Due to a comedy of errors, it turns out that the ARCs from the CBS and the JMFMBE auctions were both going to go to the same person. That person has graciously relinquished her right to one of them. ravelqueen, you are the runner-up bidder in both those auctions, so this ARC goes to you. Email me at semonette (at) sarahmonette (dot) com with your mailing address and other information.

I certainly don't expect you to make $130 or $135 donations to both the Carl Brandon Society and the John M. Ford Memorial Book Endowment. Either pick one ... or give $65 to each. Either option will satisfy me.

Carl Brandon Society: $140
Scarleteen: $150
JMFMBE: $140

Thank you very very much to everyone who bid. You are all awesome, and I am beyond pleased that we've managed to raise more than a hundred dollars for each of these three causes.

vompirr, timefortea, and mykfreddy, email me at semonette (at) sarahmonette (dot) com with your shipping information. And if you want your ARC personalized--to [name] [some sort of message, depending on what I can think of] from Sarah--please (a.) say so and (b.) tell me what name to write. Assuming I hear back from you, the ARCs will go out tomorrow. It is entirely up to you whether you make your donations now or wait until you have the ARC. All I ask is that you do make the donation.

Again, thank you. Thank you all.

This is the post for the auction to benefit the John M. Ford Memorial Book Endowment.

Begins 12:06 p.m., March 5, 2009.

Will end 12:06 p.m., March 6, 2009.

Bidding begins at $25.

Okay. Here is the plan. I have decided to auction off all three of my ARCs.

One will benefit the John M. Ford Memorial Book Endowment.

One will benefit Scarleteen.

One will benefit the Carl Brandon Society.

As March 7th is the T-minus one month and counting anniversary of the official release date of Corambis, that is the day I want to take these ARCs to the post office and ship them out.

Therefore, the auctions will take place, concurrently rather than consecutively, beginning tomorrow, March 5, 2009, at 12:00 p.m. CDT (i.e., high noon my time, which increases the likelihood that I will be awake to start the auction) and end March 6, 2009, at 12:00 p.m. CDT. Doing them consecutively seems like it might end up with the last ARC's price becoming ridiculous, and while I obviously want to raise as much money as I can, I also want as many people as possible to feel like they have a chance. You may bid in one, two, or all three auctions; however, in the stunningly unlikely event of one person winning more than one auction, I'm going to ask that you take only one ARC and let the next highest bidder in the other auction(s?) win.

Each ARC will be signed and hand-corrected by me in, yes, purple ink (Lamy purple and a Lamy Safari Vista Clear, for them as like to know these things). I will also personalize the ARCs if the winners so desire, but will leave that up to them to decide.

Yes, I will send ARCs anywhere in the world, so long as you make your donations in a form that the Library Foundation of Hennepin County, Scarleteen, and the Carl Brandon Society can accept (I believe they all take PayPal).

No, you do not have to have a LiveJournal account to bid. I ask, however, if you do not have an LJ, that you sign each bid with an email address.

Please feel free to announce this auction on your blogs.

ETA: I would also ask, although this is a REQUEST, not a demand or requirement, that if you receive an ARC, you blog about it. That holds whether you like Corambis or not. And as I said, it's not a requirement and I won't go checking up on you or anything. It'd just be nice.

If there's a concern or question I've forgotten to address, please ask in the comments to this post.

John Scalzi has 10 things about authors he'd like you to keep in mind. To all of which, I say, "Hear hear!" and also "Ditto."

On a not entirely unrelated note, the FedEx ninja brought me today three ARCs* of Corambis. Two years ago I auctioned off an ARC of The Mirador to benefit the John M. Ford Memorial Book Endownment. Given that Corambis--the actual book--will be out on April 7, and given the current miserable state of the economy, would people be interested if I did another auction (starting bid $25)?

(If I did this, I'd actually do two auctions, one to benefit the JMFMBE--assuming it's still there to be benefited, which I hope very much it is but cannot tell from the website--and one to benefit Scarleteen. Just so people know.)

Replying in the affirmative is NOT the same as promising to bid.

ETA: Yes, I will sign the ARCs. I didn't say that originally because it seemed obvious--dude, they're sitting ON MY DESK--but people have asked. Also, odds are extremely good that I will hand-correct them. Because I am a neurotic pink circus poodle and also a perfectionist and I hate hate hate the fact that ARCs go out with all the things I corrected in the galleys UNCORRECTED. *ahem*

---
*Advance Reading Copies. Also known as bound galleys.

I am thinking of Jim Rigney (Robert Jordan) today, whom I never met, but who was Mike Ford's brother of the heart, and I'm thinking of Mike, who died a year ago, and I'm thinking of Elise because I love her and because surviving is hard.

And I'm thinking of John Donne, because I'm teaching him today, and because "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" has just come very close--because I'm thinking of Mike--to making me cry.

(scott_lynch has written a gorgeous and honest tribute to Robert Jordan and his work, which--as is so often the case with Scott--is very much what I would have liked to have said, only better articulated and more compassionate than I could hope to manage.)


A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
While some of their sad friends do say,
"The breath goes now," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two:
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do;

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

The winning bid is bright_forever with $175.

A million million thank yous to everyone who bid, and bright_forever, email me at labyrinthine AT sarahmonette DOT com with the nitty-gritty details.

1 bound galley (ARC) of The Mirador (publication date 08/07/07), hand corrected and inscribed by the author.

The auction will close Friday, April 13th, at noon CDT.

Please bid in the comments to this post.

Anyone may bid; if you do not have an LJ account, please be sure you put your name and email address on your bid.

Two intelligent questions from a reader more alert than myself.

1. Yes, ARC stands for Advance Review Copy or Advance Reading Copy or whatever the hell that R actually is. ARCs are also known as bound galleys. Essentially, what you're getting are the page proofs I was sturm und dranging over a couple weeks ago, exactly as they were sent to me, only bound like an actual book. And, because I am a neurotic pink circus poodle of a perfectionist, you will get corrected proofs.

2. As long as you'll send the money to the JMFMBE in a form they can accept, I will send the ARC anywhere in the world.

Today, April 10th, would have been Mike Ford's 50th birthday.

In an instance of truly beautiful serendipity, the ARCs of The Mirador just arrived, one of which, if you recall, I am going to auction off for the John M. Ford Memorial Book Endowment.

Here's the plan.

I will make a post opening the auction on Thursday (April 12th), and it will run for twenty-four hours, closing at the same time on Friday (April 13th). Bids will be made in the comments to that post. On Friday, I will make a second post, closing the auction, and then the winner can email me their address and how they want the ARC inscribed. (And, yes, the ARC will be hand-corrected by the author--you can also tell me whether you want the corrections and inscription in Noodler's Nightshade, Forest Green, or Le Couleur Royale.) I send them the ARC; they send the JMFMBE a check.

Everybody wins.

Happy birthday, Mike, wherever you are.

P.S. Please, tell the world about the auction! Non-LJ commenters will be allowed to bid, so long as they SIGN THEIR COMMENTS and INCLUDE AN EMAIL ADDRESS.