Writing for the Red Cross

Today I am participating in a fund-raiser for the American Red Cross organized by my friend, Holly Tucker, aka @history_geek on Twitter.

Holly is the author of the recently published book Blood Work, a riveting tale of fire and plague, empire building and international distrust that accompanied the development of the "new" (in the 1600s) medical procedure of transfusing blood from one person, or animal, to another.

Holly also publishes the blog, Wonders and Marvels, in which she digs up and chronicles the most amazing (and sometimes disgusting!) stories from the history of medicine and all sorts of other strange places.

My post, "What the Red Cross Means to Me" is up this morning on the Write for Red website. In it I tell the story of how I failed miserably in my first attempt to "give" to the Red Cross.

The fundraiser involves a series of auctions of books and writing-related stuff and a new round of bidding just opened. There is some really good stuff among the donated items--check it out and put in your bid now!