Author Ed McClanahan in his studio office, which certain backers of his Kickstarter campaign will have the opportunity to "tour." PHOTO BY ROBBIE CLARK
Lexington author Ed McClanahan wants to read to you. In your car. While you’re cooking or cleaning. Before you go to bed at night.
Anywhere you have access to a CD player.
McClanahan, who has penned critically acclaimed works such as “The Natural Man,” launched a Kickstarter campaign (an online crowd-sourcing platform) to raise the money to complete audio recordings of two of his works – the short story “Fondelle or: The Whore with a Heart of Gold” and the three stories included in the volume “A Congress of Wonders.” The goal of the campaign, which ends July 17, is to raise $10,000.
Visitors to the site who donate a certain amount of money to the project will receive a number of tiered rewards, including a copy of the spoken-word recordings. The audio-recording project is being produced by Old Cove Press, co-founded by Nyoka Hawkins and Gurney Norman, a former poet laureate of Kentucky and long-time friend of McClanahan. The audio collections will only be available to those who donate through the Kickstarter page and will not be available for sale commercially.
As a popular local author, McClanahan gives numerous (and lively) public readings of his work, occasions, he said, where he always finds new fans and ways to interact with the audience.
“So many people have discovered my work by way of coming to one of my readings and getting interested,” he said. “I like the kind of connection you make with the audience that you don’t make in print.”
Recreating that sort of connection was the impetus behind the audio-recording project.
