Champagne and Socks

Here is a really awesome project and a chance for us to give back/pay it forward.

With a Board tasked with selecting future candidates and composed of Lauren Beukes, Aliette de Bodard, Ekaterina Sedia, Cheryl Morgan and Lavie Tidhar, the World SF Travel Fund has set up a Peerbackers Project with the hope of raising $6000, enabling two years of running.

The first recipient of the fund is genre blogger and activist Charles Tan, from the Philippines. Charles is a tireless promoter of speculative fiction. Besides his own Bibliophile Stalker blog, he contributes to the Nebula Awards blog, the Shirley Jackson Award blog, SF Signal and The World SF Blog. He also edited two online anthologies of speculative fiction from the Philippines. Charles is highly regarded in the SF scene both in the USA and internationally. The Fund’s intention is to facilitate Charles’ travel to World Fantasy Con 2011 in San Diego, California.

Charles is nominated in the Special Achievement Non Professional category for his promotion and celebration of speculative fiction. He is a good friend of mine and he has been a large part of the promotion of Twelfth Planet Press internationally.

Living in the Philippines, where wages are far lower than in the West, Charles would be otherwise unable to ever attend a major convention. The Fund’s purpose is to make such a trip possible, for the benefit not only of the recipient but for creating and extending dialogue in the wider world of speculative fiction.

You can help through some change in the kitty and grab some cool rewards over at Peerbackers. He’s 18% of the way there already. There are 26 days to go.