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PAINTING WITH SHADOWS PROJECT

My Name is Bryan H. Joyce.  I am compiling a large anthology which is intended for publication by Xlibris.com in the USA, the royalties of which will all go to Cancer Research.  For a long time I have wanted to do something about this terrible affliction, but lacked the wherewithal.  There are very few people about who's lives have not been touched by Cancer.  Both my parents have it.  My father has had surgery for prostrate cancer which was complicated due to heart disease.  My mother had massive surgery and radiation treatment for throat and mouth cancer.  Both are stable, though my mother is in a great deal of permanent pain and finds it difficult to eat.

I would like to ask you if you could donate a story/or essay or two to this project.  You do not need to be an author.  Just have an entertaining tale (fiction or non-fiction) to tell.  It doesn’t matter if you are a celebrity or the man in the street, all contributions will be welcomed.  In fact, I have compiled a large list of celebrity e-mail address (unfortunately very few in the UK) and will be pestering them at sometime in the near future.

It would also be appreciated that if your life has been touched by cancer, if you could write a bit about it for inclusion. If you are interested in participating, then please direct all communications and material to datajunkie@bigfoot.com.  If your material is sizable, please get in contact first before sending it as my e-mail account has a limit on the size of files that can be stored.

The publication will be in the USA as this is the only place that I’ve located (so far) that will do the printing free of charge on a print-on-demand basis.  This will not effect the availability of the work, (though the cost of the book may be a little prohibitive) but can cause a delay of up to three weeks for international deliveries.  If an alternate publisher can be found in the UK (since I am based in Scotland) all the better.  Ideally, it will be printed simultaneously by several publishers throughout the globe.  The resulting electronic edition will be available free to anyone who wants a copy on the condition that if they enjoy the volume then they donate a few dollar pounds to their local Cancer charity, buy a printed copy of the book or order a copy from their local public library.  Show the media that the Internet is not all pornography and chat rooms.

I've been in contact with a representative of Cancer Research, Gordon Lockhart.  He is very keen on this idea and can see the potential to raise considerable funds.  A good area of expenditure is of a contribution towards purchasing of new radiation machines.  Most of the ones in the UK are woefully inadequate, out of date and overused.  As such, they are constantly breaking down and needing expensive repairs.  I live miles away from the Beatson Cancer Institute in Glasgow which has the reputation of being the most significant research and treatment establishment in Europe (perhaps the world).  They have got a lot going on behind their walls, but their radiation treatment machines are held together with string and chewing gum.  Donations are urgently needed.  Although the Beatson is in Scotland, the work that they do is an international project.  Cancer patients from the whole of the globe are treated here.

That's the idea, now for the bit that I don't like.  I am not very good with dealing with people and as such would have difficulty in saying no to anyone who inadvertently supplies any inappropriate material.  To save me this heartache, two of my friends, Dave Burns (a writer of medical books and training manuals) and Paul Bocij (a freelance journalist) have agreed to be test readers.  Be warned they have already rejected three of my own proposals.  Two because they are too complicated for the casual reader (I can see their point) and the other one because it is too weird (I can't see their point), which leaves me with only one possible story of my own and a collaboration.  Both are kinda small so I guess that I'll be writing something fresh. 

The working title of the anthology is “Painting With Shadows”. 

If anyone has a better name then please let me hear it.  Remember, nothing is set in stone.  Ideas are extremely welcome.  Now for the submission guidelines.

Anything related to science fiction, romance, fantasy, thrillers, comedy or horror genres (or their non-fiction associates) will be considered, though if you have a red hot story from another genre I would be happy to consider it (no erotica).  I'm looking for contributions that are notably commercial in style not anything that would appeal only to specialist readers.  I want a finished product that will appeal to a wide range of adult readers and their Granny not just the hardened bookworm.  Unfortunately, I do not have the resources to be able to handle any works other than that supplied to me in a word processing file as an e-mail attachment (I can not process large amounts of normal mail).  Submissions are preferred in Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format (RTF).  The latter format is available to about 95% of word processing packages.  Don’t worry about layout or fonts.  I will standardize that during editing.  Due to the expected large amount of e-mail that this project will generate, details of the finial inclusions in the finished work will not be detailed (by newsletter) until the final draft.

There are no funds at all available for this project (at the moment) so anything sent through the post is unlikely to receive a reply unless it really needs one.  Sorry, folks!  At the moment, it is not possible to include graphics (I'm working on it), though if there are any artists out there, I’m looking for a donation of cover art (as a computer graphics file) if (when?) I can get a donation to cover costs of a graphical book jacket.

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