Help preserve the extraordinary stories of ordinary people

The Preservation Foundation (www.storyhouse.org) is a not-for-profit corporation established in 1976. The idea came to me when I was a book editor at Abingdon Press, the book publishing arm of the Methodist Publishing House. As all editors do, I had too many manuscripts to read and too little time in which to read them. Most I could decline after reading the covering letter. Why? Because they weren't aimed at our market. Despite all we could do to discourage submission of projects that were out of our area of specialty, we got autobiographies, poetry, novels, and all manner of interesting, but inappropriate, projects. Once we even got a book of bawdy jokes and toasts. I read it all the way through, I must admit, but it went back all the same.

In fact, it was often true that many of the most interesting projects were the ones that had to be declined. And it wasn't just because we were a religious book publisher. Many interesting and worthy projects were simply too limited in market or too specialized to interest ANY publisher who had to justify acceptance on the bottom line. A vast majority of such books were biographical or autobiographical in nature. They were usually by writers who wanted to tell their story or the story of someone they admired. Yet, unless the writer was a storytelling genius, the sales side of the table at publication committee meetings would have an unanswerable objection, "Who's gonna buy it?" In fact, even if a writer is Shakespeare reborn, it seldom happens that she hooks up with just the right editor. Sadly, the typical project makes its slow rounds, the rejection slips pile up, and the author grows more and more discouraged.

Thus, we decided to provide a way to publish these stories and to preserve them for future generations. Our motto is "Preserving the extraordinary stories of 'ordinary' people."

Since 1998, when we began our online publishing site, "www.storyhouse.org" we have published thousands of stories from writers all over the world.

Now, at age 83, I'm looking for funds to set up a trust fund that will keep these stories on the web after I'm gone.