Remember a while back when I told you about a wonderful project that I’m fortunate to be a part of? The Afghan Women’s Writing Project is doing good, good work. It is giving young Afghan women an outlet for telling their stories–important stories that would not otherwise be heard.

Those women need our help. As program founder Masha Hamilton writes on the AWWP website:

“Many of our students and women writers, especially outside of Kabul, cannot get to an Internet cafe due to security considerations. A laptop at home and a jump drive would allow them to write their pieces, and then ask a male relative to send the work at an Internet cafe. A $20 donation will buy a flash drive and $500 in donations will buy a laptop for our women writers. No contribution is too small.”

I know times are incredibly tough right now, but I’m asking that you please consider making a donation to the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. Information on how to donate can be found here.

Once you’ve made a donation, please email me here (awwp[dot]raffle[at]gmail.com), and let me know the amount you’ve donated (which will remain confidential). Every $10 US (or equivalent) donated will earn one entry into the raffle. I will use a random number generator to choose the prizewinners at 10pm PST on Friday, July 10th.

Want to know what the prizes are? I’m pretty damn excited about them, and so grateful for the generosity the prize-donors have shown. Each person or organization you see listed below responded with great enthusiasm when I asked them to donate a prize. Here’s what you could win:

• Susan Choi has donated a signed hardcover edition of her novel A Person of Interest.

• Featherproof Books has donated a signed trade paperback original of Hiding Out by Jonathan Messinger, and a one-year subscription to Paper Egg.

• Masha Hamilton has donated signed trade paperbacks of her novels The Camel Bookmobile and The Distance Between Us.

• Caroline Leavitt has donated a signed hardcover edition of her novel Into Thin Air.

• Donigan Merritt has donated a signed hardcover edition of his novel Possessed by Shadows, and a signed trade paperback original of his novel The Common Bond.

• Ernesto Mestre-Reed has donated a signed 1st-edition hardcover of his novel The Lazarus Rumba, and a signed trade paperback original of his novel The Second Death of Única Aveyano.

• ml press has donated a 6-month subscription to their chapbook series.

• Sara Shepard has donated a signed 1st-edition hardcover of her novel The Visibles.

• Tin House has donated a one-year subscription to their literary magazine, and a bundle of books from their New Voice series.

• The Verve Music Group has donated 2 signed copies of Diana Krall’s latest CD Quiet Nights, 1 signed copy of Melody Gardot’s new CD My One and Only Thrill, 2 copies of the four-CD box set The House that Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records and 2 copies of Ashley Kahn’s book of the same name.

Pretty cool, yeah? Please donate! Otherwise I’m going to have to keep all this great stuff for myself.