Joss Whedon

I won an e-Bay charity auction and I’m having dinner with JOSS WHEDON this Friday! Shiny!

No, I’m not kidding. I won two seats at a five-seat dinner with The Man. (For those of you who need help remembering, Joss is the writer/creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly.)

Sometimes when I’m interviewed I get asked the "If you could have dinner with anyone famous, dead or alive...?" question, and I usually always answer: "Joss Whedon."

How cool is it that I’m going to do just that this Friday night (in San Diego, California!) . I’m also looking forward to meeting the three other dinner guests, and Joss’s dashing assistant. It’s going to be a terrific evening.

How did it happen?

Well, Joss supports an international women’s rights group called Equality Now, and he decided to raise some money for them by auctioning off this dinner. A group called Auction Cause set up the auction on e-Bay, and it went live on July 2nd.

How could I resist? I couldn’t and I didn’t.

My winning bids not only allow my husband Ed and me to meet Joss and thank him for the hours upon hours of pleasure and entertainment he’s given to us (we’re currently watching all seven seasons of Buffy again — right now were in the middle of season five...), but the money also goes to a wicked good cause!

For more information on Equality Now visit http://www.equality now.org

(And yeah. I’ll definitely include a blog about my fabulous dinner with Joss during my FORCE OF NATURE Countdown.)

2a) As the result of meeting the charity auction gang, I’ve been asked to auction off the chance for one lucky reader to name a minor character in next summer’s Troubleshooters book — proceeds going to the First Amendment Project.

You want to appear in a Troubleshooters book? I’ve done similar "be or name a character" auctions in the past — and it’s lots of fun.

Lora Newsom won this prize at the silent auction I held at my reader event last summer in Atlanta. (Proceeds went to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance program. Thanks again, Lora, for your generous winning bid!) Lora appears in FORCE OF NATURE as a Sarasota police officer — it was fun to write her in!

I don’t have any details regarding the upcoming First Amendment Project auction — I don’t yet know dates or deadlines, rules and restrictions — but we’re going to try to get the auction up and running late this year. Think November/December. (Appearing as a minor character in a book makes a great holiday gift!)

Winner’s name will appear in next summer’s Troubleshooters release, tentatively titled WALK INTO THE FIRE.

I’ll send out another e-newsletter as soon as I have info on this auction!