winesburgohio:

Look what I spotted at McNally Jackson while walking by this evening! Look at Melissa’s face, right there on the cover! Look at Kickstarter happening in real life!! (Also, the people standing behind this display probably thought I was crazy — I tried to get some close ups for awhile. Sorry about that!)

ladypartsnyc:

love this. melissa showing me the first page of the coming & crying galleys. there’s a handwritten list of sex acts performed, with talley-marks for each time they’re mentioned. haaa!

ladypartsnyc:

these shots from lady parts.001 are great! here, melissa works on laying out a ‘zine which will accompany the edition of coming & crying pre-ordered by backers of their tremendous kickstarter project.

(via winnieau)

Thank you for also being our photoblog.

(And for your changes of address. As we unload boxes and match book-to-you, we’ll make sure we get everyone’s current info before anything goes out in the mail. You can message us w/ updates and clarifications and we’ll let you know if we need to know more.)

No sleep ‘til,

x
mgg

ps: the white splotches are not jism, just a little privacy screen re: me.

A quick bit of housekeeping:

- You keep writing us asking to pledge! This is ridiculously generous. Please know that we want to do this again, and it looks like you do, too? Meaghan and I are putting our (spinning) heads together on how to do this. One option worth revealing a little bit of now — if everyone who has told us they’ll get a story in by deadline actually does, we will have more stories than we could print in one book.

- Some textual snapshots of our party: Sasha Frere-Jones is not on Tumblr, Nic Rad posits that James Franco IS America, Chelsea Summers rocks a mean faux fur, two Katie West fans who met on an anti-XKCD (!) IRC channel met IRL for the first time in front of all of us, even in near pitch dark I sort of show up in Nikola’s Fauxlaroids, Halle Kiefer offered to stand in front of the first venue and usher folks on but we refused because we needed her HERE (hey-yo), Stephen Elliott came out in a puffy jacket and told a story about nosebleeds and also book tours, and I went home with Meaghan’s phone so when I checked into Foursquare this morning I Foursquared myself, and when Meaghan emailed to make a date to get the phone back she forwarded an email from one of our backers who told Dave Eggers about the book a few days ago, and god I should get back to work, and at this rate, Hendricks gin should be a project sponsor, too.

- Some of you seeking us out left voicemail for us on our secret party line, which I haven’t even listened to. But I have mp3s of them and I sort of want to post them. Speak now if that’s a terrible idea, you.

That’s more or less it. We’re delirious (this is Melissa) and still listening to George Michael and Patti Smith and other artists with two names that you might like so come into this chatroom and have a dance party with us. In just words.

http://tinychat.com/comingandcrying

edited to add: “No dicks.” (meaghan)

winandtonic:

Sometimes, the internet can be amazing.

Good job, girls.

There isn’t much time left to our fundraising, although there is still lots of book left to make and always more coming and crying to do, right everybody? Ha!

My chest is tight; I’m thanking people and answering questions and it’s all becoming very real suddenly. I’ve said that a lot but I guess with any big project, the reality hits us in waves.

This week has been a big week for us in lots of ways, not the least of which is that we’ve gotten almost all of the stories now. Each one is a little revelation unto itself, and I am so BOWLED OVER and in awe of each of them. They are all almost too much. Once we put them together in a book— this thing will hit you like a punch in the gut. And a hug! A punch and a hug (not that I advocate that).

It’s an amazing thing, this Kickstarter deal. My friend Emily was just saying how, Wow, we completely sidestepped so many things in publishing, that we didn’t wait for anyone to give us permission, to knight us as Authors or Editors or Publishers or any of that. Which is true, there is no Man or Middle Man or any of that.

But our permission— which isn’t really permission at all, but support, and encouragement; our very ability to do this, all comes from you guys.

And that is really cool.

We were on the Kickstarter podcast!

From the beginning of Coming & Crying, we were struck by what an amazing job Meaghan and Melissa did of putting themselves into their project. Being a backer was far more than a financial transaction; you really felt a part of their vision.

We invited Meaghan and Melissa down to the Kickstarter offices a few weeks ago to discuss their success, the origins of their project, and whether their parents knew what they were up to. Unsurprisingly it was an awesome conversation, and we came away inspired by their passion and excited to see how their project would grow.

I was afraid to listen to it all day because the sound of my own voice terrifies me, but when I finally did, I was really happy with the way it turned out. A few people have told us that it helped cement all of our intentions and what we are driving at, so if you are looking for that or looking to share this with someone, it might be a good place to start (also, bonus! we read!)

I’m flying back to New York (this is mgg) and Meaghan and I just made this spreadsheet, like the ones we’ve got all the C&C contributions sorted in, that one day we realized we could use to chat in (I think we were giving each other a hard time about the fact that we were chatting in both gchat, which is bad enough, and a spreadsheet).

And for the next three hours or so, while I’m still airborne, we’re going to hang on this spreadsheet (insofar as one can) and write with you, our backers.

We made a prompt to make it easier:

“What thought — that you can put into words — crossed your mind the last time you came, or cried, or both? (Don’t tell us which it was.)”

You can answer completely anonymously. And if you choose a name we can call you (which can be the anonymous number Google assigns you) we can talk to you over on the chat window.

If you want to tell folks to join us, they can give us a buck and do so. (Hi, new backers.)

One rule: Like the book, and the spirit of the book, you can be as ridiculous or awkward as you want, as long as you are honest.

We know that we’d like to share this document outside this backers-only circle after we’re done with it tonight — possibly at our secret-ish post-project get together in New York this week. (Which a $1 pledge will also get you an invite to. Because we kind of want “people everywhere who have sex and have feelings” to take part in this.)

Here’s to the final 24 — !