Bare It For Books

Bare It  For Books is a fun new fundraising project to support PEN Canada.  

The project will result in a 2014 calendar, featuring 12 of our nation's hottest authors. 
(I am looking  forward to my birthday month of May ;)

Please read below for more details....

The Bare It For Books campaign is on a mission: a mission to show the world exactly how exciting and funny and yes, SEXY Canadian literature can be. To do this, we've teamed up with a host of well-known Canadian authors who are passionate enough to bare it all in the name of literature!

We are aiming to raise $20,000 with our Indiegogo campaign -- this will cover printing and production costs, and allow us to get the calendars out to you. Many people have already made gifts of their time to the campaign, and we owe a great deal to their skills and expertise. To honour them (and sell calendars!) we want to ensure that the finished product is as professional as can be. The money raised from this campaign will go a long way towards helping us acheive this. 

Angie Abdou – Ms. January
Trevor Cole – Mr. February
Farzana Doctor – Ms. March
Dave Bidini – Mr. April
Miranda Hill – Ms. May
Daniel MacIvor – Mr. June
Yasuko Thanh – Ms. July
Terry Fallis – Mr. August
Sachiko Murakami – Ms. September
Vincent Lam – Mr. October
Saleema Nawaz – Ms. November
Yann Martel – Mr. December

Basically, this is how it happened.

In July of 2012, Amanda said this:

And then Allegra was like this:

And then Amanda got nervous:

And Allegra was brave and said this:

And then we were both like this:

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Following that initial series of tweets, the Bare It For Books campaign came together over those next few months in 2012. We met and brainstormed and drank coffee and brainstormed some more. We decided that we’d see if one charity in particular could benefit from the calendar proceeds, and we were thrilled to no end when PEN Canada jumped on board as our enthusiastic charity of choice.

We found, to our everlasting delight, that established authors were more than willing to disrobe for the sake of books. We put the word out and found a host of hugely creative, enthusiastic, and lovely people who were willing to help Bare It For Books become a reality. And now here we are – counting down the months to the calendar launch!

All proceeds from the 2014 Bare It For Books calendar will be donated to PEN Canada. As Canada’s foremost organization campaigning for freedom of expression, we thought they were a perfect match for our little campaign. To learn more about them and the various wonderful things they do for writers around the world, please visit them here.