“Money is like a child— rarely unaccompanied.” explains children’s author Daniel Handler, more commonly known as Lemony Snicket. “When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.”

Handler, who authored the popular Series of Unfortunate Events, is one among 1,300 names who have joined the Occupy Writers online petition this October. His co-signers include Neil Gaiman, Salaman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Ursula Le Guin, and Pulitzer Prize winner, Michael Cunningham.

The Occupy Writers website, founded by journalists Jeff Sharlet and Kiera Feldmen, went live earlier this month, and has since received support from undersigned writers of nearly every genre. Some are radical voices, while others are authors that, as Sharlet put it, Mayor Bloomberg might “take with him on a vacation to the beach.”

The overarching goal of this diverse crowd of artists is not absolute, yet they have all banded together under a single slogan:

“We, the undersigned writers and all who will join us, support Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world.”

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Sharlet was quick to assert that like the rest of the Occupy movement, the project has no designated leader, and the direction it takes in the future depends on the protesters themselves. Authors who are interested in having their names added to the page need only email their name and work, then wait for verification.

The only form of organization is alphabetical- there is no distinction between the famous and the obscure. Caleb Cain, a tentative convert to the Occupy movement, rationalizes his decision to sign the petition in The New Yorker:

“Whenever a writer considers endorsing a cause—whenever this writer considers it, at any rate—he worries: Do I know what I’m talking about? Am I distracting myself from my real work? Who cares what I think? Aren’t I just indulging a romantic sense of my own world-historical importance? Shouldn’t the cobbler stick to his last?

Maybe. And maybe the movement will disappoint me by taking a nasty turn. I didn’t marry Occupy Wall Street; I just signed a petition supporting it.”

The entirety of Snicket’s observations on the Wall Street protests, along with those of other authors, are posted a http://occupywriters.com/

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/atomische/

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