Here is the theme tune by the incompaTrable Tessa Rose Jackson and a sample chapter, chapter 8.
A Month with Starfish is on sale on the Amazon site, both in a paperback edition and as an e-book for Kindle users. The English edition is also on sale at Athenaeum Boekhandel and the Island Bookstore in Amsterdam and at Housmans Bookshop on Caledonian Road in London. The Dutch version is in preparation. The audiobook version of the English edition is ready to be submitted to Audible and will be available shortly.
Editing, design, audio production and copyright
© 2016 Bev Jackson
cover design/graphics by TRJ Illustration
Audiobook produced and recorded by Tiny Tiger Studios; signature tune written and performed by Tessa Rose Jackson
English version edited by Peter Houck
All rights reserved.
Bev Jackson asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this book.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Melinda McRostie of The Captain’s Table in Molyvos Harbour, Lesvos, who founded Starfish. Driven by compassion for the refugees who arrived on her doorstep, she set about taking care of them. She created a flexible group of disciplined volunteers that was ideally suited to responding to the daily changes in the influx of refugees. Meanwhile, she carried on running her fine restaurant.
It is also dedicated to the remarkable couple Eric and Philippa Kempson, who gave up their life as artists to care for the refugees who arrive on the beach near their home.
Above all, it is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of refugees whose lives have been made perilous or unbearable, who have often lost their homes and their loved ones, and who have set out, with heavy hearts, in search of refuge in Europe. Whatever part of Europe they end up enriching, I hope they find there some of the love and kindness that were embodied by Starfish.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people contributed to this book. In addition to the tireless efforts of graphic designer and producer Tessa Rose Jackson (TRJ Illustration/Tiny Tiger Studios), editor Peter Houck, and HTML guru Shiraz Habib, several people kindly took the time to read the manuscript and to make detailed comments: in particular, Marinca Kaldeway, Chris Holloway, Emma Jackson, and Doena van der Vorm. I am very grateful to them. The text benefited enormously from their incisive criticism.
I also want to add a special word of thanks to Heleen, Emma and Tessa for supporting me while I obsessed over this project for months.
I am grateful to Suleman Akhtar for kindly allowing me to quote from his blog.
Finally, I want to thank all my fellow Starfish, the Greek and Spanish lifeguards, the Greek fishermen, all the other volunteers and the refugees I met for reminding me of the true face of human courage and decency. “Thank you for existing,” as my friend Omar would say. This was one of the best and most memorable months of my life.
Proceeds from A Month with Starfish
For the first few months, I donated the net proceeds from A Month from Starfish to Starfish. Since 1 June, however, this has no longer made sense. Refugees have no longer been arriving on the north coast of Lesvos for some time now, and the Starfish volunteer network has largely been disbanded. The remaining core group at Starfish now works mostly on projects involving clothes distribution: not just to refugees but also to local families in financial distress.
I had to find a new cause to which to donate the net proceeds from my book. Wanting to preserve a certain continuity, I looked in particular at projects run by people I knew personally, people with whom I had worked in Starfish. At present I am donating the money to the project SolidariTEA, which is run by my good friend Lucas Burghardt (the Lucas who appears in A Month with Starfish). Lucas spent months working tirelessly at Idomeni, providing the refugees stuck there with tea and good cheer. Since that camp was evacuated by the authorities, he and his team have moved their operations to the camps that have been created around mainland Greece. Read about Lucas and his work at http://www.solidaritea.eu/.
For people wanting to donate to groups that are actively helping to improve the lives of refugees, here are a few recommendations:
http://www.PayPal.me/SolidariTea
A Month with Starfish 