Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Cedar Rapids, Iowa suffered a terrible flood this summer and as a result the Cedar Rapids Public Library was nearly destroyed.  Federal funds are being used to rebuild but there are no funds to replace the 20,000-30,000 books destroyed as a result of the water damage.  If you want to donate books for the library or items that are suitable for sale on eBay to raise funds, you can send those to Mystery Cat Books at 112 32ndSt S.E., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 52403.  Via Publishers' Weekly 

Reposted with permission:
Unleash Your Story: Make a Difference challenges readers and writers to raise awareness and funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation(CFF). Cystic Fibrosis is the most common fatal genetic disease in the U.S. Thirty years ago life expectancy for a child born with CF was only five years, but through the efforts of the CFF and others, life expectancy and quality of life has increased dramatically. Unleash Your Story aims to help the CFF continue these efforts and to someday soon find a cure!
This event is similar to a walk-a-thon except that you never have to leave your house. Writers set a word count goal for the month and readers set a goal for pages read. All you have to do is sign up and ask your friends, family and fans to sponsor you.
New York Times Bestselling Author, Debbie Macomber is serving as this year’s Pacesetter Author for the event. Debbie has set …

It is estimated that possibly 100,000 people will have died as a result of the physical disaster and relief is lagging in the area. Smart Bitch Sarah posted a number of links for the relief effort. Ann Aguirre is hosting a contest for anyone who donates to one of the links provided by Sarah.

There is some debate about donating to the relief effort. You might want to read the comments and make a decision from there.

Free Rice is reaching the national press stage. NPR wrote about the origins of the computer program (written by computer programmer, John Breen, to help his son who was studying for the SATs) and the success (more than 8.2 billion grains of rice has been given away).
The Web site earns money from advertising and gives cash to the Word Food Programme. Some $100,000 has already gone to buy rice to feed survivors of a recent cyclone in Bangladesh.
Parmalee said the Web site offers a greater gift – the gift of awareness about world hunger. In just two months, FreeRice.com has driven the most Internet traffic to the World Food Programme site.

“We are all kind of dazzled by the power of a great idea — an idea that seemed to have come completely out of left field,” she said.
Read more about it at NPR. Thanks Troy!

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All About Romance is hosting a charity auction to help Hurricane Katrina victims. The charity is Hands on New Orleans and the auction began yesterday. (I meant to post about it yesterday but was, ah, busy with other things).

In any event, authors and other industry professionals have offered up a whole host of lovely prizes including:

signed out-of-print "boxed sets" by such authors as Marsha Canham, Linda Howard, and Anne Stuart
signed arcs from Nora Roberts and Meg Cabot
manuscript critiques from editors (Berkley, Avon, Pocket, and Samhain) and authors (including Howard and Stuart)

There are a whole host of prizes so go forth and bid