Mastering Charlotte Mew

Hi, I'm Deborah. You probably know me if you're reading this, but just to sum up: I spend my days in Atlanta fighting crime with my husband, with nights and weekends dedicated to Victorian scholarship, scribbling furiously, and watching more TV than is strictly healthy. (Hey, I'm a blogger - these things combined make my raison d'être.)

I came to Atlanta 6 years ago to improve my life and career prospects through graduate study. It's been 6 years of fantastic classes and real world adversity. We all know how badly the economy has fared, and that left both my husband and I without employment for my first year of study. We're gainfully employed now, but that early struggle, the student loan situation, and a personal diagnosis of fibromyalgia and an anxiety disorder have taken their toll. 

I need $1487.71 for one last semester's enrollment to achieve this goal. (I rounded up to $1700 to account for the fees assessed by GoFundMe and their partners. Anything not taken by the university or GoFundMe is being spent on research materials like books.)

All coursework is finished. I am working on my thesis. I am just-finish-my-thesis close to earning my Masters in English Literature from Georgia State University, and have enrolled in the summer semester to push through to the end. 

Ever heard of Charlotte Mew? She's a criminally underrepresented Victorian poet, and more people should be familiar with her work. I'm building a comprehensive website of her work, life, and the existing scholarship that I believe will be a tangible contribution to Victorian studies. This is what I must complete to graduate. 

If you believe in me, please support me. Donate if you can, or spread the word. And thank you, thank you, thank you.

NOTES REGARDING THE PERKS

For $5, I will share my gratitude for your help on Twitter by sharing a true fact about you that I will totally not just make up. You can expect such heretofore unknown facts about yourself as this little gem about my friend Jamelle: "I've also heard that Batman reads comics starring [Jamelle], & riffs on her legendary tactics to get his job done most nights."

For $10, you get to provide either a prompt or a specific proverb for my daily Whiteboard Weirdness. You can learn all about my daily Whiteboard Weirdness via this round-up on Tumblr. Recent examples are on my Instagram. Include your prompt in your donation notes, and I will draw something badly in your honor.

For $25, sponsor 30 minutes of my snarktastic livetweeting! I have possibly too much fun livetweeting video gameplay, bad films (and good films and goodbad films), and real life situations that may or may not be wholly accurate to this space-time continuum. Here are examples of my livetweeting shenanigans on Storify: Here At Walmart, At the End of All Things and GeekDame Plays Assassin's Creed. (Warning: contains language and irreverence.) 

For $50, either my husband or myself will record a short piece of your choice! We are aces at reading poetry, doing silly voices, recording commercials for fictional products, and leaving inappropriate voicemails. Examples: Tombstone software commercial from SRN: The Signal, Selkie Sea Salt commercial from SRN: The Signal, a reading of Catherynne M. Valente's "What the Dragon Said: A Love Story."

For $100, sponsor a short story, article, or blog post of 1500-2000 words. For the story, you can give me a prompt. For the article or blog post, you can provide me with a topic. I'll take it from there, though do let me know if you want to consider the piece for publication or consideration in any of your projects. I will not begin working on any of these pieces until the thesis is done and dusted.

ANY QUESTIONS? Feel free to contact me!