During October 3-5, 2012, a team of writers organized by Dzanc Books will participate in the Great Write Off.

The Great Write-Off is a fundraiser to support six non-profit organizations based in Michigan: Dzanc Books, Fiction Writers Review, 826michigan, InsideOut Detroit, The National Writers Series, and the Neutral Zone. Each organization will organize a team of writers to engage in a little friendly competition, vying to see who can raise the highest amount in donations.

While the Great Write Off is underway, the numerous established and emerging writers on Team Dzanc will volunteer their time and efforts, writing all three days to help raise money to support the literary and community efforts of the above organizations. At Dzanc, these funds will help to enable the missions of Dzanc's many charitable endeavors, including the Dzanc Prize, which recognizes one writer annually for both literary excellence and service to his or her community, and our Writer in Residence Program, which places professional writers into classrooms to provide creative writing instructions to public school students who could not otherwise afford the opportunity. It's thanks to our volunteering writers' generous donations of their time and talents that we're able to continue to support and grow these programs.

If you're in the Ann Arbor area, we'll be celebrating the culmination of this fundraiser with a day-long syposium entitled The State of the Book: A Celebration of Michigan Writers and Writing. The event will take place on October 6th in Rackham Auditorium, featuring keynote speakers novelist Charles Baxter and former Poet Laureate Philip Levine.

This event is free and open to the public. For a complete schedule and a list of presenters, as well as more information, please visit our website: The State of the Book.

We hope you'll join us!

Want to Sponsor a Writer?

If you would like to sponsor one of our Team Dzanc writers (our team members are listed in the right sidebar), simply click on the DONATE button and fill out the author's name that you are sponsoring in the comment line provided in Paypal. Thank you in advance for your support!

While no donation is too small—any amount is helpful, and will assist in supporting our charitable programs—we would like to offer some incentives to donors:

When you donate, you'll receive a quick thank you email with a donation receipt (Dzanc is a 501(c)3 non-profit, so your donations are tax deductible up to the legal limits applicable), and also asking which of the following Dzanc eBooks you'd like as a more material thank you for your time and donation: Stray Decorum by George Singleton, We Make Mud by Peter Markus, The Freak Chronicles by Jennifer Spiegel, or A True History of the Captivation, Transport to Strange Lands, & Deliverance of Hannah Guttentag by Josh Russell. (All of our eBooks work on Kindle, Nook, PC/Mac, and all other reading devices.)

In addition, anybody donating over $100 will receive a one-year membership in our eBook Club (a $55 value), as a further token of our appreciation.

Everyone that donates will also be entered in a random drawing after the Write-a-Thon is over, with one lucky winner receiving a full run of Dzanc titles from All Over through Stray Decorum.

Want to Participate?

If you are a writer and would like to participate in the Great Write Off by joining our team, please let Dan Wickett know at dan@dzancbooks.org and he'll get your information listed over in the right hand column.

In addition to the rewards above for our donors, we're happy to also offer some targeted donation raising goals for our volunteering writers:

• All writers raising $500 will receive three Dzanc titles of their choice;
• all writers raising $1000 will receive six Dzanc titles of their choice;
• and the first five authors to raise $750 will each receive a free membership to our eBook Club.

If you have any questions, please feel to email team captain Dan Wickett at dan@dzancbooks.org.

About Dzanc Books

Dzanc Books publishes innovative and award-winning literary fiction, including short story collections and novels by accomplished and award-winning writers such as Roy Kesey, Yannick Murphy, Peter Markus, Hesh Kestin, Kyle Minor, Michael Czyzniejewski, Suzanne Burns, Peter Selgin, Laura van den Berg, Robert Lopez, Dawn Raffel, Jeff Parker, Terese Svoboda, and Henning Koch, as well as many others through our imprints, Black Lawrence Press, Other Voice Books, Starcherone Books, Keyhole Press, Monekeybicycle, Absinthe: New European Writing, and Disquiet.

Dzanc also publishes The Collagist, a monthly online literary journal; provides low-cost writing instruction through the innovative Dzanc Creative Writing Mentorships; runs the Dzanc Writers-in-Residence Program; conducts the yearly Dzanc Prize, which recognizes a single writer for both literary excellence and community service, as well as an annual short story collection competition; and organizes the Disquiet International Literary Program, a writing conference held in Lisbon, Portugal.