April is sexual assault awareness month.

This is something that’s very important to me. I’ve written a fair amount about rape over the years, but a lot of it comes down to:

• Rape is a horribly common crime
• As a society, we tend to punish victims while excusing or defending many perpetrators of rape
• While the individual rapist is always responsible for his (or her) crimes, there are cultural/societal reasons rape continues at such a frequent rate
• Survivors of rape deserve support, no matter what

For several years, I’ve run a fundraiser and given out signed books to encourage people to donate to rape crisis centers. In the past, I’ve given out autographed books to people who donate, but this year I wanted to go even bigger. So I’ve talked to some author friends, and the net result is that you could win a lot more books this year, depending on how much money we raise.

I’ll post a running total here throughout the month. The more money we raise, the more prizes I’ll throw into the pot. Right now, we’re covered through $3000 $4000. If we raise more money, then I’ll just have to round up more authors and prizes.

TOTAL RAISED: $3573

The prizes so far and the amount we have to raise to add them to the giveaway are as follows.

Goals Met So Far:

• $0 – An ARC of Libriomancer, by Jim C. Hines
• $250 – Blue Magic, by Alyx Dellamonica
• $500 – The Unexpected Miss Bennet, by Patrice Sarath
• $750 - A book from Anton Strout (an ARC of Alchemystic or, if the ARCs aren’t ready, a copy of Dead to Me)
• $1000 – Of Blood and Honey & And Blue Skies from Pain by Stina Leicht
• $1250 – A Magic of Twilight (hardcover) from S.L. Farrell
• $1500 – Range of Ghosts, by Elizabeth Bear. (This book will be autographed by both Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch, and will contain various notes, amendments, and other assorted surprises.)
• $1750 – The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea, by Martha Wells
• $2000 - Hardcovers of Twilight’s Dawn and Bridge of Dreams, by Anne Bishop
• $2250 – Three books (your choice) from Katharine Kerr
• $2500 – With Fate Conspire & an ARC of A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan
• $2750 – Two books (your choice) from the following ISFIC Press titles: Tanya Huff’s Finding Magic, Catherine Asaro’s Aurora in Four Voices, Mike Resnick & Joe Siclari’s Worldcon Guest of Honor Speeches, and Harry Turtledove’s Every Inch a King
• $3000 – The Vineart Trilogy (hardcover) by Laura Anne Gilman
• $3500 – Either a necklace-crown or a 35″ necklace of Swarovski crystal and sterling silver from Elise Matthesen

Additional Prizes:

• $4000 – Two-year subscription to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

Thanks so much to all of the authors who offered books!

The rules:

You can donate to your local rape crisis center, or if you prefer, to an organization like RAINN. Most places will take donations online.

Note: As of 4/17/2012, all donations to RAINN will be matched, effectively doubling your donation.

To enter, send an e-mail to endrape@jimchines.com.

• Let me know how much you donated so I can update the total. You can donate any amount, from $1 to $10,000 or more.
• If you donate at least $50, please include some sort of documentation (e-mail or electronic receipt, something like that).
• Make sure to include your mailing address!

Now, Michigan law prohibits unlicensed raffles, meaning I can’t require donations to enter. Therefore, if you can’t donate anything at all, you can still e-mail me to enter the giveaway. But for those who can, please try to give at least a few bucks.

Winners will be selected at random on May 1. If there are particular books you’d like, please mention them in your e-mail, in order of priority. But I can’t guarantee anything. I’m planning to pick winners and prizes like so:

• Randomly draw winner #1. If they asked for a specific book, that’s what they win. Otherwise, they get the first one on the list (Libriomancer).
• Randomly draw winner #2. If they asked for a specific book and it’s available, that’s what they win. Otherwise, they get whatever’s next on the list.
• And so on and so forth, until all the prizes have homes.

I hope that’s clear. If anyone has questions, please let me know.

Finally, I’d very much appreciate it if people could spread the word about the fundraiser and giveaway.