Writer, editor, and elongated coin (aka “smashed penny”) collector Janna Silverstein has decided to combine her hobby and her friendship, and has designed an elongated coin as a charity event, to help raise money for the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund. The impetus was Jay Lake’s recent bout with colon cancer (see our previous coverage).
Silverstein writes that Lake’s “favorite charity is the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund, which helps professional science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery writers living in the Pacific Northwest deal with the financial burden of medical expenses. Writers don’t make a lot of money (unless, you know, they’re Stephen King) and rarely are able to afford their own insurance, so this fund helps good, creative people get the care they need.”
The image on the coin (see right) is meant to be reminiscent of Lake’s latest novel, Mainspring, and his first, Rocket Science. Silverstein is offering the elongated coins for donations of at least a dollar, and sweetening the pot for bigger donations. For full details, see her blog post here.