I’m happy to announce that Meli Sameh (of Weird Jewish Digest fame) are sharing a new zine today for Tu Bishvat. Hawnuh Lee of Closed Loop Cooking did the illustrations.
“Guests on This Land: a pacific northwest tu bishvat” connects Tu Bishvat traditions to Indigenous knowledge of the lands we live on. We examine four foods to use in your Tu Bishvat seder, as well as sharing supplemental essays on Jewish history in the Pacific Northwest and Jewish senses of ‘hereness’.
I tabled at the Portland Zine Symposium earlier this month. The event went well, and also provided me with an excuse to update several of my zines. They’re listed below, as well as a two new zine I’ve made recently. One is based on an article I wrote a few years ago about unreinforced masonry buildings in Portland and the other is a version of the mini-zine I made for the PDX Jewish Zine Fest popup I hosted in August.
Jewish zines
While I published Towards a New Tu B’Shvat less than a year ago, I’ve found a few errors since then. I also wanted to tweak the information architecture a bit. So I cleaned up those typos and made some changes to the design. I’ve updated the files available here (which includes a PDF for printing, a PDF for screens, and an EPUB).
My set of eight Hanukkah zines needed updating even more, given that I wrote them in 2018. Hanukkah at the White House has the most changes, because the White House has hosted several Hanukkah parties in the past four years. I’ve updated the files available here.
A few years ago, I wrote an article about unreinforced masonry buildings here in Portland, Oregon. That might sound like an extremely niche topic, but URM buildings are a major risk factor for earthquakes — folks living and working in these buildings face higher risks. In the time since I wrote my original article, the City of Portland has actually managed to go from doing as little as possible to doing absolutely nothing about these buildings. I updated material from my original article to create this zine.
This zine covers the risks, how to recognize URM buildings, and what we can do about them. This new zine is available to download and share in multiple formats, and if you live or work in a URM building, you have my blessing to run off copies for everyone in your building. Laundry rooms are a great place to leave reading material for your neighbors.
A few years back, I wrote a short story set at a Python conference. You can tell I wrote it in the before-times because it involves people hanging out in a convention center in person! That story, “Backwards Compatibility,” was originally published as part of Our Python, an anthology of Python fan works published as a fundraiser for PyLadies.
I finally got around to posting the story somewhere anyone can read it. Since it’s fan fiction, of a sort, “Backwards Compatibility” is now up on Archive of Our Own. While this story is okay for all audiences, you should be aware that Archive of Our Own includes explicit material before you click around too much.
I’m currently the only person who has posted anything to the ‘Python (Programming Language)’ fandom, but you are all welcome to change that. I’m also the only person using the tags ‘Python 2’ and ‘GitHub’ so far. Yes, I am completely fascinated by Archive of Our Own’s mechanics. I’ve written about them in the past and will almost certainly write about them again in the future.
If you read “Backwards Compatibility” and enjoy it, consider donating to PyLadies.
I’ve launched a new project that I’m excited to share with all of you.
TL;DR
PDX.Vote rounds up news related to the 2022 elections taking place here in Portland, Oregon. It also publishes long-form articles about specific aspects of Portland’s politics. Please support this work financially.
If you’re interested in my thoughts behind this site and my plans for its future, keep reading!
Why a news site focused on elections?
I’ve always followed local politics pretty closely. One of my first paid blogging gigs was covering the 2008 presidential election, which really helped me understand that local politics impact our day-to-day lives more than most things happening in Washington, D.C. I was also an election judge in Maryland and saw first hand how hard voting was for some folks.
I also think that a lot of the media covering local news just aren’t covering local elections in any real depth. That’s partially due to the financial constraints on a lot of news media. But there’s also a sense that nonpartisan groups like the League of Women Voters write great voters guides that provide enough information for most voters to make their decisions. Now, I read the Portland League of Women Voters’ guides cover to cover and think they’re a great resource — but those guides are put together by folks who are trying hard not to influence the outcome of the races they’re covering.
Local elections decide matters of life and death importance here in Oregon, from the oversight of police forces and the violence they enact to the budgets for supportive services for folks without stable housing. But a nonpartisan report doesn’t tell voters whose policies are likely to increase deaths or save lives. We deserve better information.
I’ve already soft-launched PDX.Vote with three key types of coverage:
Digests of news related to the current election cycle
Weekly calendars rounding up important meetings, deadlines, and other dates relevant to local politics
Articles that go deeper into specific races, as well as important context for upcoming elections
At the moment, I’m doing all of the writing for the site. But with the official launch of PDX.Vote, I’m accepting pitches for articles. I’m also actively reaching out to people who are able to talk about political issues in ways I can’t. I’m privileged enough to be able to fund my startup costs and an initial writers budget so that I can pay for these contributions. My goal is to share election coverage from as diverse a group of contributors as possible. In terms of numbers, the first metric I’m measuring is the percentage of contributors from different racial backgrounds than my own, which I plan to report back on quarterly. It’s not a perfect metric, of course, but it’s one that I’m confident I can track as the only administrative staff for the site, as well as one that will give a top-level view of how well I’m doing at recruiting writers with different experiences. If you’re interested in writing for PDX.Vote, please contact me.
While I can cover the initial costs of setting up the site, I do need community support to publish this coverage. My first financial priority is covering the expenses of running the site, including the media insurance policy I needed to feel safe doing this work. My second financial priority is paying contributors. It would be nice to be eventually rewarded for my labor, but that’s much farther down the list.
So how can you support PDX.Vote? Currently, you can give us direct financial support. The current options are a one-time payment of $10 or a recurring monthly payment of $10. I’ll be making other options, such as printed voter guides, available later on. However, I will neither be accepting advertising on the site for the foreseeable future nor putting up a paywall in front of content. Both options make me feel uncomfortable when we’re talking about election coverage: Every resident (including non-voters) should be able to access information about the governments under which they must live, without paying for that information. And advertising tends to affect what news media publish, even without any explicit expectations. While I’m happy to discuss financial support in larger amounts, I do want the site to be primarily funded by the people I hope will most benefit from having free coverage available — people who can afford to throw $10 towards PDX.Vote, rather than people who can afford to spend thousands of dollars a year on multiple newspaper subscriptions.
Because I’m talking about elections and political power, I think it’s important to be as transparent as possible, especially about finances. I’m making the site’s financials available on a monthly basis. I’ve also included a transparency section on the ‘About’ page, including my own donations to candidates and political committees. I’ll be asking contributors about their connections to candidates and political committees and adding that information as I deem appropriate and safe. I’m also explicitly talking about my own biases and the site’s slant as a whole: I’m a leftist and you should expect PDX.Vote’s coverage to lean left as well. Furthermore, I am critical of even leftist elected officials — rather than being invested in maintaining a status quo, I want us to rethink what governance looks like and limit the harm the state can cause to each of us.
What are my long-term plans?
Well, a lot depends on how many folks find PDX.Vote a useful resource. While I’m confident I can put together regular updates through the November 2022 election, I’m not yet sure if I’ll continue the site after that time. Financial sustainability and reader interest will probably be the determining factors.
I would love to continue to build on the site’s coverage long-term if I can. I’m already working with a few contributors for one-off pieces and I want the opportunity to bring in some folks as regular contributors if I can afford to pay them for their work. I see two key areas of expansion: first, geographic coverage and, second, linguistic coverage. Currently, PDX.Vote covers Multnomah County elections, because that’s the county that covers the largest chunk of the city of Portland. It’s also the county I live in. I’m working on coverage of Washington and Clackamas Counties because they’re part of Metro, along with Multnomah County. It’s hard to cover Metro races without having at least a working knowledge of Washington and Clackamas Counties. I’d like to eventually cover all seven counties that include Portland and its suburbs, but that’s beyond what I can do without regular contributors. Bringing on folks to cover these additional counties will require finding reporters already living in each county, so that we can read coverage from folks actually impacted by county politics. And I have to admit that expanding coverage to Clark County (and Vancouver, Washington) will probably be low on the list. Clark County is important to understanding Portland politics, but it’s in Washington State and therefore plays by a different set of rules. Adding Clark County coverage to PDX.Vote will take more work than adding another Oregon county.
I also believe that expanding coverage outside of the English language is crucial. Portland residents speak a wealth of languages and deserve news in languages they understand. Translation is expensive and I don’t expect to be able to publish every article in multiple languages right away, but that’s my ultimate goal. Currently, I see Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinuk Wawa translations as priorities. While the community of Chinuk Wawa speakers in Portland is smaller than the communities that speak several other languages, Portland sits on land that rightfully belongs to Indigenous tribes, including Chinookan tribes. Chinuk Wawa is a jargon used by many tribes. While I’m not Indigenous, I believe in the Land Back movement. Providing news in Chinuk Wawa seems like a tangible step towards respecting Indigenous sovereignty that goes deeper than a simple land acknowledgement.
I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to accomplish until I see what sort of financial support community members are prepared to provide. But I will do everything I can afford to do that will make local political information more widely available here in Portland. I’ll keep y’all updated.
Content warnings: Discussions of death, genocide, state violence
The cover of “Towards a New Tu B’Shvat”
I made a short zine exploring new ways to observe Tu B’Shvat, which you can read on my Twitter or grab as a PDF. There are both print and screen-friendly copies of the PDF at that link. Please note that I wrote this recently enough that I have not been able to run it past a sensitivity reader yet — all errors are my own and I fully expect to have a new version in time for Tu B’Shvat 5783.
If you’re interested in reading further on the topics I mention in the zine, here is a list of websites, articles, and videos that I recommend, broken down by topics. The sources I used to create my zine are included here, along with those covering details I couldn’t fit into just eight pages.
“Tu B’Shvat and Malida” (video) — This short video from the Institute of Jewish Experience covers the Bene Israel custom of making malida (a sweet treat made of pressed rice and fruit) for Tu B’Shvat, as well as a summary of the history of the Bene Israel community in India.
“Shvat: Moon of Interdependence” (article) — This article from Dori Midnight discusses historical connections to communities of care. It also includes practices for connecting with trees for the month of Shvat and links to a playlist of Tu B’Shvat songs.
“Tu B’Shvat? Why Not?” (article) — Linda Gritz, from the Boston Workmen’s Circle, documented the process of creating a secular observance of Tu B’Shvat.
“Tu B’Shevat in the Age of Ecofeminism” (article) — This article includes several ways to observe Tu B’Shevat while considering both climate change and feminism. Writer Steph Black highlights options like a Reverse Tashlich ceremony to clean up rivers.
“Tu Bi’Shevat” (website) — Ritualwell has an entire section of their website devoted to meditations, liturgy, and other suggestions for observing Tu B’Shvat.
Resources on Indigenous land return
“Remothering the Land” (video) — Patagonia produced this 10-minute film to discuss the concept of ‘rematriation’ (or ‘remothering’ the land) using sustainable agriculture techniques with William Smith, land steward of the Village of Huchiun, and Nazshonnii Brown-Almaweri, land team member of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.
“#LandBack is Climate Justice” (article) — Restoring stolen lands to Indigenous sovereignty counteracts climate change, as documented by the Lakota People’s Law Project.
Braiding Sweatgrass (book) — Robin Wall Kimmerer’s collection of essays on Indigenous ecological knowledge provides a foundational guide. At the time of compiling this list, I haven’t finished reading Braiding Sweatgrass but I already find it informative enough to recommend.
Landback U (website) — The Landback Movement created a series of courses on land struggles in different locations to build a foundation of knowledge about Indigenous sovereignty. The organization accepts donations to continue their work.
Resources on Jewish relationships with Indigenous sovereignty
“How to Come Correct” (article) — This guide from the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust clarifies how non-Indigenous people can respectfully support Indigenous movements and listen to Indigenous leadership.
Jews on Ohlone Land (website) — Jews on Ohlone Land is an organization building Jewish community solidarity on on traditional Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone lands. The organization directly supports the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.
“Tu Bishvat: Dish with One Spoon” (article) — Mazon Canada published this article on the Haudenosaunee concept of ‘the Dish with One Spoon,’ a way to discuss the interconnected relationship between humans and land. The article also links to a video where historian Richard Hill covers some aspects of Haudenosaunee culture and history that’s worth watching.
“Being Jewish and Owning Privilege” (article) — Rabbi Dev Noily writes about balancing their experiences as a white Jew unpacking personal privilege.
“How Tokenism Affects Jews of Color and 5 Ways Allies Can Interrupt It” (article) — The Jews of Color Initiative works for racial equality in Jewish communities, including for Indigenous Jews. This article is an important reminder to avoid tokenizing Jews of Color in our communities and includes steps we can take.
“Planting the Promised Landscape: Zionism, Nature, and Resistance in Israel/Palestine” (article, PDF) — This academic article is long at 50 pages, but author Irus Braverman provides important insights into the ways that Jewish campaigns to plant pine trees in Israel have been used to remove Palestinian presences from the land and are iconic to the Zionist experience. Pine trees are not native to Israel and act as a method to make the land more comfortable to Ashkenzai settlers.
“Why I no longer donate to the Jewish National Fund” (article) — This short article touches on some of the topics covered in more depth in the source above. Writer Matthew Gindin looks at the militarism and greenwashing associated with the JNF, the leading organization planting pine trees in Israel.
“Cultivating Resilience: Growing Olives in Palestine” (article) — Emily Baron Cadloff’s article on how Palestinian olive farmers have been forced to watch their trees systematically destroyed (along with their livelihoods) is a difficult but necessary read for American Jews.
“Trees for Life 2021 Report” (report, PDF) — The Palestine Fair Trade Association’s annual report on its Trees for Life program describes the organization’s work distributing more than 37,800 seedlings of native trees to more than 350 Palestinian farmers. The organization also educates farmers on regenerative farming and the use of native seeds.
Rooting Resistance (donation page) — For U.S. donors interested in contributing to the PFTA’s Trees for Life program, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights offers a donation process that doesn’t require you to figure out international payment processors. Every $25 donated equals one tree sapling planted. Guidestar has reviewed the organization.
Resources for working in nature, including agriculture
Cultivating Culture 2022 (conference) — This upcoming conference includes sessions on Jewish relationships to agriculture and food. Tickets start at $36.
“Crops of African Origin of African Diffusion in the Americas” (article) — Michael W. Twitty has long influenced my thoughts on what Jewish food is. He wrote this article to highlight the use of crops native to Africa in American cuisine. Twitty’s book, The Cooking Gene, goes deeper into the creation of Southern food culture, including the impacts of slavery.
National River Cleanup Organizer Handbook (guide, PDF) — If you’re interested in organizing a river cleanup in your area, American Rivers provides a step-by-step guide to creating a successful event.
Friends of Trees (website) — Friends of Trees plants trees in the Portland metro area (as well as other parts of Oregon) and have streamlined the process. If you’re considering planting trees here, working with Friends of Trees is the easiest option. I’ve used their services in the past. And if you’re not in a position to plant a tree yourself this year, you can donate to the organization to help plant trees elsewhere in the city.
“Urban Heat Islands: A Peek into Portland’s Shady History” (article) — This article from the Columbia Slough Watershed Council shows the connections between the number of trees in a neighborhood and the rates of death and illness due to last summer’s heatwave.
Native Plants and Trees of Oregon (brochure, PDF) — This list of trees native to Oregon offers options to consider if you plan to plant trees locally to observe Tu B’Shvat.
“Approved Street Tree Planting Lists” (article) — The government of Portland requires trees planted in the city to be permitted and be on the approved list of trees. This article covers their requirements.
Palestinian Products: Olive Oil and Medjool Dates (retail page) — Equal Exchange is a co-op that sells Fair Trade products in the U.S, which has partnered with the Palestinian Agricultural Committee to sell olive oil and Medjool dates grown by small-scale Palestinian farmers. Wholesale purchasing is also available.
Willamette River Cleanup (website) — The Willamette River Cleanup organization works to clean up the Portland Harbor, along with the rest of the Willamette River. Consider signing up for updates and donating to their work.
“Portland Harbor Superfund Site” (article) — As part of the effort to clean up the Portland Harbor Superfund Site, the EPA created a resource documenting the history of Portland Harbor, the impacts of its pollution on marginalized communities, and the work necessary to fix the site.
I ran a fundraiser with the Portland General Defense Committee to support protestors arrested in 2020 and 2021. The fundraiser ended December 31st and raised over $300 after payment processing fees. Providing legal, financial, and other support to protestors facing legal repression is important to me; I’ve volunteered with the GDC for years because I believe that protesting is key to holding police and other state actors accountable and that carceral systems only do further harm.
But I also have a sense of humor, even if it’s a bit dark at times. So, a few months ago, I started writing a parody of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, because I thought the idea of a wealthy leader needing spiritual guidance to change his ways was both hilarious and apt in Portland in 2021. When I finished my novella-length project, I wanted to share it. Using the parody to fundraise for folks facing harm at the hands of wealthy leaders just felt right.
Below you’ll find some notes on the process of writing and sharing A Portland Christmas Carol. I figured some folks may be interested in a look behind the scenes, but also that this is an approach that could be used to raise funds in other cities.
Picking a classic tale
There are several important factors to choosing a book or other media to parody. While the inspiration to update A Christmas Carol reached out and grabbed me, I’ve worked on other projects that required a little more consideration.
Choosing a well-known story: Parodies work best when based on stories familiar to the audience. Given that I’m in Portland, Oregon in the 2020s, I can depend on my audience to be aware of a lot of European canon, including a little Dickens. Different audiences have different needs. Stories that have been translated into multiple languages, made into multiple movies and other media formats, and that are often taught in school are good bets. As an added benefit, you can often find a digital copy of well-known works that you can use as a starting point.
Avoiding trouble: I try to pick my fights carefully. When writing a parody that references current events, there’s always a chance that people involved in those current events will have a problem with even the most obvious parodies of their actions. As a result, I like to use works that have passed out of copyright as my starting point — if the original author is long dead, I don’t have to figure out if I need to fight a fair use case to prove my parody doesn’t violate the author’s copyright. That makes works already in the public domain easier to work with.
Understanding the underlying story: Effective parodies build on the themes of the works they reference. We know that wealth corresponds to control of local governments, so the works of an author who critiques wealth are a logical choice when critique local governments. I also like to write parodies of works I already know fairly well. I don’t have to invest as much time in learning the work itself, so I can work faster.
Looking at length: Very few people make a full-time living writing parodies. So choosing a shorter work or a section of a longer work as your starting point is a practical decision. If, for instance, you want to write a parody of the entire story of Crime and Punishment, you’re going to have to deal with over 700 pages of material.
A Christmas Carol hits these marks fairly well: The story is arguably Dicken’s best known work. It has been adapted many times and hasn’t ever gone out of print in its 175+ year history. Personally, I’d say that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the best version. And if the Muppets adapt a story, that story is definitely well known — their other adaptations include Muppet Treasure Island, The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz, and The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody. And despite Dickens’ status as a hardcore copyright enthusiast, A Christmas Carol entered the United Kingdom public domain in 1877 (later than it entered the public domain in many other countries).
I read a lot of Dickens in school and even wrote a play parodying A Christmas Carol in high school. It was terrible and there are no existing copies as far as I know, but I can tell you details about the storyline from memory.
… I’d have two nickels
As far as I’m concerned, there’s only two drawbacks to writing a parody of A Christmas Carol. First, Dickens’ works tend to be lengthy. He was paid by installment and needed the money, which frankly shows in how he managed to draw out individual scenes. I may have cursed this stylistic choice several times during my editing process, because A Christmas Carol is a novella, not a short story. Second, I’m Jewish. I don’t feel that I’m appropriating Christian culture, because cultural appropriation definitively requires a dominant group drawing on the culture of a marginalized group. Christianity is definitely the dominant religious culture in the US and is therefore fair game. But the holiday of Christmas is important to many Portlanders, including many of my friends (and even a few of my family members). I wanted to do the holiday justice, so I did have to do some extra research into Christmas customs that a Christian might need to do. Of course, I’m not the first Jew to make media about Christmas and I’m sure I won’t the be the last.
Setting yourself up for successful parodying
Every writer’s process is different. There are several steps that can make writing a parody easier, however:
Find a digital copy of the work you’re adapting and dump it into your word processor of choice. Project Gutenberg is an excellent resource for finding free copies of well-known books in the public domain. The site even has multiple versions of some books.
Read the work you’re adapting. Even if you’ve read it before — even if you’ve adapted it before — reread the work and make sure you’re familiar with all the plot twists and turns.
Note anything that doesn’t work for your parody. Since you’ve got the original work in a word processor file, you can make your notes as comments tied to specific sections of the work. Don’t worry about making changes yet, unless doing so works better for your process. Things I noted include:
Phrases your readers might struggle with: Dickens made some great jokes about Bob Cratchit earning 15 bob a week, but I can’t assume the average Portlander today knows what currency a ‘bob’ corresponds to and or how inflation has changed the value of a ‘bob’ since 1843. A best guess at the value of Cratchit’s income in 2021 numbers is around $375 per week for 60ish hours of work, on which he supported a family of eight.
Racism, ableism, and other offensive content: While the original writers of much of literary canon included prejudices in their works, I see no reason to perpetuate harm against any group of people. Editing out problematic content can take some planning, especially if a stereotype is core to a character (the way that Tiny Tim’s disability defines his portrayal). Just note problems on your preliminary read through and then come back later to make repairs.
Opportunities to localize the story: If you’re updating the date or location of the story you’re parodying, you can change little details to make the setting feel more true to the rest of your parody. Keep an eye out for the names of the neighborhoods characters visit, the institutions they rely on, and even the books they read. As I read, I kept a list of details I could update, including technology (i.e. candles became electric lights) and types of businesses (since there aren’t a lot of ironmongers in Portland today).
Figure out which characters and organizations you’re changing. If, for instance, you’re going to change the names of specific characters, you’ll have to decide exactly which characters you’re changing. For A Portland Christmas Carol, I made a list of the named characters and who they might correspond to in terms of Portland’s current events. I had to talk through some Portland history with friends and even look up the names of some buildings that were torn down before I moved to town.
Use your word processor’s ‘find and replace’ function to update names throughout the file you’re working in. Rather than looking for every mention of ‘London’ in A Christmas Carol and changing it to ‘Portland’ by hand, I updated my whole document in a matter of seconds.
At this point in the parody process, you’ll likely have a file with a lot of comments. You’ll probably also have some sections that don’t make sense because automated ‘find and replace’ tools only change sentences — they don’t rework those sentences to ensure they make sense.
Congratulations! You’re now ready to actually write your parody! Personally, I just go through my heavily annotated document section by section. I rework each chunk to make sense, using what’s already in the file as a base. Of course, if you know you write better following a different process, do what works for you. Unfortunately, there’s not really a step-by-step process for actually writing a story, parody or not. It’s kind of a ‘draw the rest of the fucking owl’ situation. Do what works for you and power through.
Do as much self-editing as you can, especially if you’re not in a position to pay anyone to help you. Don’t worry — I’ll cover getting help on these sorts of projects below, but you want to minimize the work you’re asking people to do for free. Trust me on this one: finding friends to give feedback on the full 70+ pages of a classic novella is hard at the best of times.
Making something people want enough to pay for
Once you have a solid draft that other people have read (and hopefully enjoyed), you need to think about how to present your parody to potential supporters or buyers. With A Portland Christmas Carol, I was torn between offering an ebook and printing physical copies. I’ve done both in the past and I came to the conclusion that I just didn’t have the energy for all the details of both printing a book and distributing copies this year with everything else I’m up to — especially since I would still want to offer a digital version alongside dead tree format.
Laying out an ebook is different from designing files for a print run. In some ways, ebooks are a little more forgiving, though they have their own quirks. I use Adobe InDesign for laying out my projects, mostly because I’ve been using InDesign for almost 20 years and I can write an Adobe subscription off on my taxes. I don’t recommend using InDesign unless you already have the software and you’re comfortable using it. Instead, use what you’re already comfortable with. I’ve seen plenty of readable ebooks laid out in Microsoft Word, Google Presentation, and all sorts of other tools. Your options include:
Word processing and slide design tools that allow you to add images and export to PDF (like Google Docs)
Design platforms that offer templates for ebooks (like Canva)
Bribing designer friends who already have the software and skills to layout ebooks
Getting a friend or two to help with design can lighten your workload tremendously. I consider myself more of a writer than anything else, so when I need to make some visually appealing, I try to at least get feedback from a design-minded friend.
For this project, I was lucky enough to have a friend volunteer to illustrate the story. The incomparable Mel Rainsberger listened to me yammering about this parody I was working on and next thing I knew, Mel sent me a folder full of illustrations to add to A Portland Christmas Carol. I did send Mel a copy of the story to review, along with some reference pictures, but I mostly just stayed out of her way. Because this project was intended as a fundraiser from the start, I hadn’t entirely expected to be able to find an illustrator — I don’t like asking people to work for free, so if I don’t have a budget, I’ll do without. But Mel’s illustrations definitely made this project much more appealing.
An illustration from A Portland Christmas Carol
I dropped the illustrations into my working file, added image descriptions, and then exported the whole thing as a PDF. I got a few more folks to look over things for typos and the like. After a couple of reviews, I declared the editing process complete. I’ve since noticed two small errors, but with a project like this, you do have to declare the design process done and move on. Christmas is a firm deadline, after all: convincing everyone to stay in the holiday spirit a little longer so you can finish tweaking files is not an option.
With a finished design file in hand, I exported ebook files as both PDF and EPUB. InDesign can do both formats, as can most software. Because a lot of folks like to read ebooks on tablets or ereaders, having the choice between PDF and EPUB ensures that most people will be able to read a book on their device of choice. I tested my files on different devices I had access to to make sure they worked and everything showed up correctly — I always recommend testing your ebooks on as many different devices as you can manage, because weird errors do pop up.
I also tested my ebook files on screen readers. Testing files with screen readers doesn’t have to be much more complicated than using different devices. There are several free options you can download to try out. On larger projects, I also try to get someone who relies on a screen reader to test the file because a more experienced user will notice different issues than someone using a screen reader just for testing.
Making your parody available for purchase
I know a lot of creatives who will offer a project for purchase and pledge all the proceeds to a particular cause. I’m not the biggest fan of using this approach: First, any money raised this way runs through my bank account, which means I have to hold back enough to pay taxes on those funds. Second, I don’t like even a hint of financial impropriety which means extra transparency work on my end. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t ever handle any funds beyond my own money. Third, people making donations should get any tax deductions available, not the person who is collecting the donations. That last point isn’t an issue for fundraising for a 501(c)4 like the Portland GDC, but it’s what first made me uncomfortable with collecting donations and then handing them off.
When I can partner directly with an organization, that means that I want to use their platforms for sales and fulfillment of anything I sell on their behalf. But I also want to keep the workload to a minimum for everyone involved. If an organization mostly takes contributions via online platforms like CashApp or PayPal, offering a perk like an ebook through those platforms could mean emailing each donor a reward by hand. Sounds exhausting to me. Setting up a new platform (with the group’s permission!) and handing over all passwords as soon as possible is the best option I’ve come up with so far.
For A Portland Christmas Carol, I used Gumroad. I already use Gumroad for my own product sales and know how to set up a new product quickly. Other reasons I currently recommend Gumroad include:
Gumroad is one of the few reliable sales platforms not owned by big conglomerates like PayPal. In fact, the company is extremely small.
The platform is fairly intuitive to new users. I’ve introduced a few folks to it and they’ve been able to do everything they needed to without a lot of hand-holding. It’s not as fully-featured as some sales platforms, but honestly, that’s kind of a perk.
You can set a base price for a product, then invite buyers to pay more if they can. When raising funds, that ‘pay what you want’ option can dramatically increase the amount you bring in.
Gumroad doesn’t charge users a monthly fee. I’m not the biggest fan of their tiered fee structure (which is relatively new) but significantly cheaper options tend to require hand-coding your own pages or going through long verification processes.
You can get decent analytics from Gumroad if that’s useful to you. I’m torn on the value of analytics for campaigns like this — I’ll spend most of the time A Portland Christmas Carol is available refreshing that analytics page and debating if there’s anything else I can do to get numbers to increase.
Yes, Gumroad has its own problems, but there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism. I’ll almost certainly find another sales platform I like better and switch at some point, but for now, I feel that Gumroad does less harm than the other options I could use.
One last note on platforms: while I did the heavy lifting on this project, I made sure to get buy-in from the organization I fundraised for on everything, including setting up a new sales platform. It is always inappropriate to set up a platform that accepts money for a specific organization without that organization’s approval.
Telling everyone about your amazing parody
You might be hoping that all the work is done once your parody is available for purchase and download. Unfortunately, if you don’t tell anyone about your parody, all of that work will be for nothing. Marketing its launch is a necessary part of the project.
Exactly how to market a launch depends a lot on what you’re offering, what organization you’re partnered with, and when you’re launching. I’m not going to go through every marketing tactic I’ve used for A Portland Christmas Carol, but I will cover a couple of key points.
Schedule your offering well: Perhaps the biggest problem I faced with A Portland Christmas Carol was that the story is directly tied to December 25. Offering a parody like this any other time of the year just isn’t going to make sense. But potential donors are also offline more around major holidays. I would have preferred to launch earlier in December. But the process of actually preparing files, getting approval, and setting up everything took time. So I launched when everything was ready. Sometimes scheduling just works out that way. But if you can choose a work to parody that allows a little more calendrical freedom, consider doing so.
Make use of the organization’s platforms: When you’re fundraising in partnership with an organization, familiarize yourself with their websites, newsletters, social media accounts, and other methods of reaching out to supporters. In a perfect world, you’ll be offering something that will appeal to at least some of those supporters and inspire them to send donations beyond what they might normally give. Write up templates and messaging that the people handling each of those platforms can copy, paste, and post.
Reach out to your own network (and even beyond): I ask people to share my projects and try to make the process as easy as possible. I provide review copies, social media templates, and images — along with anything else I can think of that will make the sharing process easier — all in a Dropbox folder I can easily control. In a perfect world, all this happens at least a few days before the official launch, but we rarely work in a perfect world. Most of my requests to share A Portland Christmas Carol went out on Launch Day, but I’ll probably be sending out messages asking for help sharing right up through the last day of the sale.
In conclusion
This write up is longer than I initially planned. But I wanted to cover as much of the necessary work involved in offering a parody as a way to fundraise as I could. I hope these notes will come in handy when you’re thinking of creative ways to support causes.
Thank you for reading this far. And if you read this before January 1, 2022 and you haven’t already, please consider getting yourself a copy of A Portland Christmas Carol.
I’m already working on some coverage of the 2022 primary and general elections. In the meanwhile, though, I wanted to collect the resources I’ve made over the past several years into one place.
Prior to moving to Portland, I also wrote about elections (including a stint blogging professionally about the 2008 election). I don’t really recommend my political writing prior to about ten years ago; I have learned a lot since then and developed personal politics that I feel a lot better about.
A couple of years ago, I made a collection of zines for Hanukkah as a way to talk about what the holiday commemorates and how it fits into the American winter holiday season. Those zines are available on Gumroad (embedded below the post) as printable files for whatever price you’re able to pay.
For the most part, Bram presents a collection that prompts the reader to create their own modern commentary rather than presenting a monolithic view of the holiday. After reading these zines, to me it’s clear that Hanukkah is being used by today’s American politicians to punch a hole in their “I’m not discriminatory I have (fill in the blank) friends!” card. It also made me think about the close relationship between Zionist settler-colonialism and the United States’ military industrial complex.
Miranda Sullivan
Having this review in New Voices means a lot to me, because one of the first pieces I ever wrote about my Jewish experiences was for New Voices. The publication is written by college students and way back in the day, when I was still in college, I wrote an article about Jewish life at the University of Tulsa.
That article doesn’t appear on the New Voices website these days (which is for the best; I have both progressed as a writer and in my ability to think critically about religion and education). If you really want to see how much my writing has improved, I suppose you can look at this copy on the Wayback Machine.
Honestly, though, you’d be better off checking out Miranda’s other columns on Jewish zines, especially the review of The Jewish American Princess Zine, which dives deep into the racial politics of the Jewish American Princess stereotype.
Given how much I write about Python, creating a style guide for writing about Python was probably inevitable. With the support of The Recompiler, I’m pleased to present a new supplement for The Responsible Communication Style Guide: The Python Style Supplement. We’re also working on a supplement covering Age.
The Python Style Supplement includes:
How to write about Python
Reasons and strategies for avoiding obsolete terms
Python terms and definitions
A timeline of Python’s development
An index of Python enhancement proposals with a special focus on PEP 8 and PEP 20
An index of Monty Python productions
The ebook is priced at $6 and contains over 100 pages of Python-related goodness.
Since discussions ofobsolete terms are showing up again in programming circles, we’ve released Erin Grace’s article on “Reasons and strategies for avoiding obsolete terms” on the RCSG website. Previously included in The Python Style Supplement, we agreed that this article is too important to make available only behind a paywall.
I’m so pleased to announce that the Python fan anthology Nic James and I have been working on is now available!
To get a copy, make a donation to the PSF earmarked for PyLadies here and then forward your donation receipt to pythonofourown [at] gmail.com. You’ll receive a copy of the anthology as a PDF.
Even a small donation counts!
If you’re having a hard time deciding on an amount, here’s a suggestion: If you usually buy tickets to the PyLadies Auction at PyCon, give $5 to 10. If you buy raffle tickets at the Auction, give $10 to 20. If you call your manager and negotiate to buy a painting of Guido van Rossum, you could give $1,000.
My contribution to the anthology is a short story about the long-term impact of sunsetting Python 2. The anthology also includes other contributions: Nic James turned PyLadies logos into cross stitch patterns so everyone can make their own PyLadies textiles and Katie McLaughlin gave us a tour of a ‘completely different’ Cheese Shop.
