 Welcome to our interview show in which we interview LGBTQ guests who are important contributors to our community. We want to acknowledge that all things LGBTQ is produced at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which is unceded Indigenous land. Enjoy the show. Hi everybody. I'm here with Salem West, publisher, editor, author, extraordinaire. Welcome Salem. Thank you very much for having me. It's wonderful to have you in and talk about buywater books and ample books and let's start our conversation with a clip. Remember the first time you saw yourself in a story. Someone who looked like you, someone who sounded like you, someone who hurt like you and dreamed like you, someone who loved like you. Stories are powerful. They allow us to explore different worlds and to imagine better endings. They teach us to remember and they illuminate a way forward. They offer comfort and sadness and hope for tomorrow. They show us that we are valued, that we are never alone, that we belong, stories enrich our lives. Buywater Books and Amble Press, we are all stories. Great. That's very upbeat and, you know, it sort of speaks to your mission in a very entertaining way. Let me move to a print version of that and read the mission of Buywater Books. Now, a Buywater Books ink represents the coming of age of queer literature. What a laudable project. You are committed to bringing the best of contemporary writing to a discerning readership. The Buywater Books imprint features lesbian and feminist themed fiction and narrative nonfiction. While Amble Press primarily publishes fiction and narrative nonfiction with an emphasis on writers who identify as people of color and those writing across the broader queer spectrum. At Buywater and Amble Press, we are all stories which echoes the clip. Very exciting. I have some questions. Where did the title Buywater Books come from? That's a wonderful, wonderful question. Kelly Smith and Mary Ann K. Martin founded the company back in 2004 and they had another partner. They were living all over the country at the time and the one thing that tied them all together was they were all living by water. Oh, because Buywater is a neighborhood in New Orleans. So I thought that might have been the origin but they were all living by water. I get it. That fits. But let's talk about geography for a minute if we could. You live in Winston Salem. North Carolina, yes ma'am. And the mailing address for the press is in Michigan. Yes. How does that work? Well, the company was originally started in Ann Arbor, Michigan and that is where the headquarters, formal headquarters is today. It's where Mary Ann K. Martin, one of the founders, still lives and she still controls the warehouse where we, you know, when we ship our books to people who buy from our website. I, being the publisher and editor-in-chief, can live anywhere in the world. Books today are digital. We edit manuscripts in MS Word. We typeset in InDesign and Quark. We design our covers in Photoshop and InDesign. All the files, all of our assets up until the point of printing are electronic. You can live anywhere in the world. That's a very informative thing. Times are changing, huh? Indeed they are. Tell us about Ample Press, if you would. How is it founded and when? Okay. Ample Press, for many years, those of us working at Buy Water Books knew that we wanted to expand our mission beyond the traditional feminist and lesbian writers and readers that we work with. We were getting really good submissions from gay writers, bi writers, trans writers, and we also knew that we wanted to really extend ourselves and to try to offer a seat at the literary table for writers of color and writers who are coming from other countries who don't really have the support that they deserve, they need, and there aren't a lot of resources. We were lucky enough that we talked to the great author, Michael Nava, a great seven-time land literary award-winning author, Michael Nava, and we asked him about taking on Ample Press as the managing editor. He said he would, but he wanted to make a focus, though not a primary focus, on writers of color because he himself is a Latino man. So in, we started talking late 2018 and we formally launched the Press in January 2019. What does, you have two managing editors. What do they do? Michael Nava and your managing editor for Buy Water. What they primarily do is they really work with the authors in bringing the books into house and working with the authors and getting them into the content or developmental editing stage, working with them on a regular basis to get the support they need, the resources they need to do the work they need to do, and then getting the books ready and into the content or the copy editing stage where we then consider it in production. So they really work to get, get a raw manuscript to the point that we are ready to enter production for printing and formatting e-books. Well, back to the mission statement before we move on, I guess it's important to clarify that feminists and lesbian women of color are free to submit to Buy Water. They're free to submit to Buy Water. We, we wholly encourage it. We have a handful of writers of color. We're always looking to add, add more, but they are also more than welcome to submit to Amble Press. We want people to find a place where they feel most comfortable publishing themselves. And we understand that that's going to be different for different people. As you mentioned, Buy Water was founded in 2004. When did you take over? I joined the company in January 2015. So I've been here six and a half years. The, the point of coming in is that we, we really wanted to Buy Water has, has always had a strong reputation in the, the queer publishing world. We wanted to really branch out. We wanted to look at our reading audience. We wanted to look at, at what different age groups were reading the different kinds of books. We wanted to expand beyond pure literary fiction and go into a little more into romance and mystery and adventure and sci-fi and climate fiction, things like that. And not just bring in one or two books in those areas, but, but build sort of a momentum. So we have several authors who are supporting one another in their writing and in their marketing of themselves and the books that we publish. We really wanted to sort of build that momentum and to do that it meant growing. So we really had to find a way to, to grow but, but grow in a fiscally responsible way. So we didn't end up collapsing on ourselves. You have a business background. A little bit, yes. How did you happen to get involved and how did you happen to become editor and publisher and she, publisher and editor in chief? Um, a year or so earlier Buy Water books inside my wife and McMahon. And Anne is, is multi-talented and she also, besides writing fabulous books, she also is a professional graphic designer and had taken over doing the cover design and ad design and branding and marketing for the company. And so at one point, Kelly Smith had traveled over from England. She lives in Northern England and was staying with us and we were sitting around the table and she sort of wanted to start backing away a little bit. So she was looking for someone to take over and we just started talking and it naturally came from that. I see. Is it, do you have to fundraise? Oh, we don't, we don't. Our publishing, our publishing process is that we take on a variety of books because different types of books have different sort of sales models. For instance, Romance and my wife, Anne, always jokes me that I call it romance. I'm from the Midwest. Romance is always going to be king. They're always going to sell more than any other type of book, no matter how good the book is. So by putting out very well written romances, we can then afford to go and publish a literary book that might sell a tenth the number of copies, but the book needs to be published. It deserves an audience. It has to be published. So we try to keep that rolling of keeping a good solid balance while we're able to bring in the money and we take every penny we have and we invest it back into the company. So we just keep it rolling. And so by building, by bringing in stronger writers, by bringing in people like Michael Nava, Sherry Reynolds, the noted Southern fiction writer, we have Anna Burke and McMahon, Rachel Spangler, Mary Ann, Kay Martin, we have some really strong writers, Paula Martin at Judith Katz, Ellen Hart, the list goes on and on and on. But all of that really helps us bring on new authors and publish books by established authors that might not have the huge audiences. What are the other, what are the duties of an editor-in-chief and publisher? Pretty much everything that you could imagine. A small publishing house, a small publishing house is exactly like any other small business. And that is you do all the work in-house that you can. We, I do everything from negotiating contracts, building the catalog with our distributor Ingram, doing royalties. I work on the website. You know, I traffic a lot of jobs. I just pay the bills, keep the books, all of those things. I know I was going to ask you what an average day is, but it's probably so varied. Every day is an adventure. And I have a to-do list and I rarely get to it. That makes sense. Let's step back into your past, if we may. Sure. You started and edited and wrote a blog called Rainbow Reader that ran between 2011 and 2014. How did that come about? Have you always been a reader? I bet. I've always been a reader. I've always been a reader. And I was fortunate enough to retire when I was 42 years old. And I knew I wanted to do something, but I wasn't sure what it was. And one morning, at about 4.30 in the morning, I was, because I had a little puppy who got up that early, I was reading an article in the Washington Post about this author who'd gotten laid off from his job a few years earlier. And he'd always been the breadwinner. And his wife went out and got a job and he was bumbling around the house. And his wife said, write a book. He've always wanted to write a book. And he said, I don't know how to write a book. I've never done that before. And she's like, well, you're not going to know until you try. He ended up winning a National Book Award. So it was that just do it moment. So I thought, okay, I'm looking for a new career, something to keep me busy. I'm sick and tired of spending a lot of money on books that are really bad. So I'm going to start reviewing them. I'm going to give people my unvarnished opinion. That's fabulous. And I read your guidelines for reviewers and there were three points. Establish a theme and then read the book many times. And what was the third point? Do you remember? I honestly don't. I haven't done it for almost seven years. So uh-huh. Explain why you like something and why you don't like something. Don't just say I like it or dislike it. I think the middle part, you said to review the plot and then evaluate it. Was it time-consuming? It was very time-consuming because I wanted to really what when you're reading literature especially books can be interpreted it interpreted on many levels. And sometimes when you go back and you read something, especially very well written books, you'll pick up things you've never noticed before. And those things can be really important points to think about. It changes how you view a character or the plot or any element of the story. So for me, I'd pick up a book and I'd read it. Then I'd think about it and read it again. And then I'd sit down and start developing my thesis for the review. Very interesting. My lesbian book was disbanded last night. And I know, I know, but we have two other book groups. So it might have been time. But we talked about maybe starting a blog, but what came into my mind is it's going to take a lot of time. Yeah, it is. It's very time-consuming. And you stopped doing it in 2014. Well, it coincided with starting a buy-water books. I knew I wasn't going to be able to give each job what I needed to do. So I was negotiating with buy-water coming in at the end of 2014. So yeah. Yeah, that was my suspicion. You can only do so much. Yes. Speaking of activities and productive projects, let's turn to your Lambda Literary Award finalist of 2014. Who's your daddy? A heartland romance. Yes. Author with your partner and wife, Ann McMahon. Yes. Congratulations. Thank you. What was that like? What was it like writing a novel with your wife? You know, it was surprisingly easy for us because we talk about books all the time. We talk about stories. And even when she is writing, we sit down and talk about plot points and characters and shifts and things like that. So this just sort of worked that way. But the book is set in the place that I grew up, the area that I grew up. Because she had been hearing me for years tell stories about people I grew up with and how things are different in the Midwest and how families are different, how people react differently. And so this was, as we talked about this, it just sort of naturally drifted into storytelling. Her father was a union organizer. I, when I was in high school and college, worked in a factory that was non-union and very vehemently non-union. And so in talking about these things, the story just blossomed from there. Where in Indiana did you grow up? Well, I actually grew up in Southern Illinois along the Wabash River. And there's a few scenes in the book that take place in the town that I went to high school. But the book takes place in Princeton, Indiana, which is, for reference, it's near Evansville, Indiana, where the Ohio and the Wabash come together down in that area. I got my MA at Purdue. Okay, so you know Evansville, you know Princeton, right? And there's a huge Toyota plant in Princeton. So the manufacturing plant, we created completely fictitional. We just set it in that same place. Oh, in fact, I came out in West Lafayette, Indiana, seven years ago. Good for you. I know, I know. Let's go back, if we could, to publishing. And let me ask you, what do you think is the future of independent and queer publisher? Oh, boy, I tell you, I think we've got a hard row to hoe. What we're seeing is it's become very, very cool for mainstream publishers and midstream indies that are not traditionally queer presses to start really recruiting queer writers. The top agents are taking their queer writers and getting them signed in these places. So, you know, when you have people like Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey and Reese, whether it's been putting out their greeting lists for the summer or the best of lists for the year, they're starting to have a lot of queer titles on them. They're all mainstream publishers. So a lot of people go there. They don't think about the smaller legacy LGBT publishers that are out there. They've been doing the heavy lifting for 20, 30, 40 years. And so, you know, it's a struggle. It's a struggle finding very high quality writers, but even more so getting a review in the Washington Post or the New York Times or Publishers Weekly in six and a half years at Bywater. I've gotten one book picked up by Publishers Weekly. We published a book this spring from a New York Times bestselling author and an Oprah Winfrey book club pick from a previous novel and Publishers Weekly wouldn't even take it, even even give consent to a review. So getting press space, getting on these lists of the best books of the year, going into awards competitions, you know, as a small queer publisher, we do really well in independent awards competitions, much better than we do in queer awards competitions, seeing those things starting to be focused more towards the mainstream. Sometimes for good reason, they're very good books, but sometimes it feels sort of like we've been left behind. And, you know, you look to see what happened with, for instance, in Great Britain back about 20-some odd years ago, there were a lot of small queer publishers. And the mainstream presses in Great Britain decided they were going to start publishing queer books and all the small presses disappeared. Then a lot of the queer writers got dropped. There was nowhere to go. There was no one to take the books to anymore. And there still aren't a lot of queer publishers who are doing big work in Great Britain to this day. So, you know, we run the risk of that same thing happening here. And on one hand, it's good that mainstream publishers are giving our books, you know, space on their catalogs, and Barnes & Noble are putting these books out on the shelves and not having them on the bottom shelf by, you know, next to Christianity and dependency, you know, the way they always have been. But at the same time, you know, my own wife walks into the Barnes & Noble and Winston Salem, she's a two-time Lambda literary award winner, there's not a single book of hers on the shelves. How do you fight that? I forgot to ask you how many titles Bywater publishes, how many titles does Bywater publish in a year? It drifts a little bit, sometimes a few more and sometimes a few less, depending if we are going to be reissuing any titles, because we can usually do those a little bit easier and slip them in to the gaps in our schedule. But I would say right now, we're probably on about 12 to 14 titles reliably a year between Ambal Press and Bywater Books. What about magazine publishing? As far as I can figure out, there are two LGBT literary reviews and you are on the board of Lambda literary for a while. Yes, I was. How do you think it seems like Lambda is kind of changing dramatically when online, I remember the bookstore and the print copy and they're changing with the times, I guess. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of flux going on right now. You know, Lambda is a fabulous organization. They really, really do a lot. I personally, this is just my preference. Lambda spends a lot of focus on writers in New York City and in Los Angeles and that's really, really fabulous, but they're not going to places that writers need the support. You know, you're in a small town in North Carolina and you can't even come out as queer, let alone stand up in front of a school and say, I wrote a book, let's talk about it. You know, so there are these, there are communities that really need that voice and that support. They need to see the writers in schools. They need to have, you know, those authors supported, you know, get into the fellowship programs and things like that. So their mission is still in process. It really is, but it's a really, really great organization. And it is, I mean, I write now for the Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide and that's also, that's been going for 20 years also, but it seems like Lambda might be a little more accessible or, you know, because it's online and free, but they're, they're the only two that I know of. Right. Yes. On the Lesbian side, there's the Golden Crown Literary Society that is focused more. It was, the mission was originally promoting, awarding and supporting lesbian writers, readers. And now it's drifted more to the Women Loving Women Forum, but that, they're a, they're a very solid organization. I've never heard of them. How about that? And I'm a lesbian scholar of long standing. Tell us about them. They're, they're in organizations maybe 15, 16 years old right now. Every year they have an annual conference. In fact, the annual, they're having a virtual conference this year. They had one last year. Next year they will have an in-person conference if things work out in Albuquerque, New Mexico in July. They have a, they have a writing academy, which is actually headed up right now by one of our by water authors. And we're very proud about that. Where they bring aspiring writers in and just they have mentors. They do online classes. They, it's writing. You know, they write short stories. They work on their novels. And with the goal of getting, getting a manuscript that can be submitted for to a publisher that can then take that next leap. Some of the writers are a little more accomplished. Some are a little less so, but it creates a really great writing community. They also do an awards and they have, they have trailblazers and every year they honor a, a book, a literary book this year. The book that they, it's the Lee Lynch classic is the title of the award. And Xamy is the book. I love that. Right. That's well, 1981. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, like I said, they have trailblazers every year. They name a trailblazer, someone who has really done something to move the needle, to push, push the envelope. And so it's, it's really, it's really great in, in, in that there's, it's a, it's a good organization that really provides a lot of support to writers. Where are they located? Honestly, I don't think that I don't even know where physically their home office is. Everybody, the board members live all over the country. Very interesting. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. When I was researching you and Bywater, I saw them, you know, but I didn't really pursue it because I didn't, but now I will. In the time that we have left, it's gone quickly. What final message do you have for our audience? You know, give, give some small publishers a chance. Yes. And independent book sellers, but go ahead. Yes. Absolutely. Independent book sellers, small publishers. When you have the opportunity to buy from a small publisher instead of Amazon or Barnes & Noble do that, it supports the publisher, it supports the authors. And we never want to be in a place where we don't have books, where we are not represented. Well, you're certainly doing a lot to preserve that tradition and, you know, make sure we're not eclipsed. Yes. Thank you for your work. Oh, thank you very much. And thank you for your work. Well, thank you for joining us. It's been an honor. I feel the same way. It's an embarrassment of thank yous. So people who are regular viewers of the interview show know that all things LGBTQ has made it a priority to go out and look for those organizations that are providing services that don't necessarily get a lot of attention. And today is indeed one of those occasions. And I am so pleased to invite to all things LGBTQ an old and dear friend. Please welcome Linda in Gold, who is the executive director of the Safe Line program. So welcome, Linda. Thank you very much. I appreciate this opportunity. So why don't we start with Safe Line? That's a program that some people may not have heard of. Exactly who or what is Safe Line and what are the services I would come to you to receive? Okay. Safe Line is domestic violence and sexual abuse organization serving all of Orange County and five towns in Northern Windsor. We provide prevention services and support services for any victim of domestic violence or sexual abuse. A lot of our work is done at the Special Investigations Unit, the Child Advocacy Center. And that is specifically in interviews with children who have been sexually abused or domestic violence to a severe extent and also with adults who have been sexually abused. So our services, we have a 24-hour hotline. Anyone, any victim can call us at any time 24 hours a day. And a trained staff person or a trained volunteer will answer the call. So if I was someone who was experiencing domestic violence, I could retap to Safe Line. There would be an advocate who would let me know the services that were available and help me to develop a plan to get out of my abusive situation. Exactly right. We provide options. We never tell anyone what to do because we truly don't know what someone should do. It is up to the person themselves to decide from these different options what might be good for them. One thing that we do is if someone wants a protection order, for example, we can help them with the paperwork. We can help them with the process, go to court with them. We're not attorneys, but we can sit there and be part of their strength and help them while they're sitting in front of the judge explaining their situation. So it's domestic violence and then but people can call us if they don't know if they're experiencing domestic violence even. Someone will call and say, this is what's going on with me. What do you think? And I can describe the different red flags that maybe they're in a dangerous situation. That's our goal is to keep everyone safe in whatever manner that might be to figure out what would be safest for them, for their children, and for their pets. Some people. Vermont was one of the first states to include the family pet with the protection order because oftentimes an abuser will threaten not only the victim, but the family pet to whatever control and power they can take. They will use that and find a weak link. And that's where they will go. So for what you're describing, it also sounds as though if I am just becoming aware of the situation in which I am living, that I might be able to reach out to you for support on an ongoing basis or periodically until I'm ready to leave my abusive relationship. Is that correct? Absolutely. And it may not be the goal to leave, but to survive while you're there. Because people often say, well, why don't they just leave? That's not possible for everyone. Financially, emotionally, there's many reasons why someone might not leave. When someone hears about options, then they might be able to figure things out a little bit more. It gives them an idea that there's maybe different options and they don't have to be stuck. So we try to help think through the process with them. As you're saying that one of the things that struck me is thinking in terms of COVID that Vermont is just coming out of. And people who sort of were confined to their homes, did you see an increase in the request for services and support? Or was there this sort of sense of unknown in fear and people just accepted the situations they were living in? March 15th, our phones went quiet because no one could call us. Their abuser was right there in the room with them. So they weren't out in the neighborhood. They weren't visiting family and friends. They weren't going to work. They weren't going to the grocery store. They were not getting out of their house. They were stuck with their abuser. And one good thing is that we had more people say, oh, stay at home order. I bet you're getting a lot of business now. So people recognize that staying at home was not necessarily a safe place to be. As time went on, now we, but at that time, the hospital was getting more calls and the sheriff's office was getting more calls because the situation escalates. That is the fear and that's the reality. If someone is in a certain situation, that will become more and more violent. And that is what has proven to be true where they couldn't call us so that we could insert some safety precautions. And if they had one call that they could make, they ended up at the hospital or they called law enforcement to remedy the situation right then. Since that time, we have become increasingly busy now because victims are out into the open, excuse me, and they can call us now. So So you're talking about if I have one phone call to make, I might do it to law enforcement, a hospital because that's my way out. That's my immediate way out. Would the hospital or law enforcement then reach out to you to become involved in service providing? Yes. And then that's where we get many of our referrals is both from the hospital and from law enforcement. One thing that people did not realize is how how the children were being affected. They weren't in school. They were not near their mandated reporters. Normally, a teacher could tell, Hey, something's going on. I wonder what's going on in the family. And they could report any sort of suspicion. But children were trapped at home also. Now that they're back at school, whether at the summer camp, they're out a little bit more, they are near their guidance counselor, the school nurse, the teacher who can make a report. And that is again why our business has increased because there's more reports, which is it's good that it's being reported. So I because you're a dual program at work, both with domestic violence and sexual violence, I'm making the leap of faith that there are comparable services for survivors of sexual violence that you have just described for domestic violence. Statewide, every inch of the state has somebody at an organization that is covering for domestic violence and sexual violence. So these services are available. Yes, statewide. So if if I'm someone who lives in Orange County and I've encountered sexual violence trauma, I can call Safe Line and you will talk me through you know, what I have for options and how I want to move forward. And talk is not our first verb. It's listen. Well, thank you. Great. And that is what we first do. And along the process is we listen. Because as I said before, we don't know what the answers are, but we will give options that are need to be creative sometimes too. I am sure of that. So if I am someone who is a survivor of recent sexual violence and I've decided to have a rape exam done. And again, I appreciate that it's the victim survivor's choice, whether to have a great crit done or not done. Someone from Safe Line would support me while I was actually in the emergency room and the exam was being done. That's true too. And statewide there are examiners who work through the hospital and again, by calling your local domestic violence, sexual violence organization, there will be someone who can support you at the hospital. Yes. Now, Gifford is the closest hospital in Orange County, correct? And you might use Central Vermont as well. True. That's both of them. Yes. And do both of those hospitals have someone who is specifically trained on staff to deal with survivors, victims of sexual violence? If they don't have someone on staff, they call someone. So there's someone who will come out to Gifford, for example, or Central Vermont Medical Center. If they're not stationed right there, there's someone who will come there who's responsible for that area. Yes. So I would be confident that there is a repository of people who appreciate all of the dynamics of sexual violence and would be able to support me through that process. That's right. That's right. So after in both the instance of domestic violence and sexual violence, you know, domestic violence, I've chose to leave my current situation or sexual violence. I've chosen to, you know, have a rape exam. Is there still follow-up from Safe Line to support me after a specific incident? Oh, absolutely. We meet and talk with survivors on an ongoing basis. It could be for a number of years. This is lifelong changes that someone's going through. So even if someone is had an incident years ago and something has suddenly triggered them, feel free to call us because we're a listening ear. And it doesn't need, we don't need to do something, but just by listening and letting someone go through the process, even if it happened a number of years ago, or we are seeing, unfortunately, I guess, generations. So someone that we're seeing now, because we've been working with them for a number of years, now we're seeing their grandchild or their teenager, because abuse is taught on both sides. I mean, no, go, please go ahead. Yeah, just what I want people to actually be taught is respect. And when that's not taught, then that's generational that both the daughter and son do not learn respect. And therefore, they will learn the pattern of their parents. And that's something that we would like to break that generational abuse cycle. As you were saying, and what I was interrupting with, it sounds as though there are varieties of messages that we get, and it gets into that implicit bias. What's the narrative that's running in the back of your head that you may or may not be aware of? And there's societal messaging, and then there's within the family. Is Safe Line engaged in any type of public education campaigns to help share with the public how to recognize those messages and how to change them? What we do as prevention education is work with the schools, work with youth groups, work with any faith group, any business. We will talk with them about the power and control wheel, or red flags, or about consent, or healthy relationships. There's a lot of education that is helpful for people to learn and different ways of communicating and to recognize in themselves how they may be communicating that is not respectful to someone else. So the education is something that we're always looking for outlets to do, and we welcome any any sort of invitation to educate. Such as being invited for an interview today. Exactly. So does Safe Line support a shelter program, or do you refer to other shelter programs within the Vermont network? Safe Line does not have a shelter. Therefore, we reach out to the other shelters. There's seven other shelters with the domestic violence, sexual violence network. So we reach out and work very directly with them to be able to find safe housing for someone when they need an emergency. So if if I were to approach Safe Line looking for support services, would that be a one-on-one encounter? Or do you also do groups where I could spend time with peers and talk about shared experiences? We would love to be able to have a support group of some sort, because it's Orange County that was difficult for people to drive to get to a central location at a certain time with the same needs that other people had. So we're hoping that with COVID and all of the Zoom information that people have grown accustomed to, that that could be an outlet in gathering people so that they do not need to travel and can then meet. Because what we truly do is meet one-on-one right now, either in person or by phone. And that can be somewhere safe, like at the courthouse or the library or someplace that's safe. So you have a hope to create a support group using whatever the means that are supportive of the victim survivors. What are the other aspects of Safe Line that either you need help with or you're looking at expanding at this point? As I said before, we'd love to have more outlets to speak. We speak at the Vermont Law School to talk to the students there. Any of the local schools, we would love to get in summer camps. We've done summer camps to talk to the counselors and then they can work with their campers. So that would be very helpful. And just getting the word out, mostly people don't need to know about Safe Line until they're in a situation where they need Safe Line. So to just remember, and it's an easy number to remember to call, New Safe. So that's the 800 number, 800, New Safe. Safe Line, again, that safe word began 30 years ago when a group of neighbors got together and said, there's nothing out here and we're seeing our neighbors are in difficult situations. We want to create a toll-free number first one in Vermont to have a place to call and to receive whatever services that would be helpful. So if I'm someone who lives in Orange County, I could approach you about specific services if I'm a domestic or sexual violence victim or survivor, but my guess is you also need volunteers, board members, maybe someone to help you with fundraising every now and then that the usual nonprofit needs. Exactly, exactly. We do have volunteers. We have volunteers who staff the hotline. We have volunteers who work in the office. We have volunteers who post flyers in the area just so that we've got our name out there. We do have oversight of governance, board of directors, and we're looking for board members. We need one or two right now. So that's another, and of course, funding always. We're partially funded by the federal government and the state government because they recognize that violence might happen behind closed doors, but it affects the whole community. So we do get funding that way. We also have an annual appeal. We have contributors who are very generous and donate on a monthly basis. So it's how we do outreach and all of our money is for support. So that's what, the more funds that we get, the more outreach that we can do. So as we bring this interview to a close, I first need to say thank you for the work you're doing, but I'd like to end with, so how did Linda end up at Safe Line? Non-profit management is trying to do good work from the foundational aspect of it. So I was the director of the Vermont Women's Business Center helping women start or grow their own businesses for economic security. Before that, it was at Central Vermont Medical Center doing education and outreach. And before that, it was the Girl Scouts. And so that was non-profit nationally that was raising the self-esteem of young women. So you had skills, and how can I best use them to serve my community? So thank you. And I will put it out there for everyone to hear. I now owe you lunch at Sarduchies. Okay. Thank you, Keith. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you in two weeks, but in the meantime, resist.