A Bid for Immortality

Well, literary immortality, anyway. A gaggle of authors (some Seattlest-approved, some not-so-approved)- including Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Dave Eggers, John Grisham, Lemony Snicket, Michael Chabon, and Jonathan Lethem- will be auctioning the chance to have the winning bidder's name included in their next work. Clearly, a win would be somewhat conditional- if you want to use a friend's name, you have to get permission, for instance- but they seem pretty accommodating. That said, if your name is Amanda Huggnkiss or Mike Hunt, you had probably better skip this one.

Surely, there are enough of you Wonder Boys and American Gods and, um, Street Lawyers out there to make this effort a success. And it deserves to be a success. The proceeds will go to the First Amendment Project, a nonprofit yadda yadda that specializes in making people aware that they have rights regarding free speech and then paying for the lawyers when those people start shooting off their yaps. Kind of a vicious circle they've got going there. Auctions start 9/1 and run through the 25th.

Slightly off-topic, Seattlest notes that the aforementioned gaggle has got a mostly-McSweeney's flavor about it. A good percentage of these scribblers have shown up there at one time or another. And it would be just like Dave Eggers to support a
good cause. Let us not forget that Messrs. Eggers and Snicket will be on hand to support 826 Seattle at Bumbershoot and salute them accordingly.