Footprints in Stone

This weekend I will be working on the Kickstarter to fund this book about fossil trackways from Walker County Alabama. Specifically, I'm going to come up with some draft text for the Kickstarter page and continue to brainstorm ideas about what to offer as premiums. So far, my favorite is some limited edition T-shirts.

"Footprints in Stone" update

This is the book that I wrote with a colleague of mine about an important fossil trackway site in Alabama. Thousands of specimens of trace fossils including footprints of some of the earliest reptiles, fin traces made by fish, jumping and walking traces of insects, and many more have been collected here.

We have a publisher, but the publisher needs to raise some money for the first printing. We have now finally gotten past the halfway point on committed funds. We are working on a Kickstarter project to raise the part we still need. Students from a local documentary film class are putting that together for us. I am starting to believe this might really come to pass.

The Halloween Haiku II kickstarter is live

Donate to the cause and submit poems and stories to the book.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lestersmith/halloween-haiku-ii-and-other-hauntings

Kickstarter for anthology

I have work forthcoming in 140 AND COUNTING, an anthology of twitter literature originally published in Seven by Twenty. Check it out: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1431077765/140-and-counting-an-anthology-of-twitter-literatur

Note that Kickstarter provides rewards for donors. The rewards for donating to this:

$5: A copy of the anthology. (Since the book will cost $5, this is essentially a pre-order of the book.)

$10: The anthology, and two other books (poetry chapbook Blueshifting by Heather Kamins and poetry collection The Glaze from Breaking by Joanne Merriam).

$25: The above, and a thank you in a sponsor listing in the book and on the website of Upper Rubber Boot Books for the next year.

$50: The above, PLUS a one- to two-page manuscript evaluation by the editor (she may comment on aesthetics, word choice, setting, characterization, description, pacing, plot holes, marketability, and other things to consider when revising your work) on up to ten of your poems or a short story (under 5,000 words).

$100: Free copies of every book Upper Rubber Boot publishes for the next five years.

There's a video with details on how the funding works: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1431077765/140-and-counting-an-anthology-of-twitter-literatur