How many lives include a childhood sailing on a schooner and time in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution? Hello. My name is Ann Tompkins. I’ve had an unusual life and if I had a nickel for everyone that ever said, “You should write a book,” I’d be wealthy. As a matter of fact, I finally decided to write a book with the working title Across Oceans and Revolution: A Principled Life. Right now I’m in the process of outlining and culling and looking into things and trying to get my papers in order. I have so many papers, photographs, books, posters and other memorabilia in my house because I’ve been a collector. All of this is invaluable for telling my story.
The Wander Bird
So, how many people can say, “I grew up on a schooner sailing ship?” Not was I just born to a family that had a sailing ship, we actually lived on the sailing ship. It’s called the Wander Bird. So I traveled very much and had an unusual life as a child.
In China reading Mao’s Little Red Book
How many people can say, “I was a participant in the Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960’s?” I grew up with independent thinking and that got me into unusual situations.
Speaking about Criticism and Self-Criticism
As a result of my time in China working with the peasants, I came home to this country and I wanted to make changes for society. I adapted the Chinese concept of Criticism and Self-Criticism to explain to Americans through a small book and lectures. And I’ve devoted much of my life to social change.
Now that I’m writing my book, I need help because I have Parkinson’s and I’m 84 and I’m needing help in order to organize stuff. As a result, I am creating a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to hire somebody to help me write this book. And I have the incredible support of many friends; new friends and old friends, both, who come and volunteer – probably 20 people involved. People are different and they do different things for me, but it’s an incredible experience to have so many friends saying. “Ann, you should write a book.” I’m going to try. I’ve finally gotten to where I’m going to try. We need your support, so I hope you find it in your interest to get the details out of me of all these different, unusual adventures I’ve had. It’s been a good life and I’m still busy with it.
To help pay for an assistant, I have begun a Kickstarter campaign. Please check it out.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1559887965/across-oceans-and-revolution-a-principled-life
I hope you’ll enjoy my posts and can help with the campaign! Thank you for your interest and please share my blog with your friends.
Across Oceans and Revolution: A Principled Life 
I have clicked on the contribution link but get the error message “old link, bad link or some little glitch”. Please let me know where I can send a modest contribution.
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Thank you, Margaret, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience. The link was correct, but I deleted it and put it back in again and it seems to be working. I have no idea what the problem was, but thanks for reporting it to us. If you have further problems, please let me know. As a last resort, you can go to http://www.kickstarter.com and enter “across oceans” in their search and the project will come up.
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