Help needed ASAP

[Guest guest]

Hello everyone: This is a request from my sister who is doing a fundraiser for UMDF on March 5. It is specific to children/adults who have a diagnosis of mitochondrial disease.Please send pictures directly to her if you can help mbfischer@.... Include your child's first name and where you live and age. This is a wonderful opportunity to get the word out about "the many faces of mito" as well as to raise money for research. I am sure digital pictures are fine - Please send as soon as possible if you are able to do so. Thank you very much! Anne Juhlmann_____________The request from my sister: mbfischer@...I know you are really busy, but I was figuring out the mito display today for the conference and I wondered if you knew of anymore people who might want us to have a picture of their child there. I wanted to show the different faces of Mito. The pictures would be set in frames on a bookshelf along with lit about mito and a donation box that goes directly to the UMDF_____________ Info about the conference is below for those of you who have seen my previous emails: Wilmington, Delaware News JournalUrge to help sparks writers conferenceBy CHRISTOPHER YAYASIEJKO The News Journal 02/08/2005Article text:Examine the schedule. Notice the credentials of theparticipating authors. Visit the conference's Website. All elements indicate an established eventorchestrated by an experienced planner. It's hard toimagine that one ReRehobotheach woman concocted it inmid-October, then compelled 13 regional writers ofvarying genres to work for no pay. It all was born out of Maribeth Fischer's desire tofight a disease many have never heard about, a diseasethat isn't even her own. "Writers at the Beach: Pure Sea Glass," a day ofreadings, workshops and conversations scheduled forMarch 5 in Dewey Beach, is Fischer's way of using herpassion for writing to help her nephews. Sam, 7, andZachary, 12, have severe cases of mitochondrialdisease, a disorder of energy metabolism that affectsas many as one in 2,000 children. Fischer has spent a lot of time in Milwaukee, wherethe boys live. Once, when she returned to teach at theUniversity of land-Baltimore County, she says, she"just didn't care." It wasn't that she had lost her zeal for the writtenword. Rather, she couldn't reconcile the boundingsouls but threatened lives of her nephews with theidealistic love stories and King mimicryemployed by her students. The two pursuits clashed inher mind. "I started searching for a way to connect writing tohelping them," says Fischer, 40. "It was one of thosethings, when the idea came - I'm not sure why, I'm notsure how - I was 100 percent excited about it. "I'm loving what's happened." Fischer, a novelist and essayist who is among theauthors participating in Writers at the Beach, had tohack through the peripherals that accompanyincorporation. With the help of a small contingent offriends, she quickly learned about deadlines,publicity, sponsors and advertising. "It just wasn't ever a part of my world," saysFischer, who claims she'd never planned even a party. When selecting the writers, Fischer tried not to pickanyone more than a two- or three-hour drive away. Sheknew some of them. A few spread the word tocolleagues. Fischer started with fiction writers,since she's one, and branched out to include writersof nonfiction and poetry. FlFledarown, Delaware's poet laureate and a professorof English at the University of Delaware, will beamong them. She marvels at the apparent flurry ofactivity in poetry downstate. "It seems to me that there's tremendous energy there,"Brown says. She cites the Milton Poetry Festival,held each December in Milton, and the regular readingsat BoBooksandcoffeea bookstore in Dewey Beach. "This is just an example of how someone can take anidea and make it work on two levels, can combine whatpoets need and what writers need in the state with aserious charity need," Brown says. "It just seems tome that it's brilliant. And I really expect that yearsfrom now it'll be a festival that continues andgrows." Fischer's goal is to draw 100 paying participants. Sofar, she says, enrollment is good. All proceeds fromthe $115-per-person fee will go to the UnitedMitochondrial Disease Foundation. In each workshop, participants will explore a specificaspect of writing - generating poems, creating vividcharacters, organizing a memoir, building character inthe short story, or mining personal and factualstories for use in fiction. Each workshop will belimited to 12 participants. ('s poetry workshopis half-filled, and the others are about one-thirdfilled.) Authors will lead three discussion groups from 2-3p.m., and another three from 3-4 p.m. Topics of thefirst three panels include the inherent difficultiesof writing about pain, grief and loss; the role ofresearch and facts in fiction and the danger of usingfictional techniques in nonfiction; and how toapproach the unique susubgenref magazine journalism.The second set includes discussions about the sourcesof story ideas; the writer's responsibility to thestory; and what it takes to live a writing life. Each discussion will be limited to 30 participants,although Fischer may consider adding a session if atopic generates enough interest. On the Web site (wwwwwrwritersatthebeachom), Fischerconnects the conference to its beneficiary in a briefpassage about her nephews. Her younger sister, Anne,has four children. All have mitochondrial disease. Thetwo boys, however, are most severely affected. Fischerdescribes Sam following Zachary through the house on aspy mission, lugging behind him "all his infusionpumps and tubes that he shoves into a suitcase onwheels." Only her sister's words, Fischer says, can tell thestory. Each week, Anne writes an entry in anononlineournal about her life with her children. Sheallowed Fischer to share three entries on theworkshop's site; they were dated Dec. 31, 2003, andMarch 27 and June 14 of 2004. In the first entry, she mentions Sam's penchant fortelling jokes that are funny only to him. His laughteris reason enough for family members to ask him torepeat his material. She marvels at the generosity ofthe strangers who donate the blood that becomes Sam's- "Who are these people that volunteer to give a partof themselves so that my child may live?" she writes -and acknowledges her boys' parallel fate as anotherchild's MiMitoas she calls it, eats away at his body. That night, Anne sat on the couch to read with Sam. Hewas cold, and she pulled a blanket over them. "A few minutes later," Anne writes, "someone else gotunder the blanket with us - Zachary. And there wewere, just us three, reading and laughing and readingsome more." Contact YaYasiejkot orcycyasiejkoedelawareonlineom. IF YOU GO: Writers at the Beach: Pure Sea Glass WHAT: Conference with all proceeds going to the UnitedMitochondrial Disease Foundation WHEN: Saturday, March 5, 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m. WHERE: Crabber's Cove, Del. 1 at the bay,RuRuddertowneDewey Beach COST: $115 INFORMATION: wwwwwrwritersatthebeachom, 302 841-2172,or Box 1326, ReRehobotheach, DE 19971. THE LINEUP ·Sheri Reynolds, whose novel "The Rapture of Canaan"was an Oprah's Book Club selection and New York TimesBestseller · O'Sullivan, a features editor at TheWashingtonian magazine ·Debra PuPuglisiharp, author of "Shattered: Reclaiminga Life Torn Apart by Violence" ·Carolyn PaParkhurstwhose novel "The Dogs of Babel"was a highlighted pick on NBNBC'sThe Today Show" ·Brad Barkley, a novelist and short-story writer ·Liam CaCallanana novelist and a contributor to Slate,Forbes, and other magazines ·Novelist PiPietrzyk· Nonfiction naturalist TomHorton· LaLaMottewho wrote Pure Sea Glass whichincludes the work of photographer Celia Pearson ·Terry Plowman, editor and publisher of Delaware BeachLife magazine·Poets Haley, and FlFledarown