contributor to Kizuna, the book is being sold for charity. So I bought the Amazon Kindle for $9.99. If you do the same it will go a long way towards helping charities like Smile Kids Japan give some hope and aid to survivors of the March 11th disaster. Survivors who are still homeless, dispossessed and trying to rebuild their lives. Parts of Japan are still broken and hurting; and like I said, when you’re thousands of miles away from a problem, you do what you can to help. Click on the links below to learn more about Kizuna: Fiction for Japan, and to buy a Kindle copy of this amazing and timely book. Kizuna: Fiction for Japan homepage. Buy Kizuna for Kindle from Amazon.
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