Laura Eklund Donates Painting for Good Works Project

MURPHY, N.C. - June 27, 2013 - PRLog -- Laura Eklund (www.lauraeklund.org) has donated her abstract painting, "Covering the Sun," to FutureCycle Press (www.futurecycle.org) to help support the press's first Good Works project, an anthology of poetry entitled Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai (Joseph Hutchison and Andrea L. Watson, eds.). Eklund's painting, which suggests Malala's iconic pink backpack, will grace the cover.

An outspoken advocate for the education of girls in the town of Mingora in Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai survived a Taliban assassination attempt on October 9, 2012. Rather than accomplishing their goal of silencing Malala's voice, the Taliban amplified it. The entire world rallied around Malala. Diane Kistner, Director of FutureCycle Press, was inspired by a blog posting by Joseph Hutchison to do the same.

Momentum began to build for Malala's cause when an "I Am Malala" petition was started by the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's Special Envoy for Global Education, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The petition demanded that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015, and November 10 was declared Malala Day to commemorate this goal.

Malala has already had a tremendous impact on the world, and she's just getting started. In December, at the age of 15, she was announced as a runner-up for Time's 2012 Person of the Year. A few months, later she became the youngest person ever to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In April 2013, the BBC reported the establishment of the Malala Fund with Malala in charge. All proceeds from the sale of Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai will be donated to the Malala Fund.

FutureCycle Press's Good Works projects are issue-oriented anthologies of poetry and/or flash fiction designed to increase awareness and help make our world a better place. Each anthology will be published on the FutureCycle Press website in PDF format for free download and sharing, plus paperback and Kindle ebook editions will be sold globally to benefit related charities. In this way, poets and writers can help support causes they care about while also getting their work out to a wider audience.

The paperback edition of Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai will be published on November 10, 2013, to coincide with Malala Day. FutureCycle Press editors will consider submissions of English-language poems written in honor, or in the spirit, of Malala until August 1. Visit the Good Works projects link above for more information.

Photo:
https://www.prlog.org/12164871/2