Putting on some Tobermory Grotto coffee. Teas are Darjeeling and Raspberry. Fresh iced tea and lemonade are in the fridge. Sodas are stocked up.

Lovely day (week, even) here. How's things out there?

Thanks for the heads-up Molly.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's Monday!!!

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood Morning!!!

There's some Really Dark Roast in the coffee pot. Teas are Assam Organic and Earl Grey. Cold bevvies are looking good.

See you 'round, y'all.

Quote by WriterGirl
Lastly, I’m not sure how much artists like her and Beyoncé can control the ticket price.

At this point, something needs to be done about Tickermaster, and they are not the ones to do it. It should be an anti-trust issue at this point. The fiasco over the tickets for the Oasis reunion has surely got to be the last straw. The company used "dynamic pricing" meaning prices changed based on volume of sales. Oasis was, needless to say, a popular ticket so prices went nuts. And then there's the usual problem of scalpers scooping up ticket and reselling them at exorbitant prices. In some countries, TM even facilitates that through their own site, though I think some constituencies cracked down on that.

Banging my head to a playlist of death, death core, and sundry metallic noise.

Coffee is Deathwish Dark Roast (fitting). Teas are Assam Organic and Yorkshire Gold. Washed the pitchers and mixed up fresh iced tea and lemonade.

Discovered I actually had a cover image downloaded to use on The Healer's Secret (linked but you won't be able to go there until it's reverified, I think). I think it's from the period when I was looking at compiling and expanding the three Tana stories into a novella. Got it to the appropriate size and it is now awaiting approval. Still fond of that trilogy, even if the followup has kind of lost steam after one story.

Rock on, peeples!

Sharon Den Adel of the band Within Temptation packs an incredible voice. So does Finnish rocker, and former Nightwish lead, Tarja. So how about Sharon covering a Tarja song? I'm in.

Within Temptation is doing some concerts with Tarja (crossing my fingers for performances of Paradise (What About Us), the amazing collaboration they did years ago) and this cover is the first in a tit for tat cover game WT is doing with her and annisokay, another band they are doing dates with.

And until we get the cookie crew back in shape, here's some off the shelf goodies. Bag is under the counter if you need to replenish them. Maple leaf creams are an old favourite of mine.

It's Friday! And you know what means! WEEKEND!!!!!

So let's have some Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from Fire Roasted for coffee.

Teas are Vinyl Cafe (a local blend named for a famous Canadian radio show) and Assam.

Cold drinks look okay.

Got plans for the weekend, folks?

Quote by Molly

As I'm sure you've all seen we now have our covers showing beside our stories. I think it's a fantastic addition. If you find any missing or broken please let me know.

Nice change but all my pre-SS 2.0 stories need new cover images. They look awful as "thumbnails" since they were landscape rather than portrait in those days. Some I can do with cropping but others might need new images. A project for a vacation or holiday period, maybe.

Dutch symphonic metal band Delain basically blew itself apart in 2021, replacing the entire lineup except founder and keyboardist Martijn Westerholt. Lead singer Charlotte Wessels went solo in the wake, leaving Martijn to replace one of the best and most experienced of the female metal leads. And he found a great young voice to do the job. Diana Leah has been excellent in the new lineup of the band, singing both new material and Wessels-era classics with skill and enthusiasm. They released the first single from an upcoming EP today.

It's been more than three years since bassist-singer-songwriter Marko Hietala left the band Nightwish and went quiet for a year. But he's been back for a couple years now and the good stuff just keeps coming. A reunion and reconciliation with former Nightwish lead singer Tarja; tours with her and Dutch singer Anneke van Giersbergen as well as on his own; a reunion with Tarot, the band founded by Marko and his brother that launched his career; and two new solo singles, the latest of which dropped yesterday. Hopefully, we are looking at a new album in 2025 but nothing's confirmed yet.

Woo hoo! A dozen poems.

(grumpy ape post deleted)

Good morning!!

Welcome back, Kat. A month bopping around Europe sounds like so much fun. Something I have in mind, probably for after retirement, too.

Vibes to your family on the loss of your b-i-l. Losing him during a joyous family occasion must have made it hurt all the more.

Cora, take it easy and get yourself well.

There's Jamaican Blue Mountain waiting to fill yer mug if you're a coffee person. For the tea drinkers, there's Scottish Breakfast and Raspberry Royale. Pitchers are washed and cold beverages refreshed.

Later, alligators!

Vibes, Gil. Have only dealt with dementia myself and that was enough. Having both parents in different situations like this sound horrible and stressful.

New month, new list of calls. As usual, it's pretty eclectic. See if there's anything that might suit your writing.

We got:

• Winter themed speculative fiction and poetry

• Morgana le Fay stories

• Speculative poetry about "Outlaws"

• Victorian industrial horror

• "Honest essays about contemporary relationships"

• And so much more

» 32 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for September 2024 (authorspublish.com)

Nice to see that the Popular Stories feature slider on the Stories page is all comp entries right now. 😊

Quote by verbal
We aren’t supposed to say anything yet, but she just got first place in a national essay competition and won actual money!

Cool. I haven't written an essay in eons but was pretty good at it in high school and university. Congratulations to the kid.

Mine just changed jobs. Moved from a former startup that gotten eaten by a multinational to another startup, albeit a big one.

They say it's not a real comp until a gorilla enters.

Okay, not really. But a gorilla has entered the comp. Have a boo and see what you think of my simian versification.

https://www.storiesspace.com/stories/poetry/on-the-beauty-that-lies-beneath

In other news, there's some Colombian Medium Roast awaiting you in the coffee pots.

If tea is your thing, how about some Irish Breakfast or Duke Of Earl?

And I gave the pitchers a wash and made fresh unsweet iced tea and lemonade for those what need a cold one. Sodas are stocked up, too.

No need for cold beverages here today. Just got back from an errand and had the seat heater on in my Civic. Only 14C right now and must have been colder overnight. Forecast high is only 20. So, yeah, it's September.

Hope you're all well and enjoying the long weekend if you're in a place what has it.

Comp entry has gone to the queue. So I made it with five days to go. But damn it, I'm going back to writing blank verse. This one has a rhythm and rhyme scheme and that took more work than the actual content.

There's some Nicaraguan Dark Roast brewing in the coffee pot.

Teas are English Breakfast and Lemon.

Looking good on the cold drinks.

Looks nice out. Hopefully my left knee, which was giving me serious grief over the last couple days, is better today so I can get out and enjoy it.

You have to use the share link, not the address.

(On the video, click Share, then Copy Link on mobile or the blue Copy button on desktop)

I am getting close. Needs some refining but the basic structure is done. Even have a cover image picked and prepped.

A while back, YouTube music influencer Nahre Sol did an interview with Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan. And that got me interested in his work and more broadly in the modern jazz scene. Hamasyan is jazz-trained but uses jazz more as a base than his only influence. Nahre even discussed how metal, esp. the complex rhythms of bands like Meshuggah, is an influence on his work. Being Armenian and still residing in his homeland, the music of his culture is a huge influence and presence. His new album, Bird of a Thousand Voices, is a concept album drawing on Armenian folklore with a diverse set of musical themes and ideas. Jazz, prog, metal, electronic (eg. Vangelis and Kitaro), folk, and probably more that I am missing. Amazing work. This is from it.

Grey day here but that might improve if the forecast is right. Off to the optometrist later. Nothing major, just routine exam and maybe tweak a scrip.

Coffee is Deathwish Dark Roast. Teas are Assam and Earl Grey. Cold drinks are looking good. How's your (long for some of us, I guess) weekend going?

Quote by verbal
I sold a story a few months ago, and it appears the magazine has gone under, the month they were going to feature me. Sigh. I tried contacting them. Crickets.

OMG, that's crazy. But I guess publishing is a pretty volatile business nowadays. Many of the markets in Artists Publish are online ones now.

Yay! Peaches! Yeah, I've been loving 'em. One of my top three favourite fruits, really. Grapefruit, Mac and Empire Apples, Peaches. Blueberries would be high on the list, too.

And another Dutch singer draws near to releasing her third solo album. Charlotte Wessels put out another video from The Obsession this week. The album is up for pre-save on Spotify now, too, if that's your streamer of choice.

And from reviewing the track list, I see that Alissa White-Gluz appears on Charlotte's album as well. The two have collaborated several times both in studio and on stage so it's not really a surprise to see another collab.

Continuing with Simone's solo debut, she and Arjen made the brilliant decision to close the album with a gorgeous acoustic ballad, "Dark Night of the Soul". With Simone backed by piano and cello, it is a beautiful and perfect ending to the album.

Alien : Romulus

Round things can roll away.

Let's twist again, like we did last summer. oo...or not. That kind of twisting we can do without. 😜