Crooked Treehouse Press Project

March 8th was the first day I started schilling for the first published volume of The Insafemode Journals. I acknowledge that it's a weird choice for a fundraiser in 2023, when I'm working on two memoiry novels that people have expressed more interest in (The Book Of Love Is Long An Boring and They Left Without Buying Anything) but it's part of a larger project.

In January of this year, I left my job in comic retail. It's all very maddening and cyclical, and what was fun in my twenties, and what I got really good at in my thirties is now exhausting. And the pandemic changing everything made my job fun and unpredicatble for a while but the industry didn't improve as much as I'd hoped.

So, I'm opening a graphic novel/living poetry library/performance venue. I am planning on doing it in the Boston area because I'm used to it here, and there are a ton of colleges I can approach/am approaching about helping fund/house such an endeavor.

My personal library of graphic novels and poety volumes will be the opening collection. I have a more thorough collection than many, but not all, of the people I've met through collecting books and working comic retail. This will help the venue already have a big draw, and keep my fiancé and family from having to figure out what to do with all my books. I've seen too many families come in sad and confused into various retail stores trying to figure out what to do with their deceased love ones' collectibles. Usually, they get massively ripped off and a store ends up with a ton of material that tends not to move very fast no matter how reasonably priced. Everybody loses. By helping fund/house my curated collection, the college I work with will get to keep all the books when I die.

While the contents of the library should be the initial draw, I plan on running events/having others run events in this space. Of course, a poetry reading or two, and not just open mics and features, but themed or targeted non-traditional shows. Sci-fi watch parties, Writing workshops. Author signings. Gallery openings for non-traditional art shows (fewer paintings, more sculptures/3D-art). Community reading groups. And, naturally, this space will give preference to events focused on the lgbtq+ community, people of color, and communities currently underserved in the Boston area, which tends to have writing and reading groups that favor 60+ white people, who do also deserve their own group events, and who currently have a plethora of places to go and share their ideas. They'll also be invited to use the space, of course, but they don't get preferential treatment.

This venue will also host Crooked Treehouse Press. This is a press focused on, but not exclusively limited to, putting out poetry collections. And that's where this fundraiser comes in. This is a test. $4,000 is a pretty small amount for a Kickstarter. It's not for a flashy, experimental hair growth tonic, it doesn't promise to organize your wallet using some new technology, and it's not a board game that's going to require the production of millions of tiny rubber ducks. This first fundraiser is for printing the 20th anniversary for a memoir. But it's also for buying an obscene amount of barcodes.

If you don't know, barcodes are expensive if you buy them one at a time. They usually start at $125 apiece. But then you can get ten for $300 or less. A hell of a discount. And to get 100? $575. So, under $6 apiece, instead of $125 apiece. A hell of a better deal. So I'm going to use part of this money to buy 100 barcodes. If Crooked Treehouse doesn't end up using all of them, I will donate them to other small presses focused on underrepresented community or for individuals who want to put out books on their own.

If the test works, I'll work on other fundraising projects with more ambition. Projects that pay artists to make videos/logos/artwork to promote books or the library itself.

If it doesn't work, if this Kickstarter can't meet its modest goal, then I need to rethink this project from the bottom up, and decide whether I'm the person qualified to get something liek this off the ground.

I've been running special bonuses during this campaign, and today, I am running a 24/24, which means I will write 24 poems during 24 hours. People can pledge to the Kickstarter campaign for $1 a poem completed, or a flat rate donation, but only if I can make the 24 poem goal.

The poems will be posted on this page. It is never too late to donate. I'll be doing another 24/24 style challenge later this week.

I'd appreciate any amount you can donate to this project, The All My Exes Live In Sex Flicks: A Queered Memoir Kickstarter.

Thank you.