I agree that fiction is incredibly useful for educating people about diseases, and good for you for doing that. I think it makes the information more palatable.

Sandy

I have tried using several of the ME/CFS days to both sell copies of Purgatory (one of the main characters has the disease) and to donate the profits to the organizations that fight for victims of the disease, for several years.

Nothing ever clicked – the donations ended up being very small. Part of the problems was that the audience – people with the disease – is a lot of sick people, many without the capacity for sustained reading.

Haven’t quite gotten that one up to speed. Partly because of no energy, and also that it’s hard to get endorsements from the activists themselves. Those endorsements would be golden, but they also don’t have a lot of time for fiction.

Whereas I think that fiction is one of the two best ways to learn about the disease (the other is getting it), and that well-written fiction creates a lot of empathy in readers who would otherwise not even think about the problem (e.g., Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Black Beauty).

It’s an uphill battle.

You can absolutely create your own, Alicia! It’s a fun idea.

Sandy

And can always (fiction) create a new, appropriate for me and my books, day. Why not – I invent almost everything else!