Send R. K. Duncan to Viable Paradise
Donation protected
I'm Robin Duncan, and under R. K. Duncan, I've been writing and publishing short fantasy and science fiction since 2016. This year, I've been accepted to the Viable Paradise writing workshop.
I need your help to get there.
According to their website "Viable Paradise is a unique one-week residential workshop in writing and selling commercial science fiction and fantasy. The workshop is intimate, intense, and features extensive time spent with best-selling and award-winning authors and professional editors currently working in the field."
Only a few lucky writers are selected every year, and this year I am one of them. It's a chance to level up my career, connect to a deep network of professionals in my field, and meet some of my heroes. It's a chance for me to take the next step in the career I've been dreaming of and working toward for the last four years. It's a chance to learn from people I've admired from afar, who would never have time to sort me from a thousand other faces on the internet.
Going would be a completely new stage of my writing career. I haven't had the budget to attend any conventions since I began writing, and I don't have a lot of opportunity to meet other writers in person or pursue anything for my writing that I can't do from my desk at home.
My own income from writing and from a part time job is intermittent and unpredictable, and it often goes to help the household budget I share with my supportive partner, or to pay down debts from unexpected expenses like car repair. I'm going to make this workshop happen and live my dream no matter what, but I need help to do it without taking on debts against my very uncertain income.
If it makes a difference to anyone, I will turn 30 on the second day of the workshop, and this would be the best present I can imagine receiving.
$3,000 will pay for my tuition to the workshop, my share of a suite in the workshop hotel, my transportation from Philadelphia to Martha's Vinyard and back, and keep me fed on the trip and at the workshop.
The $1,500 tuition is due by August 15, 2019, and I also need to make my hotel reservations by then, so I hope I can be sure of paying my share.
Tickets, plane or train, from Philadelphia to Boston, and bus tickets to the ferry terminal can be purchased later, but they'll cost more if I wait too long.
If I raise more money here than I spend attending Viable Paradise, I will pay the excess forward to other fundraisers or scholarships to help writers attend workshops like this one.
It says in the biography that sometimes goes with my work that R. K. Duncan is an author mostly of fantasy, with a dash of sci-fi and horror thrown in. He writes about fairies and gods and ghosts from a a few rooms of a venerable West Philadelphia row home. In the shocking absence of any cats, he lavishes spare attention on cast iron cookware and his long-suffering and supportive partner. Before settling on writing, he studied linguistics and philosophy at Haverford college. His occasional musings and links to other work can be found at rkduncan-author.com
That's all true, but here's the rest. I work at writing when I can, and when I can't, I feel terrible. I need to do it. The rest of the time, I keep house, cook, clean, do laundry and organize for my partner, who works full time to support us. When work is available, I work ten to twenty hours a week doing linguistic annotation. I play tabletop RPGs a little less often than once a week, and I try to have a nice brunch every Sunday with my partner.
I have spent years waiting for lightning to strike in terms of my writing. I think this workshop might be part of that, but I still need help to pick myself up off the ground and make it real.
If you have something to spare, no matter how small, it will help. If you don't, and believe me, I understand that, sharing it to even one person will help.
Thank you
I need your help to get there.
According to their website "Viable Paradise is a unique one-week residential workshop in writing and selling commercial science fiction and fantasy. The workshop is intimate, intense, and features extensive time spent with best-selling and award-winning authors and professional editors currently working in the field."
Only a few lucky writers are selected every year, and this year I am one of them. It's a chance to level up my career, connect to a deep network of professionals in my field, and meet some of my heroes. It's a chance for me to take the next step in the career I've been dreaming of and working toward for the last four years. It's a chance to learn from people I've admired from afar, who would never have time to sort me from a thousand other faces on the internet.
Going would be a completely new stage of my writing career. I haven't had the budget to attend any conventions since I began writing, and I don't have a lot of opportunity to meet other writers in person or pursue anything for my writing that I can't do from my desk at home.
My own income from writing and from a part time job is intermittent and unpredictable, and it often goes to help the household budget I share with my supportive partner, or to pay down debts from unexpected expenses like car repair. I'm going to make this workshop happen and live my dream no matter what, but I need help to do it without taking on debts against my very uncertain income.
If it makes a difference to anyone, I will turn 30 on the second day of the workshop, and this would be the best present I can imagine receiving.
$3,000 will pay for my tuition to the workshop, my share of a suite in the workshop hotel, my transportation from Philadelphia to Martha's Vinyard and back, and keep me fed on the trip and at the workshop.
The $1,500 tuition is due by August 15, 2019, and I also need to make my hotel reservations by then, so I hope I can be sure of paying my share.
Tickets, plane or train, from Philadelphia to Boston, and bus tickets to the ferry terminal can be purchased later, but they'll cost more if I wait too long.
If I raise more money here than I spend attending Viable Paradise, I will pay the excess forward to other fundraisers or scholarships to help writers attend workshops like this one.
It says in the biography that sometimes goes with my work that R. K. Duncan is an author mostly of fantasy, with a dash of sci-fi and horror thrown in. He writes about fairies and gods and ghosts from a a few rooms of a venerable West Philadelphia row home. In the shocking absence of any cats, he lavishes spare attention on cast iron cookware and his long-suffering and supportive partner. Before settling on writing, he studied linguistics and philosophy at Haverford college. His occasional musings and links to other work can be found at rkduncan-author.com
That's all true, but here's the rest. I work at writing when I can, and when I can't, I feel terrible. I need to do it. The rest of the time, I keep house, cook, clean, do laundry and organize for my partner, who works full time to support us. When work is available, I work ten to twenty hours a week doing linguistic annotation. I play tabletop RPGs a little less often than once a week, and I try to have a nice brunch every Sunday with my partner.
I have spent years waiting for lightning to strike in terms of my writing. I think this workshop might be part of that, but I still need help to pick myself up off the ground and make it real.
If you have something to spare, no matter how small, it will help. If you don't, and believe me, I understand that, sharing it to even one person will help.
Thank you
Organizer
Robin Duncan
Organizer
Philadelphia, PA
