Kickstarter

Hello Friends old and new!
You can help make Palestine Speaks - Voices from the Holy Land a reality.

With your help we will be spending the first quarter of 2011 in the Middle East, conducting interviews for Palestine Speaks - Voices from the Holy Land, a book about daily life in Palestine. True journalistic storytelling bridges gaps between cultures. Our goal as reporters is to go beyond the political maneuvering and religious tension so often associated with the region and reveal the lives of everyday people.

Read an article about the project here.

This is cool: The more money we raise, the more you get! (read that again)

One thing that sets this project apart from others like it is that we are not asking you to simply put down money for a product. You are funding the CREATION of a book, from start to finish. You're not just funding the printing, you're a ground-floor investor in independent reporting. With your help, we are able to meet the basic expenses (travel/interpreters/etc) required to create compelling, intrepid journalism. Meeting our base goal means an ebook for our Kickstarter friends, and a manuscript we are able to shop to publishers. Going beyond our goal means we can publish a very-special, limited-edition, Kickstarter-only edition of the book ourselves.

If you help us reach our grand $10,000 goal, everyone who donates $25 or more will receive this one-of-a-kind zero-th edition, signed by the team. Want to hold this book in your hands? Help make it happen. Want to see your name in the acknowledgments? Want a fancy-schmancy cover and binding? You can make it happen! The more money we raise, the better this special edition will be for everyone.

Your donation of $10 or more lets you follow the entire project from beginning to end. What does that mean? Well, you're going to get dispatches from the Speaks team straight from Palestine. You're going to be treated to a lush, high-res photo essay or two from one of our professional photographers. And, most importantly, you'll be subscribed to our weekly (or biweekly) podcast, sharing these oral narratives in their rawest, most natural form.

What makes this project truly amazing: Our network, of which you can be a vital part.

We are fortunate to be working with an ever-expanding team of talented advisers, interpreters, community leaders and volunteers--without whom this book would not be possible. The contacts we have in Israel and Palestine are a vital part of this project, and offer us a unique opportunity to connect with people who may normally be reticent to speak with journalists. Your dollars help record rare stories.

Want more information on the project? Please feel free to send us a note or join our Facebook page!. More info below.

From our official proposal:
"For more than five decades, Israel and Palestine have been the global focal point of intractable conflict. Conflict that continues to produce one of the world's most widely reported, yet least understood human dilemmas. Our collection of oral histories aims to depict Palestinian life under Israeli military occupation—voices rarely heard in American media."

"For many in the Western world, the Palestinian people have been flattened into a stereotype of a young man with a stone in his hand and a keffiyeh around his neck. The narrators of this book will break through that limited image, giving voice to a broad spectrum of people. Narrators will come from multiple generations, ranging from those who can recount a time before the founding of Israel in 1948, to teenagers who were born during the first intifada, having never known anything but conflict. These narratives will bridge cultural, religious and international boundaries and serve to humanize the complicated catastrophe in Israel and Palestine."

"We will conduct the majority of the work for this project from Bethlehem, in the West Bank. To find the most representative voices, we are working with local organizations, including human rights organizations, women's groups, arts groups, Israeli community groups, Bedouin organizations and more. Cate has been working with organizations in the Middle East for more than three years. Through this work, she has developed important relationships—from grassroots to government—that are vital to the completion of this project. Years of conflict have left many Palestinians suspicious of outsiders, who are often seen as spies or settlers. This is especially true of rural communities, which are one of the most vulnerable populations in Palestine and also the most closed."

"Through these groups we will find narrators who embody both the tribulations and hope of life under military occupation, and are willing to share their stories. For the majority of the interviews, we will be working with interpreters who can ensure that the interviews reflect the narrator's true voice and manner of speaking as closely as possible."