From The Washington Post:

Next month, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Lemony Snicket, Nora Roberts, Michael Chabon and 11 other best-selling writers will auction the right to name characters in their new novels. The profits will go to the First Amendment Project, whose lawyers have repeatedly gone to court to protect the free speech rights of activists, writers and artists.
...
The benefit was the brainchild of [Neil] Gaiman, who approached Chabon with the idea when he heard the group was running out of money. It will now constitute the single-largest fund-raising event for the First Amendment Project, whose legal staff will gratefully leverage the goodwill of authors willing to help keep its doors open. Other writers include Dave Eggers, Dorothy Allison, Peter Straub, ZZ Packer, Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, Ayelet Waldman, Andrew Sean Greer and Karen Joy Fowler.
...
Greene said that money raised by the auction will go to support the organization's pro bono work representing clients being sued over free speech, free press and freedom of expression. One such case, over whether a high school student's angry poetry constituted a "criminal threat," recently went before the California Supreme Court.
...
Snicket, who will let the top bidder determine an utterance by Sunny Baudelaire in his upcoming 13th installment of his "Series of Unfortunate Events," said he holds the First Amendment dear because "the only trouble I should get in for my writing is the trouble I make myself."

His only caveat: The meaning of the utterance may be slightly "mutilated."

Also, Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn seems to have almost gotten Mia Amato onto the John Gotti, Jr. jury:

The questions seemed overly concerned with the media exposure surrounding the case. Did I believe there was such a thing as the Mafia? Did I watch The Sopranos? Did I read The New York Post?
...
I felt small when it was my turn to be questioned by the judge, who was fluttery and squinted, puzzled, at her copy of my filled-out questionnaire. "We just want to clear up a few things," she said as she looked me up and down.

"You work in publishing?"

"Yes, your honor."

"You state here you have read books about the Mafia, the Godfatherseries and Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem?"

"Yes, your honor."

"I read that," she said sharply, nodding.

Great! I thought. I'm in!

But not quite. Keep reading.

The biggest Jonathan news this month, of course, is the ingenious www.jonathanlethem.com, which I'll be posting about soon. By the way, today I'm in an OS 9/IE 5.1 environment and am reminded of a fact that I'd successfully blocked out, which is that emdashes looks pretty sucky in old versions of Explorer. For example, Jennifer Hadley's lovely graphic up above there is supposed to be centered, and I bet if I were a more advanced web designer I'm sure I could ensure its centeredness, but I've tried mightily and it's just not sitting still. And the typefaces don't look very nice at all. Very sorry about that, get Safari, and hope your workplaces are upgrading soon.

Categories: Jonathans