Best Music Writing Series Raises $17K On Kickstarter Then Pulls A Disappearing Act [Updated]

Da Capo's Best American Music Writing series ended in 2011. But the support to keep it going was so strong that editor Daphne Carr founded Feedback Press to continue the series as Best Music Writing. Carr and supporters were able to raise $17,337 on Kickstarter to fund a 2012 edition. But despite a strongly supportive community and high powered editorial board, the funds appear to have disappeared and Daphne Carr officially has no comment.

Daphne Carr's decision to revive the series after Da Capo Press ended it was met with strong positive response. So she launched Feedback Press, waged a successful Kickstarter campaign and gathered a notable group of editorial board members.

The 2012 edition was announced for release in "early fall 2012" and there the trail begins to grow cold.

H. Drew Blackburn recently got caught up on the status of the Best Music Writing series.

As Blackburn notes, the project's Facebook page went inactive in January 2012 followed by the Twitter feed in October 2012. Her reponse to an email from Burns stated simply, "This is Daphne Carr. I have no comment."

Numerous supporters expressed frustation with the lack of communication and the derailing of a project that was important to them.

Blackburn points out that Kickstarter has no responsibility at this stage. In a related article, Laura Hazard Owen got a response from Da Capo Press that, "Da Capo Press is no longer publishing Best Music Writing, so we don’t have any light to shed on this."

But, as H. Drew Blackburn revealed, Daphne Carr has continued her involvement with Occupy which included helping found Occupy Musicians.

It's good to know that she's still active and public but that just makes her abandonment of the Best Music Writing series more glaring. More importantly this would not be such an awful thing if she wasn't the one controlling the funds.

As things stand, supporters are out not just $17k but are faced with an uphill battle if they want to see Best Music Writing continue after they thought they'd won the day.

Update: Nick Mango pointed me to a piece by Andrew Beaujon who spoke with Daphne Carr. Apparently she intends to pay everybody back. Sounds like a rather sad ending overall.

Update 2: Daphne Carr has officially cancelled publication of the Best Music Writing and will be refunding the money to backers.

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.