Nobody’s Fool

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo has devised a novel plan to raise money for the Community School in his hometown of Camden, Maine. It seems Camden is facing a $79,000 budget shortfall (somebody has to pay for those tax cuts, right?), so Russo is hoping to sell 1,000 tickets at $100 a piece for an unusual raffle. The prizewinning ticket gets the winner—or at least the winner’s name—a place in Russo’s next novel. What Russo does with that name, the Village Soup website reports, “depends on the name,” though the author known for his offbeat and sometimes unsavory characters promises, “I’m not going to use a real person’s name as a scumbag character.”

For raffle tickets, call 236-3000, e-mail cschool@cschool.acadia.net, or visit thecommunityschool.org.