Tomorrow night (July 17), the literary journal Inkwell is having a benefit reception at the Tribeca Grill, starting at 6:30 p.m., for 30 guests who are willing to contribute $10 when they make advance reservations. Poets reading at the event will include Carol Muske-Dukes, Kevin Pilkington, and Joanna Herman.
Meanwhile, the curators of the monthly “Fantastic Fiction” reading series at KGB Bar have put together a fundraising raffle that includes a bottled Michael Swanwick story, a keyboard used by Neil Gaiman, original artwork by Gahan Wilson or Terri Windling, and the opportunity to buy your way into stories by Lucius Shepard, Elizabeth Hand, or Jeffrey Ford—and a signed, limited edition of Ray Bradbury‘s The Cat’s Pajamas usually worth $900. Each prize is being raffled off separately; the $1 tickets are available online. (But you should still consider going to tonight’s reading with John Kessel and JoSelle Vanderhooft.)
Next week’s all-star tribute to Shirley Jackson is being organized by Fantastic Fiction co-curator Ellen Datlow, and it’s also being held at KGB, but it’s a separate fundraiser for the Shirley Jackson Awards, honoring “outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.” The inaugural prizes will be handed out this weekend at the ReaderCon convention.