A Scalzi Christmas Teaser

Posted on November 22, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi

First off: Thanks! I was hoping for $500 by Thanksgiving for my Writing for Literacy donation drive, and I’m very pleased to say that we’ve blasted right past that: As of 4:11 pm on Saturday, I’m at $606.49. So we’re chugging along quite nicely.

That amount, incidentally, doesn’t count the amount that’s apparently been contributed to Reading Is Fundamental directly by people inspired to contribute thanks to the little fund raiser I’m doing here; according to the folks I’ve spoken to at RIF, they’ve gotten some people who sent money to them directly and noted they did so after coming by here. I think that’s pretty neat.

At this point I thought it might be a good thing to offer up a bit of writing that can work as a sample for the writing I’ll be whipping up in December, so I’ve rummaged through the Scalzi Archives — scary that I have enough stuff to call the Scalzi Archives — and look what I found:

It’s a Christmas poem I wrote several years back, while I was still working full-time for AOL. I put it up in the now-long-gone “Howdy” area a few days before Christmas in 1996, and it got a tremendous amount of response — I remember something like 400 letters in a couple of days — so I figure it’s worth trotting out at the point. The illustrations are by my pal Richard Polt, whose style I really enjoy.

Here’s a link to the page the poem is on. The page also notes the fundraising thing I’m doing, so if you haven’t already linked to the fundraiser but planned to (or alternately, have linked but wouldn’t mind linking again), please use that page from here on out. It’s all colorful and everything. And, of course, please feel free to tell other folks you know about it as well.

Okay, that’s my pitch for the fundraiser for the next few days. On to other things, whatever they may be.