I’ve been combating having a great many things that I want to write about by not writing about anything. I usually like to let all of my little problems and to-dos accumulate until the mountain of them becomes virtually insurmountable. It’s just easier that way.

That being said, I can’t put off writing about this anymore. The Concord Free Press is doing something seriously incredible and I want to get behind it. I had never heard of them until last Sunday when I was walking through the Book Mill in Montague, Ma, browsing some used fiction. There in the middle of stacks and stacks of books I didn’t need was a display with maybe 10 copies of The Next Queen of Heaven urging me to take one free of charge. The book was written by the dude who writes all those books about Oz. I can’t ever remember his name, but (thank you, internet), it Gregory Maguire. Maguire (despite my not knowing him or his work well at all) is certainly a mainstream author. Hell, they made a Broadway show out of one of his books. It’s heartening that someone who actually has made money in novel-writing would turn their work over to a free press with no hope of monetary compensation.

I spent most of the car ride home reading the back flap and the endpapers trying to figure out just who the hell was paying for the book I just got for nothing. Wealthy donors? Was it a vanity press? A crazy millionaire bent on fiction for the masses?

When I got home I did some quick google-fingersing and discovered that the Concord Free Press runs on donations and grants—they are a certified non-profit dedicated to sharing excellent works of fiction and supporting charity in whatever form. They ask that anyone who gets their hands on a copy of a Concord Free Press donate to the charity of their choice and report it on the press website. The Next Queen of Heaven has raised 97 thousand dollars so far for charities across the country. The interesting things don’t stop there, either; the press asks that when you finish a book, you pass it along to a friend or stranger, and that way the donations keep rolling in and the book is seen by more than 2500 people who get the first copy.

Incredible, right?

I haven’t read my copy of The Next Queen of Heaven, yet; I’m still shoulder-deep in Steven Millhauser’s The Knife Thrower: and Other Stories (which alternates from being awesome to too much crazy). I’m really looking forward to starting it though and making sure it’s really good and not just part of some ploy to get me to read shitty fiction.