Dear Friends:

We're so excited and grateful to everyone who has contributed to the Writers' House new Self-Publication Lab.  A big thank you also goes to those who have supported us by getting the word out about this campaign. This kind of resource, available to student writers (in their dorm!) will make a critical difference in their ability to fully produce finished work, and their development as confident creators of culture! 

We are now 14 days into our 29 day campaign and we've raised 87% of our original goal of $3000!  It's been so exhilarating to see the donations large and small come in every day.  We are now setting a "Reach Goal" of $4000 so that we can also buy furniture and accessories associated with the lab. For instance, right now we have no chairs. A few ergonomically designed chairs so that students can really focus on their projects without headaches and back pain would be a great addition. 

Please do reach out to your network on e-mail, Facebook, and/or Twitter to let anyone who may be interested know about our campaign.  Here's a tweetable link to our campaign homepage:http://bit.ly/writershouse   We've found that one-on-one contact works best, so even if you just have two friends you think might be interested in helping foster emerging creative writing talent, please let them know.  

Thanks again for your donation and for helping us spread the word!

-Johnna Schmidt

Director, Jimenez-Porter Writers' House

Dear Donors:

THANK YOU for helping to create a Self-Publication Lab at Writers' House!  We are so excited to be at 101% of our goal 48 hours before our campaign closes. It's time for our final push!

Right now we've had about 1/10 of Writers' House Alumni participate in this campaign.  We'd like to send a strong signal to the University community about the importance of the Writers' House program by increasing that percentage in these final hours of the campaign.  If you know anyone whose experience at UMD has been enhanced by participating in Writers' House, please encourage them to help by giving any amount, perhaps $5.00 or even just $1.00.  

Here's the tweetable, FB-friendly link:  http://bit.ly/writershouse

We've set a reach goal of $4000. We're calling this additional $1000 over our original goal the "INK FUND."  It will be used to purchase ink, paper, and other lab accessories and furniture such as chairs.  

I hope you all are well on this beautiful fall day!

-Johnna

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped us successfully reach our initial goal of $3000 and our reach goal of $4000!  Our campaign ended last night at 11:59 with $4,020. banked. We appreciate every single donation, and all the phone calls and e-mails this campaign has inspired.  It's wonderful to be in touch with the wider community of alumni and supporters.  

I look forward to students creating more work next semester with the support of the self-publication lab; thank you for making it possible. 

-Johnna