Angels of the Meanwhile: Update from Lizbet, plus TOC

Hey, folks! When I started canvassing for Angels of the Meanwhile, I knew the situation was fluid and likely to change, and it has, mostly for the better. I'll let Elizabeth describe how things stand (and tell some more about how she got here) in her own words.

Angels of the Meantime began because I panicked, and someone decided to be proactive about the worst case scenario.

In January, things were looking OK for me. I had just paid off some significant debt. My insurance had changed to a more affordable plan. 2015 was looking up.

On my first day back to work, January 5, I didn't hit a negligent driver.* In the course of not hitting him, I felt a strange sharp pain go up my right arm where it was braced against the steering wheel. Twenty minutes later it was unpleasantly tingling. Four days later I was in agony.

So I went to the doctor, and then the specialist. I had torn my supraspinatus tendon almost in two. Because it was a trauma tear to a healthy tendon, my doctor recommended surgery. Oh well. I had insurance, I thought. This will be OK, I thought.

Cut to months of insurance garbage. "We want four months PT before you can have surgery." Never mind that PT isn't recommended for trauma tears. Had I torn it all the way, they would have let me off with a month. My doctor appealed. Appealed again. Sent me to PT that made my almost unusable right arm totally unusable. Copays upon copays. Days I couldn't work because I couldn't sleep more than two hours before shooting pain woke me up and kept me there.

In the midst of this, Alexandra Erin, knowing I was out of pocket far more than I could afford, and while it was still uncertain how long this would drag on and at what expense, sent out a rallying cry to authors and artists: Elizabeth needs your help.

The response was overwhelming. Plenty of people donated money out of the goodness of their hearts, before a plan came together.

That plan is now a reality. Angels of the Meantime, a benefit eBook featuring so many of my friends who were happy to send original or reprint work, or, as Rose Fox did, donate their expertise.

Things aren't as bad as we first thought. I have surgery next week, thanks to my doctor's tireless fighting with my insurer. But I am several thousand dollars out of pocket. My maximum out of pocket is about a month's salary. I'll hit it next week. The vast majority of those bills, about $3k, have not yet been paid. The lost time since January and the time I will lose in the next two months also add up, as do the added expenses of recovery itself when your dominant arm is out of commission and you can't wash your own hair, much less drive. My local community has already been a huge help in making sure I didn't injure myself further trying to handle these basics - but gas isn't free, even though their time is freely given.

Ergo, Angels of the Meantime. Pay what you will shall be the whole of the fundraiser. Want to venture a dollar on over 30,000 words of everything from poetry to flash and short fiction to art? Every dollar helps. Want to venture more? Given the lineup below, there's a little something for everyone. And every little bit helps. Every little bit gets me closer to spending my time creating more and worrying less about who's going to get paid this month and how.

I am so very grateful to all who have boosted signal or already preordered. I am humbled and thankful for the outpouring of support already exhibited. But it's not too late. Check out the TOC below. Pay what you think it's worth, or what you can spare. Share the post, boost the signal.
You are all my angels. Many hands make a light burden. Thank you. For lifting some of mine.

*Because I didn't hit him & had no third party witness to the guy who fishtailed a pull behind trailer trying to make a turn too fast onto Sam Ridley from Murfreesboro Road until the trailer was perpendicular across my lane, my uninsured motorist policy had no coverage. I have no dispute with the UBI statute. I do hope that wherever that dude was going was *really* important. Sincerely.

So, that's where we are. Surgery is happening, and the expenses are shaping up to be less dire than they could be, though still substantial. Life has been hectic for both of us since this began, but we'e running now, and more to the point, we're running this pre-order through May 1st. That gives just over three weeks to get the word out. This is your opportunity to help, and your one and only opportunity to own this unique collection of gorgeous words. Our slate contains a beautiful mix of prose and poetry (including many pieces that straddle the lines between both), a mix of brand new, old, and out-of-print works. I'm very excited in particular to be debuting a punchy new piece by Satyros Phil Brucato, known among gaming circles for his work on Mage: The Ascension.

Though there's not a single guiding theme to the collection, be assured that monster girls, mermaids, witches, and wonders abound. Please order, spread the link, boost, make noise, share to high heavens. Anything you can give, even attention, helps.

-<3 AE

Angels of the Meanwhile Contents

Bits of Prose (Flash Fiction, Prose Poems)

• This Is The Place Where Lost Things Go - Kythrynne Aisling


• The Merry Knives of Interspecies Communication - Bogi Takács


• The Choices of Foxes - Sonya Taaffe


• Foam - Dusti Morton


• The Sweat of their Brows - Alexandra Erin


• The Dirty Fairy - Deborah Walker


Verse

• Beastwoman's Snarled Rune - Rose Lemberg


• Pain Shared Is Catching (For April Grant) - Erik Amundsen


• Gorgon Girls - Saira Ali


• This Is What It's All About - Lupa


• Blodeuwedd - Amal El-Mohtar


• Burning Wings (For C.S.E. Cooney) - Jennifer Crow


• The Changeling Always Wins - Nicole Kornher-Stace


• The First Wife - Lev Mirov


• Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas Lost at Sea, 1527 - Lisa Bradley


• The Secret of Being a Cowboy - Catherynne M. Valente


• Children of the Faun and Fae - Merideth Allyn


• Ivan Icarus - by C.S.E. Cooney

• We Named Our Grief Irene - Virginia M. Mohlere


• Fucking Doughnuts - Legoule


• Allison Gross Speaks of the Worm - Gwynne Garfinkle


• Sand Bags - Dominik Parisien


• Hot Wet Mess - S.J. Tucker


• These Are Days - Roni Neal


• lis pendens - Mike Allen


• Thread Between Stone - Bryan Thao Worra


Prose Stories

• Inside, Looking Out - Alexandra Erin


• Changed - Nicolette Barischoff


• Fire Flight - A.M. Burns


• The Legacy Box - Satyros Phil Brucato


• Illusions of Safety - Angelia Sparrow


Note: While we've got a quite bit lined up, including some fairly big guns, I have been told there's more to come from people who are still working on their pieces, particularly from the local poetry community that surrounds Elizabeth. There are a lot of people who want to help. I'm not trying to be coy or drum up more interest by not naming names... I don't want people making up their minds based on something I don't actually have on hand yet. I just want to make sure everyone knows that you might wind up with even more than you bargained for.

Pre-Order Angels of the Meanwhile Today

Estimated Delivery: June 30th. This pre-order closes on May 1st. Note that we do not have permission to sell these stories outside the context of this single run of this single volume, so if you want this, step up name your price!

Email Address (For Delivery)

(You will be asked what price you wish to pay after pressing the button.)



Update 4/9/2015: This post has been updated to fix a problem with the PayPal form and to fix the omission of C.S.E. Cooney's lyric piece "Ivan Icarus" from the table of contents. I sincerely regret both of these errors. - AE