Free Ebooks!

The entire Malinding series - all 4 of them - Empty Bananas/Mussukunda/The Mechanical Girl and The Alkalo are on Kindle Books (Amazon) for 5 days on free offer. Stories for Gambian Children is there too. If you're familiar with The Gambia, or thinking of taking a holiday there they might be just the books you're looking for. Happy reading!
Tom

Fundraising - what we've tried so far ...

We have tried sponsored cycle-rides, writing books (five so far - Google 'Malinding'), and selling things on Ebay ( a hat-sizer, a very small locomotive, a 40 year-old Seagull outboard, two scooters, a bike, a boat and an unidentified navigation device, to name a few.) We use Easyfundraising as a search engine, which pays GOES 0.5p per search - it all mounts up. We beg for donations and old reading glasses and new medical supplies: I think people run away when they see us approaching

Words make money - I hope!

I spent another pleasant day at Gladstone's Library in Hawarden, near Chester, yesterday. It's a wonderful resource for writers: desks to work at, food to eat (the cakes are tasty) and even beds to sleep in if you want to stay overnight!
As darkness fell I drove home with 2000 new words added to the latest book in the Malinding series. Just 20,000 more to go! This will be the fifth (and possibly the last) book in the story of life in a Gambian village, seen through the eyes of a mixed-race family. Malinding village exists only in my mind, as do the characters who inhabit it, and who travel between there and the North West of England.
The books are for sale on Amazon for Kindle readers. All money from the sales go directly into the GOES Co-op Bank account, and from there to help the humanitarian work of that charity in The Gambia. Much of the work of the charity which has been described in this blog has been funded, at least in part, by these works of fiction. So, imaginary people help real-world men, women and children: fiction becomes fact.
Back to cake - no! I meant back to work!
Tom

Still at work!

Apologies for not keeping the blog up to date, but I've not been asleep, at least, not all the time! For one thing, I've been hard at work on the next book - haven't decided on a title yet so, for the moment, it goes under the working title of 'The Fifth Book'! It will be the fifth (!) book in the Malinding series about life and love in an imaginary Gambian village. It's the story of Ed's eldest son, Ed-Lamin, who comes to England to study but finds that his dreams become nightmares ...

On the funding front we've received a series of donations from Stuart's friends - they don't linger long in the bank but soon make their way to people in need in The Gambia (the donations, that is - we hope the donors will also travel to West Africa and see what has become of their money!)

In my spare time I'm enjoying another ebook by Clarissa Vincent; 'The Voyage of Storm Petrel' - the writer sailed her small boat from England to West Africa, then sailed up the river Gambia from Denton Bridge to Basse - and then back to England through the French canals!

Ah, well; back to work ...

The 'Malinding Village' library!

 Here are the covers of the four 'Malinding' series of books about life in The Gambia - and in England! Perhaps they are love stories, perhaps they are commentaries of social conditions in the two countries. What is certain is that every penny and pound from the sales of these Kindle ebooks goes to helping Gambian people. Please, if you haven't tried one, it's a way of donating small amounts to GOES - and you have a book in return as a 'thank you'!

 Thanks to Amieyo for letting us use her picture for this cover.
 This is amazingly hard work - I've tried it!
 The first book (I hope they have improved ... still, worth 75 pence?)

V.R.W.G. presentation to G.O.E.S.