Want to say ‘thank you’ for things you’ve enjoyed here? You can support me on Patreon (and get cool/early stuff, see below), buy my books or music for yourself or a friend, or make a one-time donation to my favorite charity Cittadini del Mondo, details below.
Patreon:
I use the funds from my Patreon to hire help (web help, audio editing, personal assistant help) to let me do more things, like the new “Ex Urbe Ad Astra” podcast I’m creating with Jo Walton. Patreon supporters get blog posts and podcast episodes a week or so early, receive extra updates on my projects etc., and sometimes other goodies like music recordings or bits of writing-in-progress or unpublished work. You can support monthly at any level from $1 up: sign up here.
Where to Buy My Books, Music etc.
Currently I have four novels in print, one academic nonfiction book, and essays in a few other works and collections. Best is ordering them through your local independent bookshop, but you can also support indie bookshops by buying online through Bookshop.org, or if it’s easier you can order through Barnes & Noble or Amazon (my Amazon author page has the most robust list of my work in one place).
My music (which is close harmony polyphonic a cappella mostly about Norse Mythology or other nerdy topics) is released with the group Sassafrass. You can buy it as streaming downloads or physical CDs (or the DVD of the stage play) through Bandcamp, or through iTunes (which has Sundown and Stories & Stone) or Amazon Music (Sundown and Stories & Stone) or many other streaming services.
Charity: Cittadini del Mondo
Alternately, if you do want to do something as a thanks, please consider making a small donation to Cittadini del Mondo, a micro-charity I work with in Rome that runs an intercultural library, medical clinic, and legal services for refugees who fall through the cracks of the international refugee system. It’s a tiny team, just twelve people, and they care for about 8,000 refugees a year, so even very small donations make a big difference, especially as they work to protect refugees from COVID-19.
Italy admits a lot of refugees but provides very little help once they arrive, while refugees who are no longer in active danger zones become ineligible for a lot of international aid, and can easily fall through the cracks. The Cittadini del Mondo team started by offering their medical clinic but found few refugees trusted them enough to accept the help. Then they created their Intercultural Library, providing books in the native languages of refugees who have been cut off from their native cultures. Once they opened the library, the refugees not only streamed in to use it, they started using the clinic too, since nothing proves you respect someone’s dignity and humanity quite as much as giving them a book.
You can learn more about the team and their library project here, or support them through the Decameron Project, where lots of great science fiction and fantasy authors and poets are sharing their work to keep people’s spirits up during the epidemic, and raise money for the team. If you’re interested in helping more (with book donations or a fundraiser) email me at ada palmer at u chicago dot edu.
