Bees Abroad

I had a perfectly charming Zoom meet on Friday with members of Bees Abroad, an organization in the UK that trains & supports African women & those with disabilities to become Beekeepers for Life. But these lovely people not only teach beekeeping skills, they also help people figure out how to sell honey and beeswax…

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Promises, Promises

When I opened up the fundraiser for Bookshop Santa Cruz’s Keep Kids Reading project, I promised to read the Jabberwocky, and I did. Then we hit $250 and, having promised the Owl and the Pussycat, I not only read the poem—with illustrations—I tossed in an Illustrated/Annotated “Owl and the Pussycat” for your printing pleasure. And now……

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Giveaways–You ALL Get…Me.

Prizes–you ALL get prizes! Well, not keys to a new car-type prizes, but me on your screen. And honestly, isn’t that every bit as exciting as a new car? As a reminder, we’re raising funds for the Bookshop Santa Cruz Keep Kids Reading program, to hand books to low-income kids at their school lunch program drive-by…

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Carroll, Lear, King—Kids Reading!

My beloved local Bookshop Santa Cruz has a program to keep kids reading during the pandemic: giving away books to kids K-12 at the school lunch program drive-by pickups. Help a great bookshop, help kids—and help their parents, to keep kids reading. So I’m running a fundraiser for them. By way of reward, I’ll keep…

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Join Russell & Holmes…

The auction to name a character in the next Russell & Holmes story closes Wednesday.  I would so love to give Second Harvest a nice big sum for their drive-by groceries program, which feeds workers left hungry by the quarantine. And frankly, going strictly by past auctions at BoucherCon and the like (rather than my…

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Name a Character!

Sheltering in place is hard. Doing so when you can barely afford that shelter in the first place can be impossible. Second Harvest is stepping up with drive-by food giveaways serving hundreds of families at a time—families whose breadwinners pick our fruit, clean our rooms, pack our home deliveries, care for our sick. This fund-raiser…

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Giving Tuesday

After the spending tsunami of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and even the less blatant wave on Small Business Saturday, today comes along: #GivingTuesday. How are you giving today? Are there any places you’d like to recommend to your community of fellow readers here, to put their dollars (pounds, Euros, shekels) to work? Reading is…

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Takeback Tuesday: Lifting a glass to PPH

Pour you a beer? I’ll be working this great event along with Jonathan Franzen, Karen Joy Fowler, and Elizabeth McKenzie, raising money to support our local Planned Parenthood. But since this is a fundraiser, and you might live somewhat outside the driving area, you could just make a donation (…and we’ll owe you a beer.)…

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Takeback Tuesday: grandmas on benches

Last week’s Tuesday post was from London, and this week I’m in Venice. Hard at work. (Yes, really!) One thing travel illustrates, to anyone who has ever doubted it: people all over got their troubles.  Country borders don’t draw a line on doubt and fear and pain. Not joy and laughter and affection, but unless…

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Takeback Tuesday: a woman’s voice

Takeback Tuesday is Team LRK’s weekly vote of confidence in the future. After a week that’s seen a flood of Impossibilities, from Bannon to #MuslimBan, gush across the country, I begin to suspect the strategy is to dump so much on us that we go whimpering away. I don’t think that’s going to happen, and…

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