The auction as a whole raised $2,037, with an added $510 in donations, for an extraordinary total of $2547. Thank you all so much!

Each year, we receive roughly $3,000 dollars in scholarship requests, so feel free to keep spreading the word! For anyone who chooses to donate at any time outside of the auction, we’re offering an e-book anthology of flash fiction written, edited, and illustrated by Alpha alumni, available with any size donation.

Thank you again, so very much. Your donations make a huge difference in the lives of young writers across the world.

As it says on the rules page, we’re on Eastern Standard Time (or at least, our webmonkey in chief is), so make sure to keep time zone differences in mind.

To everyone who has donated and placed bids so far, thank you! We’ve raised just over $2,000 so far. Our goal for this year’s fundraiser is $3,000… can we get there before midnight?

Finally, Alpha has an exciting announcement: John Joseph Adams, bestselling editor of many anthologies, will be a guest at the 2012 workshop! More details on the Alpha blog.

This one-of-a-kind collection includes every English-language anthology ever edited by John Joseph Adams, signed and personalized.

• Brave New Worlds
• Wastelands
• The Living Dead
• The Living Dead 2
• By Blood We Live
• Federations
• The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
• Seeds of Change
• Lightspeed: Year One
• The Way of the Wizard

Opening bid: $150

John Joseph Adams–called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble.com–is the bestselling editor of many anthologies. In 2011, he was a finalist for two Hugo Awards and two World Fantasy Awards. He is also the editor of Lightspeed Magazine, and is the co-host of the podcast The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams.

Bidding ends January 20 at 11:59 pm. The rules for the auction are here.

One “Chocolate” subscription to Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet: Four issues of LCRW, and a good chocolate bar with each issue.

Plus the following Advance Reading Copies:

Kij Johnson, At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories

A sparkling debut collection from one of the hottest writers in science fiction: her stories have received the Nebula Award the last two years running. These stories feature cats, bees, wolves, dogs, and even that most capricious of animals, humans, and have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and The Secret History of Fantasy.

Nancy Kress, Fountain of Age and Other Stories

Nine new stories from a long-time star of the science fiction field including the Hugo Award winner “The Erdmann Nexus” and Nebula Award winner “The Fountain of Age.” These stories have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and Best of the Web.

Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria

Jevick, the pepper merchant’s son, has been raised on stories of Olondria, a distant land where books are as common as they are rare in his home. When his father dies and Jevick takes his place on the yearly selling trip to Olondria, Jevick’s life is as close to perfect as he can imagine. But just as he revels in Olondria’s Rabelaisian Feast of Birds, he is pulled drastically off course and becomes haunted by the ghost of an illiterate young girl.

In desperation, Jevick seeks the aid of Olondrian priests and quickly becomes a pawn in the struggle between the empire’s two most powerful cults. Yet even as the country shimmers on the cusp of war, he must face his ghost and learn her story before he has any chance of becoming free by setting her free: an ordeal that challenges his understanding of art and life, home and exile, and the limits of that seductive necromancy, reading.

A Stranger in Olondria is a skillful and immersive debut fantasy novel that pulls the reader in deeper and deeper with twists and turns reminiscent of George R. R. Martin and Joe Hill.

Starting bid: $60

Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link started Small Beer Press in 2000, after putting out a do-it-yourself zine, and working for years in independent bookstores, in order to publish the kind of books they loved handselling. They publish literary fiction, innovative fantastic fiction, and classic authors whom you just may have missed the first time around. In their catalog, you’ll find first novels, collections both satisfying and surreal, critically acclaimed, award-winning writers, and exciting talents whose names you may never have heard, but whose work you’ll never be able to forget. Joan Aiken, John Crowley, Carol Emshwiller, Angelica Gorodischer, Naomi Mitchinson, Sean Stewart, and Kelly Link are among the names on their growing list of innovators. A cool drink in summer, some hot tea in winter: good books all year round.

Bidding ends January 20 at 11:59 pm. The rules for the auction are here.

In the Forest of Forgetting showcases such stories as “The Rose in Twelve Petals,” “The Rapid Advance of Sorrow,” “Lily, With Clouds,” “In the Forest of Forgetting,” “Sleeping With Bears” and many more, with an introduction by Terri Windling and cover by Virginia Lee. Publishers Weekly writes that the collection “possesses a spare, surprising beauty,” and according to Booklist, “It doesn’t seem too hasty to exclaim, ‘Classic!’”

Plus a signed ARC of Goss’s forthcoming novel The Thorn and the Blossom, with two bookmarks:

One enchanting romance. Two lovers keeping secrets. And a uniquely crafted book that binds their stories forever.

When Evelyn Morgan walked into the village bookstore, she didn’t know she would meet the love of her life. When Brendan Thorne handed her a medieval romance, he didn’t know it would change the course of his future. It was almost as if they were the cursed lovers in the old book itself . . .

The Thorn and the Blossom is a remarkable literary artifact: You can open the book in either direction to decide whether you’ll first read Brendan’s, or Evelyn’s account of the mysterious love affair. Choose a side, read it like a regular novel—and when you get to the end, you’ll find yourself at a whole new beginning.

Opening bid: $50

Theodora Goss was born in Hungary and spent her childhood in various European countries before her family moved to the United States. Although she grew up on the classics of English literature, her writing has been influenced by an Eastern European literary tradition in which the boundaries between realism and the fantastic are often ambiguous. Her publications include the short story collection In the Forest of Forgetting (2006); Interfictions (2007), a short story anthology coedited with Delia Sherman; and Voices from Fairyland (2008), a poetry anthology with critical essays and a selection of her own poems. She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and Mythopoeic Awards, as well as on the Tiptree Award Honor List, and has won the World Fantasy and Rhysling Awards.

Bidding ends January 20 at 11:59 pm. The rules for the auction are here.

Opening bid: $50

Tamora Pierce is a perennial Alpha presenter and the New York Times bestselling author of 27 fantasy novels and one short story collection for teenagers.  She is best known for fantasy adventure in medieval settings featuring strong girl heroes, their clever and stubborn friends, mages with all kinds of talents, strange magical creatures, and opinionated animals.  She lives in Syracuse, NY, with her Spouse-Creature and a menagerie of cats, parakeets, and relaxed wildlife.

Bidding ends January 20 at 11:59 pm. The rules for the auction are here.

• The Demon’s Lexicon
• The Demon’s Covenant
• The Demon’s Surrender

Plus an ARC of Team Human (written with Justine Larbalestier, signed by Sarah Rees Brennan), to be released in July 2012:

A girl and a vampire fall madly in love… The girl’s best friend is deeply unimpressed.

Opening bid: $40

Sarah Rees Brennan was born and raised in Ireland by the sea, where her teachers valiantly tried to make her fluent in Irish (she wants you to know it’s not called Gaelic) but she chose to read books under her desk in class instead. The books most often found under her desk were Jane Austen, Margaret Mahy, Anthony Trollope, Robin McKinley and Diana Wynne Jones, and she still loves them all today. After college she lived briefly in New York and somehow survived in spite of her habit of hitching lifts in fire engines. She began working on The Demon’s Lexicon while doing a Creative Writing MA and library work in Surrey, England. Since then she has returned to Ireland to write and use as a home base for future adventures. Her Irish is still woeful, but she feels the books under the desk were worth it.

Bidding ends January 20 at 11:59 pm. The rules for the auction are here.

• A Game of Thrones
• Nightflyers
• Tuf Voyaging
• Down These Strange Streets (co-edited with Gardner Dozois, signed by George R. R. Martin)

Opening bid: $40

George R.R. Martin sold his first story in 1971 and has been writing professionally since then. He spent ten years in Hollywood as a writer-producer, working on The Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast, and various feature films and television pilots that were never made. In the mid ’90s he returned to prose, his first love, and began work on his epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, which has recently been adapted by HBO for their series Game of Thrones. He has been in the Seven Kingdoms ever since. Whenever he’s allowed to leave, he returns to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives with the lovely Parris, and two cats named Augustus and Caligula, who think they run the place.

Bidding ends January 20 at 11:59 pm. The rules for the auction are here.

• Inside Straight (signed by Melinda Snodgrass, John Jos. Miller, Daniel Abraham, and Ian Tregillis)
• Busted Flush (signed by George R. R. Martin and John Jos. Miller)
• Suicide Kings

Opening bid: $40

George R.R. Martin sold his first story in 1971 and has been writing professionally since then. He spent ten years in Hollywood as a writer-producer, working on The Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast, and various feature films and television pilots that were never made. In the mid ’90s he returned to prose, his first love, and began work on his epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, which has recently been adapted by HBO for their series Game of Thrones. He has been in the Seven Kingdoms ever since. Whenever he’s allowed to leave, he returns to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives with the lovely Parris, and two cats named Augustus and Caligula, who think they run the place.

Bidding ends January 20 at 11:59 pm. The rules for the auction are here.