Blog about Freedom of Speech

Hello Joyce,

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. –Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764

For nearly fifteen years, FAP, the First Amendment Project , has provided advice, educational materials, and legal representation to its core constituency of activists, journalists, and artists in service of the fundamental liberties enumerated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This week, Red Room is pleased to help FAP spread the word about its Character Name Auction, a fundraiser that helps the organization in its mission of "protecting and promoting freedom of information, expression, and petition," and to ask the entire Red Room community to blog about freedom of speech.

Red Room author and artistic-freedom activist Clinton Fein has served for many years as President of FAP's Board of Directors. In this 2005 video, he explains to a reporter how the auction works: Every author who participates simply agrees to include name of the winning bidder in a forthcoming work of fiction. Authors spanning a wide range of literary genres have participated in past years, including Stephen King, John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Peter Straub, Michael Chabon, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, Amy Tan, Dave Eggers, Ayelet Waldman, Rick Moody, Andrew Sean Greer, David Brin, John Lescroart, Elinor Lipman, Phillip Margolin, Lorrie Moore, and ZZ Packer.

"To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves." –Claude-Adrien Helvétius

Now, FAP is looking for more authors to participate in this year's auction. If you're a Red Room author working on a new book, won't you join Jane Smiley, Ayelet Waldman, and the other authors who have committed to participating this year in FAP's Character Name Auction by emailing us now? The auctions have enjoyed wide popularity on eBay and have garnered international media coverage focusing favorable attention on First Amendment Project and the participating authors.

Whether or not you become a participating author, Red Room would like you to blog this week about freedom of speech. If you've had to fight for your right to self-expression yourself, please share your story. If you've admired someone else's struggle for that right, or want to write about that.

A few bloggers will receive books by Red Room authors. A Good Horse is Pulitzer Prize-winner Jane Smiley's second foray into fiction for younger readers. It tells the story of a girl in 1960s California and her journey with two special horses. 13 Words, is a meditation for children on just what the title says, written by Lemony Snicket and illustrated by Maira Kalman. Ayelet Waldman's newest novel, Red Hook Road , began when she read a newspaper story about a terrible car crash en route to a wedding reception.

So post a blog entry today about Red Room's topic of the week

"freedom of speech"

For help on how to blog, please see the directions here. We'll choose one of these blog posts to be featured on Red Room's homepage next week. Post your entry by Friday at 10:30 a.m. PST (GMT-08:00) for consideration, and be sure to tag it with the keyword term "freedom of speech blog" in the Blog Keyword Tags field so we can find it. (Please don't forget the tag. For more information about tags, click here.) And be sure to browse the recent "time I won" blog posts. From an author who remembers winning a footrace as a schoolboy (but really lost) to a member who happily declared he was winning right then because his writing was just being published, this was one week in which every blogger emerged victorious.

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Don't have time to blog this week? There's another way you can support Red Room, which is to visit Red Room's Events Calendar now, and see what your favorite authors are up to. The Events Calendar is the place where authors post notices of readings, signings, new releases, and writing workshops and retreats. (Plus, every visit to our website really helps us succeed!) From an opportunity to "speed-pitch" your book to a panel of publishing experts in New York City to two opportunities to see a former head of Planned Parenthood read in New Orleans, find out what's happening in your area this month. Once you see all the events, I hope you'll make a plan to attend something in your area.

And as always, a huge thank-you to those who are featured in our Hall of Fame for becoming a Patron or Premium Member. Every day the Red Room team enjoys receiving alerts about each and every new contributor.

Best regards,

Huntington W. Sharp, Senior Editor

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