Catherynne M. Valente

You're supporting me so much I might explode. It's a significant possibility. In unrelated news, the Lab can finally break ground on our Exploding Wordcount Accelerator! You'll get ALL OF THE REWARDS ABOVE, *PLUS* Random Access Mind: a random Thing posted for this tier every month. Could be a drawing, recording, poem, photo, story, idle thoughts on 17th century loom weights and the nuns who love them--anything. A surprise every thirty days. AND, you'll take part in FIELD WORK: You'll be able to request a subject for the media review of the month, and ask questions for semi-regular video Q&A on YouTube Live. Q&As may cover any subject, not limited to explosions, writing, or publishing. I also know a lot about contagious diseases. Why? No reason. Why would you ask that? Everyone needs a hobby.

You are a wonderful, generous soul who will definitely be spared when the Print Apocalypse comes. Thanks to you, the Lab can spring for running water and three out of four door locks at last! ALL OF THE REWARDS ABOVE, *PLUS* I will use your name, (or the name of one your characters, or your mother, or your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate) in a future EXPERIMENT or SHORT STORY or NOVEL EVEN (and if possible credit you). Note: it make take me a while to get to it depending on how popular this reward is.

The LAB DENIZENS are performing interpretive dances about how amazing you are with Erlehnmeyer flasks, pipettes, and typewriter ribbons stolen from passing hipsters. Let the Lab light a fire under you. You’ll get ALL OF THE REWARD ABOVE  *PLUS* a MONTHLY WRITING DATE with me and other partners in wordcrime over Google Hangout wherein you and I (and possibly the cats) will write together for two hours without stopping. Kickstart your work without the convenient excuse of doing it another day.  

Gratitude doesn’t begin to cover how the Lab feels about you. The Table of Fictional Elements blushes whenever you walk by. This morning, the chickens laid eggs shaped like all your hopes and dreams. The boiler started singing torch songs and drawing hearts on the basement walls with BOILR + YOU written inside them. You’ll receive ALL THE REWARDS ABOVE *PLUS* a PERSONAL SKYPE CHAT where we can talk about whatever you want: getting started in publishing, your book, the latest developments in kitchen gadgetry, whether Battlestar Galactica screwed up their ending more or less than Lost. 

You are rapidly approaching sainthood in the pantheon of the Lab. All Lab denizens have been given your birthday off. There’s a poster of you secretly taped up in all the employee lockers. They’re only serving your favorite foods in the cafeteria and the Large Plotpoint Collider keeps asking when you’re going to come and visit. In thanks for your astonishing support, you get EVERYTHING ABOVE (exluding MAD OFFICE Reward) and Cat will READ A SHORT STORY OF YOURS (or 50 pages of a longer work) and CRITIQUE IT WITH YOU over the phone or skype. 

EVERYTHING ABOVE plus ADVANCE PAPER COPIES of anything I publish: SIGNED and PERSONALIZED with a HANDWRITTEN letter. If I don’t have anything coming out that month, you will receive a MYSTERY GIFT from the lab. This could be a hard-to-find edition of my early work, a painting or hand knit/crocheted creation by yours truly, a hand-filked song recorded just for you, it could be anything - ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT.