Stainless Steel Droppings

To answer your immediate question: yes, that is me pictured with Colleen Gleason. No, I am not winking at you. No, despite all evidences to the contrary, I am not having a poorly timed stroke! I am unfortunately very light sensitive in my left eye and the flash helped me look ever so lovely. Other than that, it is a fantastic picture!

On Sunday we had the distinct pleasure…and it truly was a pleasure…to travel to St. Louis to meet the incomparable Colleen Gleason, author of the page-turning Gardella Vampire Chronicles series.

I thought I’d take a little time today to share the trip with you and will also show you the entries for the photo contest held to celebrate week one of the release of When Twilight Burns.

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(Concert Poster for The Action Design)

While over visiting Dark Orpheus I saw this meme and decided, as much time as I spend listening to music and watching music videos in my down time, I had to participate.

The Rules:

* List seven songs you are into right now.
* No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring/summer.
* Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs.

What intrigued me was the “songs you are into right now“ aspect as well as the “shaping your spring/summer”.

I am certainly a child of the MTV Generation (as the old saw goes, back when there used to be music on MTV) and I have always been a fan of music videos. Further solidifying my adoration for visual music was the fact that I grew up without cable (the horror!!!) and so watching MTV, and later VH1, was a special treat that happened at other peoples’ houses and, even later in my college years, when Mary and I would babysit for the “rich folks”.

So…I’m listing my songs but also including the videos in case you want to watch them/listen to them. I decided to be 100% honest with this one, no cheating and adding more than 7 songs–that was difficult. I ended up picking 7 songs that I truly have listened to/watched a lot over the summer and/or have been in my head a bunch. Here’s a list with no pretension, just songs that are caught hold of me. Hope you enjoy…and would love to see you participate as well, either on your own site or in the comments here.

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“Winning isn’t everything, but the will to win is everything.”
~Vince Lombardi

I did not set out this year to be swept up by Olympic fever. I also did not set out to avoid it. I simply did not give it much thought. But then Saturday night found me in front of the television, glued to each event and thus a week has passed–I am up late every night reveling in the joy and the pain of Olympic hopefuls, both from my country and those all over the world.

For me, as an American, last night was extra-special.

Perhaps it was the drama set by the American’s collapse in the women’s team gymnastic competition. Perhaps it was a case of all the stars aligning correctly. Perhaps it is because the majority of female Olympic gymnasts look like children and I have a soft spot for kids.

Whatever it was, the fever was truly burning last night, and I was swept away in the tide of gold and silver.

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If you haven’t read the previous post, concerning cultivating one’s creativity, it would behoove you to do so. That post will appear to be high culture in comparison to what you are about to partake of. You’ve been warned…twice!

Last week I celebrated the release date of Colleen Gleason’s novel, When Twilight Burns, with an announcement of another photo contest. I have to admit that I have been disappointed with the entries thus far…because I have received NONE!!! And so to tempt you…or to punish you depending on how you choose to view it, Ms. Gleason has graciously allowed me to reveal to you the pre-photoshopped cover image for this latest novel complete with the art director’s notes.

Prepare to be educated…

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Two weeks ago, time spent at Qugrainne’s site lit the fire to finally get going with rearranging my basement.

Qugrainne did it again…got me thinking, with this post.

How do you cultivate creativity in your life? Have you found the things that make you come alive? Are you doing them?

The easy answer is yes…and no.

Encouraged by a little self-therapy and a few gentle kicks in the butt from the host, I decided to ‘cultivate my creativity’ this past weekend.

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Robert McGinnis: Painting the Last Rose of Summer

–a film by Paul Jilbert
–2008
–5/5 stars *

I have long been a fan of the illustration work of artist Robert McGinnis. I did a very gushing, image-laden Friday Favorite post on him back in May of 2006 that can be found here. This is one of the posts that bears frequent revisiting–not because of anything that has to do with me but because of the handful of examples of Robert McGinnis’ phenomenal talent.

Needless to say I was excited when rumors of a Robert McGinnis DVD surfaced well over a year ago. And it has finally been released!

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If you’ve been with me over the course of the last couple of years you are well aware that I have become a fan of Colleen Gleason’s Gardella Vampire Chronicles novels and for each successive release have done a review of the book as well as an interview with the author. If you missed the previous interviews or would just like a recap, feel free to visit them (click on the interview for the, er, interview and the book title for a link to the book review):

Interview with a Vampire…Author (The Rest Falls Away)

Interview with a Vampire Author, Part Deux (Rises The Night)

Interview with a Vampire Author, Part the Third (The Bleeding Dusk)

Trust me on this, the previous interviews are all really fun and worth reading, or re-reading as the case may be. If you are unsure of the type of books The Gardella Vampire Chronicles are, I think Colleen sums it up best with this quote from the first interview:

“The book straddles the tenets of most genre fiction. It’s not a horror novel, it’s not a romance, it’s not historical fiction. It’s an amalgam of all three, with some suspense, humor, adventure and history all tossed in with a bit of a love story.”

And today, Tuesday August 5th 2008 is the release day for the fourth book in the series, When Twilight Burns!!!

In honor of ‘release day’ I am going to break form a bit and include both my interview and a mini, non-spoiler review of the book!

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I briefly mentioned in Monday’s post that it was time for all of you with a camera and a desire to read another fun book in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles to prepare yourself to support author Colleen Gleason during the first week of the release of her book When Twilight Burns.

The way you can do that, and get a chance to win fun prizes, is to get your gear ready, put your creativity cap on, and plan to hit your local bookstore during the week of August 5th through August 11th!

And what can you win? Come with me and I’ll tell you.

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(Thanks Obscurorant for the link to the cool library image)

As the title so clearly points out, today’s post is all about books! There is a lot of great stuff in today’s post including challenge information, free book giveaways, and an upcoming photo contest just to name a few things.

So, without further ado, let’s turn the page.

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Today’s Friday Favorite may seem a bit off the beaten path from my more recent artist features and yet it hearkens to one of my great loves, the comic book. In the mid to late 90’s when I was introduced to the world of ‘funny books for adults’ it wasn’t long before the work of Michael Turner began to catch my eye. Over the years I haven’t collected much of his work and yet I have always appreciated the unique look of his characters, particularly his female characters.

Michael Turner died on June 27th of this year from complications resulting from treatment for bone cancer. He was only 37 years old.

Though a bit late, I decided that it was the right thing to do to honor his memory with a Friday Favorite post.

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