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Covered Up Blog

Where you will find interviews, company news, and more

Jason Gurley: The Double-ended Cyclops of Indie Publishing

Jason Gurley is a rare species in the world of Indie publishing. Both a seasoned art director and prolific writer/indie author, he is making a name for himself doing the things he loves to do. I met up with Jason once out in Lake Oswego, Oregon where we chatted about his passions and it’s then that I realized that he was not just another designer turned writer. His approach to creating visibility for his work—both writing and design—comes off as professional and expert. Perhaps because he is a graphic designer, anything that he touches on a marketing level—his blogs, newsletters, social media postings and book cover work that he has done for all of his novels and plenty for the likes of Hugh Howey, and many successful indies—he somehow manages to make it all flow together seamlessly like he’s been at it for 20+ years. While his current novel, Eleanor, slated for release this coming June 27, 2014, took him some 13 years to massage to perfection, he has written numerous other novels and short stories in between that time. I received a few of his newsletters as of recent, encouraging advance readers to write a review of the title in advance of the pub date. His approach to selling his storytelling is something every indie author should take notes on. He advocates that design is important in selling your book, that hiring professional editors is critical to a book being well received, that creating a narrative about the life of your book, leading up to it’s birth, and showing baby pictures of it afterwards is critical (while I’m talking about pictures of his book, he does also post a ton of cute shots of his baby girl—and if that don’t sell books, I don’t know what will). Just as much as your book tells a story, it’s important to create a narrative surrounding your books life. I feel like I’m taken on a mini journey every time I read one of Jason’s book promo posts, I feel encouraged to help him make it a success, I feel a part of something. I think an author who can make their potential audience feel that way about a book is doing something very right. We all know it’s a tough sell out there. Might as well make it memorable and personal.

Anyway, this is meant to be an interview with Jason, so here it goes:

How much of your family dynamic thwarts or inspires what you do creatively as a writer and designer?

I adore my family. The most important thing to me is that I’m doing something that they can be proud of. My wife sees it, I think, but my daughter is only two. One day, I hope she picks up Eleanor or The Dark Age and thinks that I’ve made something good. Creatively speaking, most of what I do works around my family, as opposed to the other way around. There are exceptions, of course, when I’m just crushed under fifty things that need to be done at the same time. But I never want to regret spending more time on my own projects than with them.

Right now my daughter’s favorite thing seems to be impromptu dance parties, and they are the most amazing thing ever. Ever, man.

I’m going to lump your lucky turn of fate into one: you are both a book designer and seasoned indie author, how much do you think about the cover as you write? Do you consider yourself lucky to be the creator of package and content? Or do you ever feel you would rather see some other designer take a stab at your novels covers?

I think about the covers for my books quite a bit while I’m working on them. Sometimes I have a good idea of what they’ll become, but often I’ll surprise myself when I actually sit down to begin designing. Just like a novel, sometimes a cover has its own idea about itself, and it will surprise me. I’m sure you know this feeling well, too.

I don’t want to call myself a control freak, because I don’t think that I am, but I’m a very curious person, creatively speaking. I want to know how to do everything, which is how I’ve come to design my own covers and my own book interiors as well. There are only a few things that I currently ask for help with, and that’s the actual manuscript itself — I hire an editor and a proofreader to help me polish the words. But I’ve never hired anyone else to design my books. And so far that hasn’t been a curse, only a blessing.

I’m a tinkerer. I have a hard time adding people to my process, and then depending on them when things need to be changed. I think I’m relatively good at what I do, and I’m always trying to improve, so I tend to go it alone.

Though I’d be curious, of course, to see what a designer like you or Archie Ferguson might do with a book like Eleanor. I am not by any means under the impression that I’m the best designer of my own work — just the most accessible one!

Do you find your design inspiration is often found in similar territory as your writing inspiration?

Oh, man. That’s a really hard question to answer! I’m not entirely sure I can ever really put a finger on what inspires me as a designer, but you might be onto something here. I’m inspired, mostly, by questions — that is, by work that forces me to have questions about it. There’s a French artist, for example, named Francois Schuiten, whose work I absolutely adore. He’s incredibly proficient, technically speaking — he has an architecture background, and his work is very intricate and real — but what I love about his work is that it begs for questions. This is one of my favorite illustrations of his: It’s a perfect example of what I mean. It demands you to ask questions. Who is the man? What is he doing? What is this wonderful place? A library? A junkyard of books? Who are the men behind him?

This illustration makes me think of a hundred stories to tell, and is exactly what I try to do in the best of my work, I suppose: provoke the viewer into wanting to know more.

Do you see yourself dying at the writing table or the gates of Adobe?

I hope to die at neither! I hope that when I go I’m with my wife and my daughter and my grandchildren, and we’re gathered around the little portholes of our space transport, leaving Earth and headed for the stars…

Okay. I clearly can’t answer this question without flights of fancy interrupting my answer. But in ridiculous seriousness: I don’t have any interest in dying anywhere, ever. There’s way too much about where we’re going that I want to know, that I want to see. I read a novel once about an astronaut who travels to the edge of our solar system to investigate a strange object that’s appeared there. The object turns out to be a gateway, and the astronaut goes through it… and for the next eight millenia, he bounces around in a series of wormholes, occasionally popping out to see what’s happened to Earth. It goes through some dramatic changes. That’s what I want, except without the bouncing-around-the-wormholes thing.

I want to be Ted Williams’s head. Or a vampire, but one that prefers breakfast to blood.

That book, for anyone interested, is Stephen Baxter’s Manifold Time. I think. It’s one of the books in the Manifold series.

What are the major themes in Eleanor that you feel are most personal in your aging process and maturity as a writer, since the process spans 13 years?

Well, the biggest one, at the beginning, was my own doubts about the existence of a god. I was a pastor’s son, and it took me a long time to be bold, to ask myself hard questions about the things that everyone around me believed in. At twenty-three, I sometimes think I was late to my own party — I think sometimes that I should have been asking those questions years earlier, and I don’t know why I wasn’t. But other times, I think that I was right on time.

In the beginning, Eleanor was a vehicle for my questions. My protagonist struggled with a similar question, though her direct experience was much more dramatic than mine. She’d gone cliff-diving with friends, but had a terrible, brutal accident, and wound up in a coma. And while unconscious for months, she had a sort of spiritual experience. A conversation, really, with someone she thought might be God. But when she wakes up, the real world is a terribly disappointing place. After that kind of experience, how does real life compare?

So that’s how the book got started. But as I got older, and as I began to realize what I did and didn’t believe in, Eleanor started to change. The book didn’t have to answer any questions for me anymore. Frankly, it didn’t even have to exist. But I never lost my fascination with Eleanor herself, and I never stopped writing about her. I experimented with her character, taking her out of the world I’d created originally, and dropping her into all sorts of other small worlds — what would Eleanor do if she woke up and there was nobody else on the planet? What would she do if she was middle-aged, and having an affair? What if she was perfectly domestic and happy?

Eventually I plucked her story out of those different experiments, and it became the version of the novel that’s coming out next month. The important thing is that, finally, I feel as if I’ve figured out enough of myself to figure her out, too. The novel that Eleanor has become is literally nothing like the novel I began thirteen years ago.

Well, except for its title.

How much of your writing is driven by marketing concerns? You planned to release Eleanor as a three book series at one point. Was that a marketing effort in light of being a rising indie author or because you felt it could pace readers through an otherwise epic journey?

That was part of the reason that I considered serializing the novel, yes. But I think that my own impatience was probably the root of that entire consideration. It’s killing me that the book is still a month from release! After thirteen years, you’d think that a month would be easy. But it’s not, not at all.

The important thing, though, is that I realized very quickly that Eleanor is not a novel that can be easily serialized. It asks some very big questions, and it’s more patient than I am about doling out answers. There are no perfect cliffhangers. There’s just one absolutely enormous arc that Eleanor takes through this story, and it would be utterly unfair to readers to unnaturally divide that story into pieces.

So: it’s one novel, the biggest one I’ve written so far.

You’re an expert marketer. Your blog, eblasts/newsletters and fact that you’re a seasoned designer seem to indicate you have a slight insider perspective of the indie publishing world. What advice would you give to authors taking the path?

I’m sipping hot chocolate while I answer these questions, and I just about choked. No, no — I’m not an expert marketer. There are some things that I consider myself expert at, yes, that I’ve logged far more than ten thousand hours on – but marketing is not one of them. I spent years as a creative director, and I still have a very satisfying career as a designer for a startup, but I’m by no means an expert at marketing.

I have been fortunate, I will say, that my work on book covers has opened a lot of doors for me, and introduced me to people who have been great mentors. Through that design work I’ve gotten to meet authors like Hugh Howey and A.G. Riddle, or to develop friendships with people at various publishers, and that’s all been extremely helpful. I’ve learned a lot from all of them.

But I’m no expert. I do have some advice, though, just based on my own experiences. I mentioned this in another interview recently, but it bears repeating.

Be nice.

Be generous.

Take care of the readers who take care of you.

Do things for other authors that they’re not often able to do themselves.

Say yes until you can’t say yes anymore, and then say yes to the things that matter most to you.

That’s my advice. It may sound rather trite, but it’s working well for me now, I think.

Do you see yourself slipping into other genres? A self help book for indie’s?! Or a guide to parenting?

Other genres, definitely. Nonfiction? Extremely unlikely.

Eleanor, actually, marks a bit of a shift. Most of the books and short stories I’ve published, so far, have been undeniable occupants of some flavor of the science fiction genre. But Eleanor is… more difficult to describe. You might use terms like “magical realism” or “contemporary fantasy,” and you wouldn’t be wrong. Some of my early readers, including some fellow authors, have picked up on this, and have compared the book to others written by Neil Gaiman or Madeleine L’Engle. And while I’m no Gaiman, no L’Engle, it’s encouraging to know that I’ve written this book well enough for others to identify what it’s all about.

I do know that not all of my current readers will be able to take this journey with me. Not all science fiction readers will want to read a novel like this one, and that’s okay. I think this novel will probably find a new audience all its own, and introduce my work to a whole new set of readers who will enjoy it — but who won’t have a whole lot of interest in my prior science fiction novels.

What’s your ideal thinking conditions in contrast to your execution conditions? Are you flooded with ideas while vacationing? And inspired to put pen to paper when your at your desk? Is the world littered with your napkin notes?

My iPhone is stuffed with voice memos that I’ve recorded while driving, mostly. There are a few dozen story ideas there, some almost fully-realized, some just a description of a scene I imagined. I get a lot of ideas while I’m behind the wheel. Other people think best in the shower. I think best when I’m steering a three-quarter-ton death machine down a concrete artery, surrounded by other distracted humans. Go figure.

As for writing — these days I can do it just about anywhere. I write most often in coffee shops now, in small snatches of time that I steal from the rest of my day. I write before I go to work, or on my lunch break, or in my Jeep if I’m early for something else. I write at night when my daughter goes to bed, or in the morning before she wakes up. If I have fifteen minutes, I’ll write a thousand words or more. I don’t have time to stall, it seems.

It wasn’t always this way. I once needed the perfect lighting, the perfect music, the perfect quiet. If someone was mowing the lawn two blocks over, it would ruin everything. I think that becoming a father just made it necessary to adjust. That isn’t to say that I don’t sometimes get overwhelmed by the distractions — I do, we all do — just that I’m not able to really do anything about them anymore. So I do the best with what I’ve got.

Did you have visions of being an author as a youth or was it an accidental affair?

I’ve always wanted to tell stories. I’ve been writing novels since I graduated high school. I’ve been in touch recently with a creative writing teacher who — as she put it — “realized that you needed wings, not lessons,” and who really shaped my early desire to write. My recent collection, Deep Breath Hold Tight, is dedicated to her.

I never imagined, though, that my path would be such a solo affair. I had an image of what being an author would be, and very little of that image was about the actual work of writing. Most of it was about rooftop parties and drinks and lectures and book tours and constant celebration of my accomplishments. It took years to realize that being an author is literally nothing like that at all. Being an author is not a romantic thing, unless you’re easily romanced by little, real-life struggles, like the challenge of finding time to write in a day that’s already packed with a day job, being a good father and husband, feeding and walking the dogs, putting away toys, designing book covers, et cetera. I mean, last night I forgot to eat dinner, and I went to bed early, just completely tapped out by the fifty things on my to-do list and the seven more that arrived in my inbox while I was doing two other things.

The one thing I have going for me, I think, is that I don’t expect to ever support myself with my books. I have a really fulfilling career that I enjoy, that I’m good at, and that takes the pressure off of my stories. I get to write what I want to write, not what I think I have to write in order to sell thousands more books.

Are you on fire? Are we going to see a novel every few months to a year from Jason Gurley? Or will you mull over things from here on out?

Let’s put it this way: In December, 2012, I took a break from writing Eleanor to try to write a new novel. (I wanted to remind myself that I could actually finish something, I think.) In the next six months, I wrote four novels before getting back to Eleanor. Six months! Clearly Eleanor is the bottleneck here. So while I can’t promise anything, I hope you’ll see at least a book every year. I don’t know how not to write.

Designers have been known to write. Both fiction and non fiction. How much does being a designer influence your observations as a writer?

Have they really? I need to meet some other people who are doing this. I traveled to Seattle last December for a Kindle Worlds event at Amazon, and Philip Patrick, the head of Kindle Worlds, made a comment to me about how much he liked my cover work, and my stories, and how rare it was to find an author who was also an equally adept designer.

Being a designer, though, can often be an enormous curse, at least when it comes to the kinds of observations you’re talking about. I observe way too much, I think. If I never critique another badly-kerned sign or another real-world example of poor user experience, like a badly-designed parking lot or an uncomfortable transaction, I think I’ll be a happier person. My wife certainly will be. The world needs fewer design rants, not more of mine.

But that isn’t what you asked. I think that by nature designers are curious, as are writers. I think, in my case, they’re two halves of the same coin. It’s like I’m Cyclops from the X-Men, except I also shoot laser beams out of my butt. You can quote me on this, by the way. Here, I’ll even make it more sound-bite-y for you: Being a hybrid writer-designer is like being an X-Man, but with double the powers. It’s like I’m Cyclops, but I also shoot laser beams out of my butt.

Of course, now my mind is wandering down the road of X-Men mashups. Can you imagine?

Doesn’t matter too much, though. Superman could kick their butts even if they fired lasers out of them.

Wow, did I derail this question or what?

I can’t wait to read Eleanor and see what you’re up to next!

Thanks! I can tell you the next book — it’s The Travelers, the final book in my Movement series — but after that it’s really anybody’s guess. I’m not making up my mind about anything just yet. I’m enjoying the idea that there’s a wide-open road out there, waiting for me to see where it goes.

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  • “ Thank you for such quick turn-arounds, wonderful organization, your professionalism, and most of all your great ideas and solutions.”

    — Tracy Cunningham
  • “ Better than professional! Every time I asked to tweak this or that detail, they did it with both alacrity and creativity. Very friendly and helpful throughout the process. ”

    — Ira Berkowitz
  • “ I honestly couldn’t imagine a better cover. I get people telling how much they love the cover on a regular basis. ”

    — S.C. Barrus
  • “ The cover and layout are so professionally done and compelling. The whole design speaks to a high level of quality and style and I think that has a huge impact on book sales. ”

    — Cynthia Morris
  • “Thank you so much for your great work and incredible speediness!”

    — Laura Williams, Algonquin Press
  • “You guys are great. It will be my pleasure to recommend you to fellow authors. I’m particularly impressed with your prompt turn-arounds, and your ability to effectively capture my concepts.”

    — Richard Bard

By The Numbers

  • 12
    Years in Business
  • 162
    Trade publishers served
  • 981
    Indie publishers served
  • 15


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Open Right

Location: South Australia

Danielle Clode

Danielle Clode is a zoologist and natural history writer. She also teaches professional and creative writing.

» Read more about Danielle Clode

Anna Goldsworthy

Author, Corporate, Entertainer, Inspirational Speaker, Speaking Out

Anna Goldsworthy is a prize-winning classical pianist and writer. She an engaging speaker and performer, and is passionate about bringing the lessons of classical music to the widest possible audience. She is Artist Director of the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival.

» Read more about Anna Goldsworthy

Andrew Joyner

Author, Illustrator

Andrew Joyner is a children’s illustrator and author. In 2009 his first picture book was published, The Terrible Plop, written by Ursula Dubosarsky. Since then Andrew has illustrated many picture books, and his work is now published in more than twenty countries. He has also written and illustrated the Boris books, an early reader series about an adventurous warthog. He lives in the Adelaide Hills with his wife and two children – and their many, many pets.

» Read more about Andrew Joyner

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End of the Year ABC Book

Saturday, May 30, 2015

A few weeks ago I was browsing blogs and found an awesome idea on ClassroomTested Resources!  The post was written by Beth from Adventures of a Schoolmarm and describes a collaborative ABC Memory book that she does with her students.  Since I have exactly 26 kids this year, I thought I would give it a try, and I’m super glad I did!

I introduced the project to the kids by telling them that we would be brainstorming ideas of things that we’ve done this year or things that deal with our class or school.  I gave the kids a graphic organizer and ten minutes to brainstorm on their own.  You can get the organizer for free here.

After they brainstormed on their own, we shared ideas.  They came up with SO many ideas!  We filled our whiteboard with their brainstorming.  Then we narrowed it down to one idea per letter that best summed up our year, but didn’t repeat ideas.

After narrowing the ideas, it was time to assign letters.  A few things were student specific, so they got those automatically.  For the rest of the kids, I drew numbers and they got to pick a topic.  Then, it was time to write.

Each student wrote a paragraph about their topic.  Beth’s product (which is available here) has a page for each letter that gives the kids about half a page of lines for writing.  After they wrote, I collected the pages and copied an entire book for each child.
They started illustrating on Friday and they are adorable so far!  This is definitely a project I want to repeat in the future!

If you want to keep reading, The following is a list of our ABC topics:
A – Amazing Race (our states and capitals “competition”)
B – Book Talks (a monthly requirement)
C – Camp SOLE (read about it here)
D – Miss Davis
E – Eating at the middle school (on our orientation visit)
F – Flags (the fifth graders have a competition to design a school flag)
G – Going to Marengo Cave (read about it here)
I – ISTEP (yes, they wanted to write about the state test)
J – JA BizTown (read about it here)
K – Kindergarten Buddies
L – Lock Down Drills (they think barricading the door is fun)
M – Making Rockets (we make rockets out of 2-liter bottles and launch them in the Spring)
N – Nicknames (we have a “Duck” and a “Llama” in our room)
O – Otter Trot (our school’s walk-a-thon)
P – Prosthetics (we build prosthetic legs in Science)
Q – Quizzes (Q was kind of a hard one)
R – Recycling (my class is in charge of the school’s recycling program)
S – Stealing Kids (The three fifth grade teachers sometimes borrow kids from the other 5th grade classes. It’s harmless, but fun for the kids.)
T – Tornado Drill (We had a real tornado warning this year…while we were on a field trip)
U – The Unicorn Song (long story!  But here’s a link)
V – Video Rewards (We watched funny animal videos and the Evolution of Music as rewards)
W – We the People (read about it at the end of this post)
X – eXoskeletons (we had observations with insects in the fall, and X was hard!)
Y – Yummy Treats (I may spoil my kids…especially during state testing)
Z – Zern Zingers (our principal’s daily jokes)
◄Design by Pocket


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Book Of Swag Bar Sessions with Black Motion.

As soon as I heard that Black Motion are collaborating with Ballentine’s Whiskey, I wanted to get them into our office bar for a young chat and perhaps to dig for some exclusives and insights on what makes them tick.
The guys weren’t as gigantic as they look when they are on stage. I was also pleasantly surprised by their humility, no pre-Madonna or superstar antics. The guys came in ready to get right into it and we did just that. We spoke about a lot of things, including their exciting campaign with Ballantine’s. We touched on their new album, plans for 2017 and beyond, check the interview in the video below.


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Books by Rose Rosie Russell Children's Books Author Illustrator KidLit Blog By Rosie Russell
Ever felt that moment when, in the middle of a story, you become stuck? This can happen to all writers.
   Here are ten simple suggestions to guide you when, “writer’s block,” and other obstacles occur.

                                                          Photo Credit: Hansbeen/
Have faith in yourself!

   You know the saying by Henry Ford, "If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right!"

   What we say to ourselves is important.  Remember back when you did well at something. I’m sure there were stumbling blocks to overcome, you pushed through and it happened.

If you hit that spot again, remind yourself of your past successes.

                                                                      Photo Credit: Geralt/
Get started!

   Sometimes, starting a project or writing a story is hard but it won’t happen until you start.
Even if you start with fifteen minutes a day, it's better than not writing anything at all.
The good news is, once you begin, you may not want to stop.

"The secret to getting ahead is getting started." Mark Twain

                                                                                Photo Credit: Geralt/
Make time!

   Create a specific schedule to write each day. When are you the most productive? In the morning or evening? Notice when you are full of ideas and use that time the best to your ability.

                                                                    Photo Credit: ArtsyBee/
Follow a routine.

   Once you figured out when your ideas come, create a routine to write. Stick to your plan every day.
   Morning seems the best for me. Afternoon or evening may work for you. Once you create a routine, it will turn into a habit.

                                                                                Photo Credit: TheFifthWatches/
Get inspired!

   Look at photos, magazines, or view splendid paintings and art. If you're writing on a certain subject, surround yourself with something that pertains to your writing. If you're writing a novel, listen to music from that period of time
   Does an idea come to mind? A notion? A feeling?

   "One picture is worth ten thousand words." Chinese Proverb

                                                                                Photo Credit: Mrs. Brown/
Don’t be shy to ask for help!

   Visit with a friend, family member, or a writers group for their insights. Many times they will catch something. We’re so close to what we've written, it's hard for us to see.

   Try and keep an open mind to what feedback others can give.

                                                                                Photo Credit: MIH83/
Take a break.

   Go for a walk or do your favorite exercise. Work on your favorite hobby.

Sometimes, getting away from where you write, is all you need to get past where you’re stuck.

                                                                                Photo Credit: Pexels/
Break your work into segments.

   Giving attention to the whole story can be daunting. Break it into parts and concentrate on just that.
   Check out different words that will inspire you to finish an idea.
   Research a topic to complete that section.

                                                                                Photo Credit: PIRO4D/
Trust your gut instincts!

   Have you ever written a sentence or segment you can’t get past that nagging sense something isn’t right? Either try to change it, or cut parts out of your story. For me, sometimes removing words or sections have been my best choice.

                                                                                Photo Credit: Larisa-K/
Never Give Up!

Last, but not least, never give up! Keep going!
                                                                      Photo Credit: Wallner/

What suggestions do you have for when you’ve hit an obstacle?

Leave a comment below to share your ideas.

As always, happy reading and writing!
A Behind the Scenes Look at Heartfelt Illustrations at Books by Rose

   I’m going to share with you my six titles that I have currently published. Here are some fun heartfelt facts about each story and a few of the illustrations that I used in each book. I love using special items and people that are important to me.

   My first book:  “Avi and Jackson Best Friends”

   I have actually made two of these books. The first one was through a different company than what I use now. When I switched, I redid all the illustrations. Being my first book, I did not know the things I know now about illustrating.  I’m still learning. Because this story gives me such great memories, I am going to keep it just the way it is.

  This rhyming tale is on our two sons when they were growing up. I love all the pictures in this book, but this one, is from a photo I drew of them playing in the snow. They were around five and two years old. I added the igloo for fun.

   The second picture holds a conversion van we had when they were young.  We took many vacations and rides back and forth to baseball games we attended during that time. Memories!

 My second story is “Beasley’s Journey.” Again, this book was redrawn for the reason above.

   This story is about a real beagle that our family owned when we were young. Unfortunately, he did not live long. After a few weeks we had him, a car struck him in front of our home. I always knew I would make a story in his memory.

   A friend of mine had two adorable beagles, named Penny and Lexy, at the time I wrote this. The idea to include them was a must. Another friend has a dog named Allie, (She’s a Basset Hound, don’t tell anyone.) She is so cute I knew she would make the cut.

   I picked these two illustrations to show you and the meaning behind them.

   The first one I named the street after “Allie.” I also learned how to draw one point perspective for the first time. I was so excited.

   The second is the home that our sons grew up in when they were young. Many fun times living there. Our oldest son owns the black cat you see in the picture.

   My next one is, “Maggie, Millie, and Merrie’s Magical Adventure.”

   This story is from a dream I had way back in the 4th grade. Without giving too much away, I will tell you that it’s a fun adventure that I think most kids would love to go on.

   When I do school visits, the students all like that I included myself in the book as the Grandmother.  (Yes, that is me on the left.) They love hearing this as it encourages them to write about their friends and loved ones.

   The second illustration is of course the cover of this story. In the actually story, they return from their adventure with fairy dust on their clothes. Hum, I wonder what that’s all about.
   The book that follows this one is, “Maggie, Millie, and Merrie’s Magical Coins.”
I loved making this one! Again, it’s based on something I played with a lot back when I was 9 years old.
   Here are a few of the illustrations from this story.

   The first illustration is of the triplets watching Grandmother’s favorite musicals. If you look at the T.V., you will see a black and white photo. That is actually a real photo of our mother when she was young in her singing trio in the 1930’s. The blanket you see that the triplets are using, is a real blanket that my mother made me for my birthday one year. She had lost her eyesight but still continued to make many gifts for us. She was amazing!

   The second illustration is when the triplets go through a wooden box they found in the attic. Yes, they found three magical coins! The box I used in this story is from a jewelry box that our father made my sister and I a year before he passed away. I think he would have liked that I included it.

   The next book I’m going to tell you about is, “A Search and Find of Every Kind with Jake and his dog named Cain.” Whew, big title, right? I have some fun reasons why I did that. First of all, it’s based on our youngest son named Jake. The dog you see pictured on the cover is not named Cain. (He’s really named after a famous rock band.) We weren’t too sure how that would take for a children’s book. We came up with Cain, after Lorenzo Cain, the Kansas City Royals baseball player. Of course it’s a “search and find” based on a small story on how Jake spends his days and over the course of a weekend.

   I had a blast with the illustrations on this one. I included so many people I know. The first one is our oldest son working as a clerk in a store.

   The second one is a friend of his that's currently a coworker of his today.

   See where I have Cain waiting outside for his buddy?
   My most current book that is out is, “Beasley and Friends to the Rescue.” It’s been another fun one to make.

   The first illustration is when Beasley gets all settled in for his afternoon nap. He’s interrupted with Lola duck squawking about all the racket at Farmer Bill’s barn.

   The second photo is my brother as Farmer Bill. I also have included some real photos in the back of the book on each character.

    Don’t forget to look for the peeking bunny!

   People ask me all the time, which do I enjoy more? The writing or illustrating? I would have to say both! I love it when a story comes to mind. I know it’s a good one if I can’t stop thinking about it. The illustrating is hard at times as I get an “illustrating block.” Including the right items with the little space I have to work with. It's not always easy. Showing the reader is important in a story without giving away too much. It’s quite a balance to work with.

   I hope you have enjoy this post. I also hope you will find the thing you love to do and do it with all the passion you can give it.

   As always, let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks for stopping by today!
Happy Reading!

To find these books go to:
Barnes and Noble
Walmart for "Beasley's Journey" and "A Search and Find of Every Kind with Jake and his Dog Named Cain."

Books by Rose Rosie Russell Children's Books Author IllustratorKidLit Blog By Rosie Russell


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Monday, February 22, 2010

Book Review: Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Bullies

Author: Howard Binkow
Illustrator: Susan F. Cornelison
Interest Level: Ages 4-9
About This Book: Howard the bunny is being bullied at school by the Snorton twins. Even though his intuition tells him to tell the teacher about it, he chooses different strategies. Howard tries ignoring, avoiding, making jokes and getting back at the bullies. Nothing works and things get worse. He finally tells his teacher. She takes action and makes him feel okay and safe. This book comes with a lesson and resources to deal with bully issues.

Be brave, be bold
a teacher must be told.

Why It's On My Bookshelf: Children need to learn the difference between small problems they can deal with themselves and big problems which need to be reported to an adult. Howard B. Wigglebottom tries to use different strategies to deal with bullies,  however, the strategies fail over and over again. He then realizes he he must report the problem. When kids repeated attempts of trying to stop bully behavior fail, I consider this a full on big bully problem. If you are a school counselor, I strongly recommend this book be part of your bully curriculum. Oh, and the author's website, The We Do Listen Foundation is full of goodies like games, lesson plans, songs, coloring pages, AND the books are animated. The kids LOVE watching the animated version. I read the book first and use the animated version as a follow up.

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BGU Podcast-Busting Through 5 Major Excuses For Not Continuing Your Education

Are you having a difficult time making and/or sustaining major changes in your life?
Have the following excuses barged in and sapped away all of your desire to change your life?

1. Lack of technical resources.
(Phone, Laptop, Other Devices)

2. Lack of time.

3. Lack of support.

4. Lack of money.

5. Lack of desire for additional training.

Listen to this episode  of the Bougie Girl University podcast

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Bougie Girl Univeristy:Building A Room On A Budget-Paint Is My New BFF

Over the years, I have had a love-hate relationship with paint. In my prior experiences, painting projects never quite turned out right. Either I slathered too much paint on an object or not enough. As my income increased, so did my tendency to avoid DIY painting projects of any kind.

My living room decor is comprised of red, black, and white. However, my TV stand/entertainment center did not coordinate with my living at all. I contemplated replacing it with a black one. But, the comparable ones were a couple hundred dollars. I ruled out searching Craigslist and other secondhand resources due to lack of time.
As time wore on, it became clearer to me that my best option in this scenario was to paint this piece of furniture black. Luckily, I have a fenced in backyard and a seemingly never-ending roll of plastic sheeting which has acted as a barrier between my project and the patio.

Here is my list of  suggestions for spray painting furniture:

1. Study tutorials on spray painting furni…

Bougie Girl University: Building A Room Budget: Back Patio On A Budget

1. Seating (All year round vs. seasonal)
2. Flowers and Plants
3. Decorative Items
4. Lighting

Bougie Girl University: Building A Room on a Budget- Main Bedroom

1. Somewhere to sleep (Bed and Futon)
2. Clothing Storage (Rolling Rack, Closet, Trunk, and/or Dresser)
3. Floor coverings
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Taking from others has a bad reputation, but I believe in appropriation, and use it as a central element in building my compositions. Appropriating art historical images within my compositions allows me to use juxtaposition and context in a way I find particularly satisfying. I resonate with the statement by filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”

I look to create dialogue between history and cultural iconography through the appropriations, and through the dialogue, contemporary meaning.

False Sense of Security (PATRIOT Act I) by Michael Fischerkeller (2014)
False Sense of Security (PATRIOT Act I) by Michael Fischerkeller (2014)

I’m in the midst of producing a 5-painting series commenting on the PATRIOT Act. An appropriated female (in a vulnerable state) is the centerpiece of the first completed painting in the series. Flaming June, from Sir Frederic Leighton’s 1895 artwork of that name, is a figure sleeping in a near-fetal position, dressed in a semi-transparent gown.  In my work, Uncle Sam peers over a wall at June.

In case you’re not familiar with the PATRIOT Act, Section 215 (of 170 sections totaling 342 pages) enables vastly expanded government surveillance powers. The Act challenges our rights to privacy and due process, and in various ways I’m expressing my concerns through this series.

I really like the transparency effect from Flaming June’s gown, and I’ve been playing with carrying that transparency on the figure through all of the paintings in this series.  Last month I created “False Sense of Privacy” using a figure from John William Godward’s 1903 painting “Girl in Yellow Drapery”.  The figure’s pose and the color palette of her dress hint at intimacy and I’m using her to make a statement about how it is in our most intimate moments that we are most vulnerable to invasions of privacy.

Aspects of legal due process (obscured by the PATRIOT Act) are inspiring the piece I’m creating now, which I’m calling, “False Belief in Due Process”. I’m searching for the right art historical images to base the work on, and have been playing with options. I mostly use Google for my image research. I generally work in the evenings and on weekends after other responsibilities have been tended to, i.e., family time, to-do lists, and so on. I work in my house, finding the images, putting together and cutting stencils in one room and spray painting in my garage. I hope you’ll come to the upcoming Hothouse: imPRINT exhibit opening and let me know what you think of the work.

Michael Fischerkeller was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1961. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Ohio State University in 1996.  After purchasing a piece of street art in the Summer of 2014 he was inspired to create, to try and elucidate through art what have become increasingly complex political, social and economic issues.  Fischerkeller has exhibited across the United States, including within exhibits that focus on art’s role in highlighting contemporary social issues. Locally his work has been shown at the Art League Gallery in Alexandria, VA, Touchstone Gallery and Hill Center Gallery in Washington, DC, Gateway Arts Center in Brentwood, MD and Washington ArtWorks Gallery in Rockville, MD.  He lives and works in Upper Marlboro, MD. View his artist website here

This article was produced with the support of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities within a partnership between Day Eight and the Washington Project for the Arts.

The “Hothouse: imPRINT” exhibit will be open from May 7 – June 20, 2015 at the Capitol Skyline Hotel.

The image at the top of the post is a detail from the author’s artwork, “False Sense of Privacy (Patriot Act II).

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Baptist Press Archive

Friday, August 11, 2017

Download All Stories
  • Donna Gaines showing neighborly love through literacy

    by Kara Bettis, posted Friday, August 11, 2017 (6 months ago)

    Photo from Bellevue Baptist Church
    MEMPHIS (BP) -- Born and raised in the "birthplace of Rock 'N Roll," Donna Gaines returned 25 years later armed with a background in education and a heart for the county that claims one of the highest rates of childhood poverty.

    Gaines is a women's ministry leader and wife to Southern Baptist Convention president Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., near Memphis, where they minister together. Although she is often busy traveling with her husband, discipling women, and spending time with her 10 -- soon to be 11 -- grandchildren, Gaines is also the founder and president of a literacy program that targets at-risk children. Read More

  • Christians more likely to oppose gene editing, Pew finds

    by Diana Chandler, posted Friday, August 11, 2017 (6 months ago)

    Image: iStock/license purchase required.
    NASHVILLE (BP) -- Christians are more likely than others to oppose embryonic gene editing to reduce the risk of disease in their babies, according to a Pew Research Center study conducted a year before the latest breakthrough in genetic engineering.

    Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65 percent) Pew described as "highly religious" would not want gene therapy for their babies, Pew found in the study conducted in March, 2016. Conversely, only 36 percent of those considered least religious would reject such therapy for their offspring, Pew said. Three-quarters of atheists and 67 percent of agnostics would accept the therapy. Read More

  • Archaeologists may have found apostle Peter's hometown

    by David Roach, posted Friday, August 11, 2017 (6 months ago)

    Image: iStock/license purchase required.
    EL-ARAJ, Israel (BP) -- Archaeologists believe they may have solved a mystery: the location of Bethsaida, the biblical town that was home to the apostles Peter, Andrew and Philip.

    In addition to its identification as the hometown of three apostles (John 1:44), Bethsaida is mentioned in Scripture as the site Jesus healed a blind man (Mark 8:22) and fed the 5,000 (Luke 9:10).

    Southern Baptist archaeologists, who were not involved in the project, said pinpointing Bethsaida may shed light on the biblical text, but archaeology should not be viewed as a catalyst for faith. Read More

  • Indian Christians charged with forced conversion

    by Julia A. Seymour/WORLD News Service , posted Friday, August 11, 2017 (6 months ago)

    Image: iStock/license purchase required.
    INDIA (BP) -- As persecution appears to be intensifying in India, government officials in the state of Madhya Pradesh have charged six Christians, including some pastors, with kidnapping and forced conversion for chaperoning children on the way to church camp.

    Local police arrested the group in May along with more than 70 children en route to a summer Bible camp, according to International Christian Concern (ICC).

    Local Hindu radicals told railway police the party of Christians was trafficking children for forced conversion, a crime in that state. Police intervened, detaining everyone at a train station. Read More

  • Greens' Museum of Bible to offer free admission

    by Diana Chandler, posted Friday, August 11, 2017 (6 months ago)

    WASHINGTON (BP) -- The Museum of the Bible slated to open in November in Washington will offer free admission while reserving special perks for members, the museum announced today (Aug. 11).

    The museum, founded by Hobby Lobby President Steve Green and family, joins the ranks of such notable venues as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and American Museum of Natural History in suggesting a donation in lieu of an admission fee, in this case $15.

    Timed entry may be reserved online for guests and members at the museum slated to open Nov. 17. Read More

  • Daigle again tops list of Dove Award nominees

    by Staff, posted Friday, August 11, 2017 (6 months ago)

    NASHVILLE (BP) -- Lauren Daigle again tops the list of artist nominees at this year's GMA Dove Awards with five nominations. Daigle was named last year's Artist of the Year and 2015's New Artist of the Year, after topping the charts with her song "How Can It Be." She is nominated for this year's Song of the Year for "Come Alive (Dry Bones)" and four other awards.

    Daigle is joined in the top nominee spot by newcomer Zach Williams, whose first solo single "Chain Breaker" reached No. 1 on the Hot Christian Songs chart earlier this year and is nominated for Song of the Year. Williams also received five nods, including a nomination in the New Artist category along with Bri, Micah Tyler, Social Club Misfits and Steven Malcolm. Read More

  • FIRST-PERSON: Bearing with one another

    by Laura Thigpen, posted Friday, August 11, 2017 (6 months ago)

    Laura Thigpen notes a key facet of the Bible's oft-quoted passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13: bearing all things. It can set the course, she writes, for how love "believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." Read More


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More Animation on Sesame Street “S is for Seasons”

Uploaded with permission from the Sesame Workshop.

This is one of two animated films we made with the Sesame Workshop for Season 47 of Sesame Street. “S is for Seasons” aired on the episode titled “The Four Sneezons”. The score was done by composer Sasha Gordon, sound mix by Danny Reeves at Wire Road Studios, and the hands belong to Dylan Hutcherson, and the adorable voice over by Terance Rylander. Lisa Ray fabricated many of the paper assets, and I made the other stuff and did the stop-motion animation on all the environmental elements, and well as the effects and compositing.

Copyright 2016 The Sesame Workshop, all rights reserved.


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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Funny story...

So remember how I was here in January and was all, "Look at me! Getting back on track! Onward and upward!"?  Uh huh, well life happened and so I haven't actually gotten "back on track" with the blog yet, and it's been more about putting one foot in front of the other than onward and upward so far.

So I'm not going to say anything like that at all, you guys.  I'll just say that life has been cra-zay and in order to get everything done that I need to do and write, blogging has fallen off a little.  I'm still writing and working on books, that's a constant at Casa de Brandy but man, the beginning of 2012 has been an ass kicker.

I've reached that luscious, amazing time called spring break in this semester that I'm positive wants to kill me, and so here is an update:

I'm working on MISFITS revisions... the final revisions before I start sending it out to agents!  I'm actually pretty excited about getting the process started, although I guess I always am until the first rejection roles in and then I'm all, "Why do I do this to myself?  I'm such a masochist!" But it's cool.

I feel more prepared with this book than I did with my last.  It feels like a more complete story and I'm really proud of it.  I hope agents like it, but regardless, I'm happy that I wrote it.

I think what I've realized more than anything else this year so far is that I would write for free forever if I have to.  I'm happy with sending my friends and betas versions of my books and talking to them about it.  And really, that's probably a good head space to be in at the query stage, right?

So remind me that I said that in a month or so.

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Friday, June 19, 2009

The Southern Roadtrip

I've just returned from another Shoot with Motor Magazine, this time it was over a couple of days down south comparing the BMW 335i, Audi S4 and Ford FPV F6.
After picking up the BMW on the Weekend and falling in love with it we drove down to my local area on Monday morning for a breakfast meet up and plan the days ahead, A fuel fill at Engadine and we were on our way south to Kiama through some picturesque roads that snaked there way all the way to Kangaroo Valley.

After doing a few car to car shots and getting some cool angles by risking the camera I jumped out and got some driving shots on a long sweeper that looked like something from a commercial. The sun filtered through the trees and gave a very cool effect.
By now everyone was starving so we continued on to Moss Vale, Ponch chose a quiet little café in the main street because it looked the least suspect out of all the stores, what a poor choice that turned out to be with 3 out of 4 lunches looked like something a dog had thrown up, fortunately my Chicken Burger was somewhat edible much to everyone's jealousy. So with everyone still hungry we hopped back in the cars and made a charge for Wakefield Park for Luffy to put down some hot laps for the article and Ponch to do the performance figures.

Anyone who has been to Wakefield will tell you how cold it can get in Winter, It was literally a couple of degrees above zero and it was only 4pm! Luffy tore the track apart in all 3 cars and on the cool down lap would drift it right past me making for some great cornering shots, he is an amazing driver!
The sun had set but my work was still not over, We needed to get interior shots so I setup my gear and got to work before dinner at the hotel restaurant. Dinner that night got eaten so fast it was ridiculous, everyone was starving from the failure of a lunch and tired from a long days driving… time for bed.

Ponch had the idea that if we got up at 6am we could have some of the backroads to ourselves to get some group shots. After driving for ages I came across a bit of a outlook were I could use a telephoto lens and keep all the cars in the frame. After spending 20minutes to position the cars perfectly and setup my shot we heard a car coming through the mountains, quick as a flash everyone jumped in their cars and drove to avoid a pending accident! And I didn’t even get to hit the shutter! Damn.

We continued on, heading towards Canberra to the Brindabella's line of road to get more driving shots and for Ponch to get a good feel for all the cars characteristics. Midway down the highway I noticed a cool backroad that had plenty of trees lining the road, with minimal traffic. It turned out to be a perfect spot to get some car to car shots but unfortunately the rocks the cars through up broke my good polarizing filter.

It was getting late and Luffy had a flight to catch back home so we called it a day and headed home back to Sydney, once again I grabbed the BMW and loved every second of driving it, the amazing engine, luxurious interior and superb handling make it an excellent car.
Keep an eye out for the 3 car comparo in next Months Motor.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

It's all coming together

Last night I submitted my Shots from BFYB 09, it was a bit of a relief to put that one away after many late nights processing and de-rigging shots. I got a call from the Art Director this morning who was stoked with the shots. That was an even bigger releif.

I was worried about one of the multi car rig shots not turning out too good but that didn't matter, the rest of the shots were enough to clinch me more work.

So next week I'll be spending a couple more days galavanting across the state, this time with 3 big dollar turbo cars

I'm starting to picture the shots in my head now, After completing the last shoot and knowing what can be accomplished with some lateral thinking and photoshop that this could be a very special feature.

I also have not posted a review on the 5dmk2 yet which I have planned to do for some time. But after using it on the last 2 shoots it is definately a very worthwhile investment. Particularly for Automotive photographers.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Back home

Bang for your Buck 09 is over and it was the coolest photographic experience I've ever had. Whilst still being fun and creative there were many challenges that pushed my limits in both patience and skill as the art directors had some ideas that were definately pushing the boundries of Automotive Photography.

Not only did I get to take some cool unique shots, I also met a dozen or so top blokes that made the trip even better. Everyone was extremely friendly and everyone had a passion for cars.

It was a great experience, and hopefully the start of more long term stories with Motor in the future. But now I have 24Gb of images to sort and process including some very special rig shots and night shots I'll share when the magazine is published next month.


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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Stop being bored!

Last May I joined the gym (for the umpteenth time) and started working out. I was doing good too: SPIN class every Thursday morning at 5:30, and on Mon, Tues, Wed and Fri, I worked out every morning from 5 until 6:30 or so. I felt great! As I worked out more, I began to eat a little better too (it all just doesn't happen over night contrary to popular belief) until I got to the point where is was just habit. I was losing a little weight, feeling good and my mind was clear to tackle the issues dealt to me.

Months passed and I don't know, I got bored. Boredom is a problem for me. If I get bored, it's a sure bet, I will start to do stuff I don't need to be doing and sure enough, my five days a week dwindled to 3, then 2, then none. And all the work I had put in was pretty much wasted and I was at a stand still. It wasn't until recently, like the past few weeks that I have been building back up to my 5 days a week. Trying to get back on track. I don't dream of being a size 6 ever to be honest with you, but I like the good feeling I got from just feeling good.. know what I mean?

Isn't it like that with the way we feel about Christ sometimes too? Let's be honest, when we get baptized, we are all fired up for Christ, wanting to do and be everywhere we can for Jesus and then, as time passes, we get a little burned out, a little bored and we slowly the excitement goes away. Sometimes never coming back. But we need to build our spiritual lives back up, from the beginning if we have too. Remember the things that had us on fire way back when and start fresh. Things don't have to be going bad for us to want to do better. So what your church is not out feeding people at the homeless shelter this week? YOU go out and find someone in need of food and take it to them. So what there is not a big revival going on in town? Gather some friends up and have a at home personal Bible study. No mission trips to go on? Bet you can still find someone to serve right in your own hometown.

Satan is walking around here on earth, looking for us to slip up. Looking for opportunities when our faith may be slacking a little to snatch us up. We need to be on guard, need to stop being bored and get back on track.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday! "Be blessed and be a blessing".. until next time...

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Thursday, February 23, 2006

New Job

Well, I have to update you all on a new job opportunity that I am currently participating in. My top three jobs are as follows:

3. The Science guy gig-I got to do experiments all day (and get paid for it)
2. Long term sub position.
1. My own classroom.

Well, I am moving up the list. Last week was my last week as the science guy. I was offered by the principal of the school I was doing the science thing to take a second grade class for the remainder of the year. Yeah, it took all of 3 seconds to say make my decision, but I waited till I talked to Tracy to tell the pricipal.

I started Tuesday with the kids. They are a good group and the experience should be a good one, leading to my number one pick, I hope. But this is next best-same kids every day. I like that better.

That all said, I will have to cut down on my original 5 or 6 posts a week to what has been happening the last few weeks, 2 to 3 posts a week while I focus on making my classroom the best I can. Keep checking back and I will periodically email a reminder to check the site.

Thanks for reading,

Christy Ellis said...

This is marvelous!!! Congrats on moving up the job list to your ideal! We're really happy for you and Tracy. God bless you guys!

Russ said...

Hey Derrick. Say, after school look down the street to the south. If you see a white Dodge truck in the driveway, stop by and have a soda or java with this old man! After all, you and I share a taste for coffee that is prepared in a manner that resembles the La Brea Tar Pits.

jaxmudder said...

Couldn't be happier about the rest of the school year...and the hopes that a permanent position may grow from this....BUT, I have to say that I am sad to lose my very favorite substitute teacher. My students cheered when they knew you were coming to spend the day with them...and I will be hard pressed to find anyone quite like Mr Bright. Congratulations my friend...don't be a stranger!
Love to you and Tracy,
Shellie (aka Mrs. Garlick)

Derrick Bright said...

Thanks all for your support and encouragement. We are happy about this opportunity and we pray that I don't end up saying or doing something dumb :-) that would cause problems.

Because I've never said or done anything that would be reason for regret. OK, that's a lie. But I don't want to do that. It's kind of like Paul I do what I don't want to and I don't do what I know I ought.

mom said...

Great job Derrick! I'm very happy for you. It's great knowing others are seeing the quality teacher and person that you are. I can't wait to hear that you have a full time permanent postion! God Bless you and Tracy and I'm so proud of you! Love, your mom


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Wednesday, March 01, 2006

T-MINUS 72 hours and counting

Well, 3 days until the Ramos era officially begins. Already 15000 tickets have been sold for the season opener (myself included). Last year for the J1 campaign, Verdy only sold 14,100 and change for an average game, so the Ramos buzz is working. I'll have a game preview up tommorow.

Speaking of looks like the petals are completely off the is a collection of the many faces of Takagi, plus a glimpse of the Ramos poster in the back.

Nick said...

Shocking!! Im speechless....Ill will be chewing on the remnants of my hat unles he can grow it back by Saturday. Im not able to get there on Saturday because of work but one of the good things about being in J2 is that they are live on Sky tv every week.I have wrestled with the mountain of cables and Im tuned in ready to go.Looking forward to it now. The earlier bad feelings have been banished,the doubts have gone and at least till 2.00 on Saturday the boys are gonna be alright. C`mon the Boys!! I can`t go till April 29th unless my company burns to the ground in a mysterious blaze.....

SMB said...

Unfortunately, I don't have cable or sky perfect so I either have to go to games or stay up until 3 am for the NTV replay.

Hat goes good with ketchup BTW!


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College Events

Mother’s Day Stall

When: 10 May - 11 May

Where: College Hall

RSVP: No RSVP Needed

The annual Mother’s Day Stall is being held at College Hall on Thursday 11 May and Friday 12 May.

The Stall has a range of lovely gifts for your Mum, Grandmother or other loved ones ranging from $1.00 to $10. Organised by Parent Connect (your parent organisation), all proceeds go towards activities and resources for the College.

All primary school classes are given an opportunity to visit the Stall. If you would like your child to participate, please place money in an envelope with your child’s name and Grade, and send it to school by Thursday 11 May. In Prep and Grade 1, envelopes will be collected in their classroom and children helped to find a gift by their teacher or volunteer.

All secondary students are welcome.

Volunteers are needed for setup on Wednesday 10 May from 12.00pm to 3.20pm and to manage the stall on the Thursday and Friday. Shifts are approximately two or three hours. All help is appreciated. To register as a volunteer click here to register.

For more information email Parent Connect on

Mother's Day Stall poster


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Thursday, January 3, 2013

Beam Of Light Finds Man Just Outside His Home At Cowichan Lake Vancouver Island British Columbia

Date:  January 3, 2013
Time:  1:00 a.m.

Hi, was doing some research and came across your page. Last night at about 1:00 a.m. in the morning a guy at my work got up because he couldn't sleep and a light outside caught his attention.

He stepped outside his door a couple of feet and then the beam quickly came to him, then stayed on him for a while.  He didn't know what to make of it all today at work.

He lives just off of Old Lake Cowichan road about half way to Lake Cowichan. Hope we learn more about this light beam!

If you have seen anything like this in the same area please be kind enough to contact Brian Vike at: with the details of your sighting. All personal information is kept confidential.

Also, please feel free to send in your sightings that have happened years ago. So many of these older sightings are nothing short of amazing.

The Vike Factor (Brian Vike)

The Vike Factor 2 (Brian Vike)


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Tuesday, January 12, 2016

1918 Railway Station Smithers British Columbia (8 - Pictures)

Above Photo: The 1918 Smithers, British Columbia Railway Station and Via Rail passenger train unloading and loading people for the run to Prince Rupert and stops in-between.

It is funny, know matter how many times I visit communities throughout northern British Columbia, I always find something new to film. I moved from Surrey, B.C. in 1981 to where I reside now, which is in small town Houston.

There were a few challenges to over come, like setting up a home in the dead of winter with temperatures dropping into the minus thirty's.

To view the full write up and see the other  pictures, please visit Brian Vike's Travel Blog at:

If you have a picture or story you would like to share on the Travel British Columbia with Brian Vike blog, please contact me at b_vike@telus.net

Travel British Columbia with Brian Vike.

Travel Houston, British Columbia with Brian Vike.


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Friday, 27 December 2013

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study suggests that a million or more European Christians were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa between 1530 and 1780 – a far greater number than had ever been estimated before.
In a new book, Robert Davis, professor of history at Ohio State University, developed a unique methodology to calculate the number of white Christians who were enslaved along Africa’s Barbary Coast, arriving at much higher slave population estimates than any previous studies had found.

Most other accounts of slavery along the Barbary coast didn’t try to estimate the number of slaves, or only looked at the number of slaves in particular cities, Davis said. Most previously estimated slave counts have thus tended to be in the thousands, or at most in the tens of thousands. Davis, by contrast, has calculated that between 1 million and 1.25 million European Christians were captured and forced to work in North Africa from the 16th to 18th centuries.

Davis’s new estimates appear in the book Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800 (Palgrave Macmillan).

“Enslavement was a very real possibility for anyone who traveled in the Mediterranean, or who lived along the shores in places like Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, and even as far north as England and Iceland.”

“Much of what has been written gives the impression that there were not many slaves and minimizes the impact that slavery had on Europe,” Davis said. “Most accounts only look at slavery in one place, or only for a short period of time. But when you take a broader, longer view, the massive scope of this slavery and its powerful impact become clear.”

Davis said it is useful to compare this Mediterranean slavery to the Atlantic slave trade that brought black Africans to the Americas. Over the course of four centuries, the Atlantic slave trade was much larger – about 10 to 12 million black Africans were brought to the Americas. But from 1500 to 1650, when trans-Atlantic slaving was still in its infancy, more white Christian slaves were probably taken to Barbary than black African slaves to the Americas, according to Davis.

“One of the things that both the public and many scholars have tended to take as given is that slavery was always racial in nature – that only blacks have been slaves. But that is not true,” Davis said. “We cannot think of slavery as something that only white people did to black people.”

During the time period Davis studied, it was religion and ethnicity, as much as race, that determined who became slaves.

“Enslavement was a very real possibility for anyone who travelled in the Mediterranean, or who lived along the shores in places like Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, and even as far north as England and Iceland,” he said.

Pirates (called corsairs) from cities along the Barbary Coast in north Africa – cities such as Tunis and Algiers – would raid ships in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, as well as seaside villages to capture men, women and children. The impact of these attacks were devastating – France, England, and Spain each lost thousands of ships, and long stretches of the Spanish and Italian coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants. At its peak, the destruction and depopulation of some areas probably exceeded what European slavers would later inflict on the African interior.

Although hundreds of thousands of Christian slaves were taken from Mediterranean countries, Davis noted, the effects of Muslim slave raids was felt much further away: it appears, for example, that through most of the 17th century the English lost at least 400 sailors a year to the slavers.

Even Americans were not immune. For example, one American slave reported that 130 other American seamen had been enslaved by the Algerians in the Mediterranean and Atlantic just between 1785 and 1793.

Davis said the vast scope of slavery in North Africa has been ignored and minimized, in large part because it is on no one’s agenda to discuss what happened.

The enslavement of Europeans doesn’t fit the general theme of European world conquest and colonialism that is central to scholarship on the early modern era, he said. Many of the countries that were victims of slavery, such as France and Spain, would later conquer and colonize the areas of North Africa where their citizens were once held as slaves. Maybe because of this history, Western scholars have thought of the Europeans primarily as “evil colonialists” and not as the victims they sometimes were, Davis said.

Davis said another reason that Mediterranean slavery has been ignored or minimized has been that there have not been good estimates of the total number of people enslaved. People of the time – both Europeans and the Barbary Coast slave owners – did not keep detailed, trustworthy records of the number of slaves. In contrast, there are extensive records that document the number of Africans brought to the Americas as slaves.

So Davis developed a new methodology to come up with reasonable estimates of the number of slaves along the Barbary Coast. Davis found the best records available indicating how many slaves were at a particular location at a single time. He then estimated how many new slaves it would take to replace slaves as they died, escaped or were ransomed.

“The only way I could come up with hard numbers is to turn the whole problem upside down – figure out how many slaves they would have to capture to maintain a certain level,” he said. “It is not the best way to make population estimates, but it is the only way with the limited records available.”

Putting together such sources of attrition as deaths, escapes, ransomings, and conversions, Davis calculated that about one-fourth of slaves had to be replaced each year to keep the slave population stable, as it apparently was between 1580 and 1680. That meant about 8,500 new slaves had to be captured each year. Overall, this suggests nearly a million slaves would have been taken captive during this period. Using the same methodology, Davis has estimated as many as 475,000 additional slaves were taken in the previous and following centuries.

The result is that between 1530 and 1780 there were almost certainly 1 million and quite possibly as many as 1.25 million white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast.

Davis said his research into the treatment of these slaves suggests that, for most of them, their lives were every bit as difficult as that of slaves in America.

“As far as daily living conditions, the Mediterranean slaves certainly didn’t have it better,” he said.

While African slaves did grueling labor on sugar and cotton plantations in the Americas, European Christian slaves were often worked just as hard and as lethally – in quarries, in heavy construction, and above all rowing the corsair galleys themselves.

Davis said his findings suggest that this invisible slavery of European Christians deserves more attention from scholars.

“We have lost the sense of how large enslavement could loom for those who lived around the Mediterranean and the threat they were under,” he said. “Slaves were still slaves, whether they are black or white, and whether they suffered in America or North Africa.”

#Ohio State University, 2010

Thursday, 26 December 2013

Civic nationalism has no future

Civic nationalism has no future

On what basis do nations exist? It was once thought that a nation was a people sharing a common ethnicity living together in the same country and governed by their own state.

This kind of nationalism fell out of favour in the modern West because it was held to discriminate on the basis of an unchosen quality, namely ethnicity. It was replaced by a civic nationalism, in which membership of a nation was determined by citizenship, and in which national identity was based on liberal political values, such as non-discrimination.

But can a civic nationalism do the job? Can it maintain the existing nations of the West? The answer seems to be clearly no.

One problem is that a civic nationalism blurs the boundaries of what is or isn't part of a nation. For instance, if it is a belief in liberal poltical values which makes me an Australian, then why can't people everywhere who believe in the same values also be considered a part of my nation?

And if it is a belief in liberal political values that defines a nation, then why shouldn't nations be merged together if there is an economic or diplomatic advantage in doing so? Why not abandon the traditional nations of Europe in order to build a European Union? Why not abandon Australia to build a Pacific Union?

There's one further problem with a civic nationalism. The older type of nationalism was rejected on the grounds that it discriminated against people. But so too does civic nationalism: it discriminates between citizens and non-citizens. Therefore, it will increasingly be seen by the more rigorously intellectual types as being immoral and illegitimate.

Enter Professor Peter Spiro, author of Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization. He has done what intellectuals will inevitably do, and taken the ideas of civic nationalism to their logical conclusion.

His argument is that a territorial citizenship is becoming increasingly more difficult to justify. If being an American is based on liberal political ideals, then membership of the nation should include those living outside America who agree with these ideals:

But here's something that really is new: the underinclusion of members-in-fact outside the territory of the United States.

One of the commenters on my first post pressed the proposition that America is an idea. That's completely consistent with strong civic notions of American citizenship and identity.

At one time, that idea was distinct. No longer. The American idea of constitutional democracy has gone global. That's American's triumph, but it may also be its downfall.

As I ask in the book, if that person in Bangalore wants to take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, on what grounds can we deny him membership? ... And what of the child born in Juarez, whose interests and identity will be connected to El Paso, Austin and Washington ... but who has the bad luck to have been born a mile on the wrong side of the line? ...

So: whatever it means to be American, it's everywhere. But that makes it all the harder to draw the membership line in a meaningful way.

Another person to have followed through with the logic of civic nationalism is the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. He has called for the European Union to be extended to include non-European countries. Specifically he wants the countries of the Mahgreb (North Africa) and the Middle East to join a European Union free trade association "not as an alternative to membership, but potentially as a step towards it". Miliband believes that such an enlarged EU would develop shared values and overcome an east/west divide, whilst providing trade and investment opportunities. This is where civic nationalism leads: to membership of a state with no definable borders.

Finally, there's the issue of citizenship and discrimination. Our former PM, Paul Keating, was in the vanguard on this issue, railing against the "exclusiveness" of civic nationalism which involves:

constructing arbitrary and parochial distinctions between the civic and the human community ... if you ask what is the common policy of the Le Pens, the Terreblanches, Hansons and Howards of this world, in a word, it is “citizenship”. Who is in and who is out.

For Keating, it was "parochial" to establish any kind of community other than an international "human" community. Keating thought that a civic nationalism was a radical, extremist form of discrimination.

Lawrence Auster wrote a good post recently on this theme, in which he observed that:

To a consistent liberal, and thus to a consistent libertarian, there can be no justification for any kind of unequal or exclusionary treatment. If a country comes into existence by the use of force (as all countries throughout history have done), well, the use of force is a form of inequality and oppression, meaning that the country is illegitimate. If a country simply exists as a country with borders, its very existence distinguishes between members and non-members and thus it violates the equal freedom of all humans and is illegitimate. If a country has a state, that represents a further inequality in which some people exercise power over others. If a country elects its government through democratic elections, that means that the majority has more power than the minority, which is also a violation of equality.

As I've said many times, liberalism, consistently applied, is incompatible with the existence of any organic, self-governing institution or society, since all such societies and institutions violate the liberal principle of the equal freedom of all human persons.

The nations of the West will not be held together by civic nationalism. The logic of a civic nationalism is toward its own dissolution.


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Sunday, April 26, 2015

Goodbye EMC

Tomorrow my flight is taking off at 3 p.m si is time to say goodbye to this amazing city, to all the people that I met here but specially to the mothers that I tried to help. This three month has been an incredible experience for me that I will always remember. Something has changed in me, and I have now more energy and formation to take part in the prolife movement in my country. Thank you very much for this extraordinary opportunity. I am going to miss everyone. See you soon, I hope!

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Wednesday, August 17, 2011

When your best isn't good enough

Moral of this story: Do never, in no way, ever, mess with my kids.

Go ahead, jump to conclusions, but I'll bet you'll empathize once I tell you what my son went through yesterday.

**Today, I'm not posting about books or writing or sex or anything close to self promotion. No eye candy. No sarcasm or any of my awesome wit, no. Today, I'm speaking from a place I seldom go for fear of my own passion. Just thought I'd throw in that disclaimer before I get started.

Yesterday was my sons' first day of school this year. Huge change for all of us: one in elementary and now one in middle school. That means both are alone each day, all day, in a brand new school that no one, not even the teachers are familiar with, and of course, different bus schedules for each kid. Gotta grow up some time, right?

So, the eleven year old is a little nervous with all the "newness". Understandable. I agree to meet the bus driver with him, find out his new schedule, maybe ease his mind a touch on his first day of school. Just great: We discover we have a new bus driver too!

Here's the conversation that took place:

"Morning. What time do you think you'll be back this way for the middle schoolers?"

"I dunno, it's my first day."

(Now, we live two miles from elementary school this driver is taking kids to first. Ours is the next to last stop on her route. I'm mentally calculating what I believe is a fair time, but I don't know what time the kids are supposed to be to school, maybe this driver has time to stop for breakfast? I don't know all the factors, so I ask. Again. A little more informed this time.)

"I understand it's your first day." [insert phony smile] "The school's two miles away, we're almost the last stop; Can you give me a rough estimate maybe? Maybe fifteen minutes, twenty? Half an hour? An hour?"

"I don't know! It's my first day!!!"

I felt my eyes go wide, heard in a very stressed voice inside my head "O....K....," and I turned around with a curt thanks [for nothing], determined to come home, call transportation, and get this incompetent a**hat wrote up.

I mean, c'mon, MY kids are on 'your' bus... I want to be sure 'you' can be trusted with my most valued things in my life, and all 'you' show me is that 'you' can't control your temper FIRST THING IN THE MORNING? What's the rest of the day going to be like for this person? My only thought.

We notice one of my son's friends waiting for the same bus, so I let him go and wait with his friend while I drive back up the hill to call.

No surprise here: transportation isn't answering the phones... Typical. I vow not to give up until they've heard about one of their driver's incompetence in handling both her job and the customer, moi, and my most precious cargo...

Suddenly, our dog raises hell...I look out the window to see my son tearing up the driveway. "What the hell's goin' on?"

Winded, he braces his knees [we live 1/4 mile off hwy]. "She left us... She drove right by, turned, and went toward the school!"

Murderous intention danced like sugarplums across my mind. You What? You left my kid? Like hell!

Needless to say, I floored it all the way to school, got him there in thirty minutes, got back home, made up my mind to put phone on rapid dial until I got through to transportation.

Transportation didn't pick up their phone, not once all day! [You can bet your sweet a** I'll be on that phone all day today also]

But the fun doesn't end here.

Oh, no.

My youngest calls me at work--at 5:22 pm-- "Have you heard from--?"

WHAT? "He's not home?!"

Ok. Quick brain calculation again... 1. driver's incompetent; 2. driver's got an attitude problem; 3. driver doesn't know her route; 4. driver would rather get angry than find solution = son will be late getting home.  I figure about an hour, maybe a little longer.

He got out of school at 3:30!

The rest of my afternoon was consumed with panic, swearing--LOTS of swearing, walking out at work [literally, just walked out the doors, hopped in my Jeep, peeled out of the lot], driving across town to a school I expect to find completely dark at 5:30 at night, found a most gracious and most helpful vice principal in a lone little office off Administration, who was a true people person and dropped all her responsibilities and tried everything in her power to help me find my son... and a brief loss of hope when even she could not get a hold of transportation and I was going to have to jet across town the other direction to get there before they locked up for the night and the whole time HOPE my son was still on the bus?

I called home one last time.

My son picked up the phone. "I'm home finally. Got here at 5:44."

I couldn't speak much; think I got out a "good, love you," and a "bye."

Neither my son nor I will go through this again. Ever.

I'll be back on that phone today, but I won't mess with calling transportation, no. You had your chance to satisfy this "customer" and failed. I'll be on the phone to the district superintendent, and I won't stop until I get the results I seek. I'm sorry for your shiny new bus on your shiny new route and your shiny new job, Ms. incompetent bus driver, but when it comes to MY kids, your best wasn't good enough.

Bryl R. Tyne is a wrangler by nature and a writer by choice, published with Noble Romance Publishing, Ravenous Romance, Dreamspinner Press, STARbooks Press, Untreed Reads Publishing, Changeling Press, and Amber Quill Press. Check out Bryl's bi-monthly column: My Way   Find out more about the author at:
This post is X-posted to Bryl R Tyne's Blog and The Rainbow Studio.

  1. Oh hell naw! I would've gone off on the bus driver the MINUTE she gave me attitude but then again, my Latina temper has two settings, "happy" & "back the fuck up". We've had similar issues with transportation in the past and I'm dreading oldest son's first day in high school on Monday. As a special ed kid he gets the bus regardless of how far away from the school we live but we've had issues with them in the past. Both hubby and I are taking the day off to make sure we can get through it without killing or maiming anyone.

  2. My thoughts are with you, Sarita. I never expected this kind of treatment from a person with children in her care. We've gone through a few bus drivers over the years, but the one thing that is so different is this: When asked "What time do you expect to be here this afternoon?" the other drivers ALL replied with something similar to: "Don't you worry, your kids are safe on my bus" before telling me they were not sure.

    My level of concern would've been decreased by at least half yesterday had this one also cared enough to provide that assurance.

  3. What an experience! You just keep making noise until someone listens.


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Tuesday, May 20, 2014

OASIS PKCS#11 v2.40 in final 15-day public review!

After starting work in February 2013, I am so excited that just 14 months later, our recently formed OASIS technical committee has our first standard revision under the OASIS banner out for final public review.

I am proud of the hard work everyone put forth into this new version of the standard, particularly so of our editors who all integrated changes and fixes with nary a complaint.

PKCS#11 v 2.40 is just what we need to move this cryptographic standard forward into the future.

I'm excited about the new work we're starting on the next revision already!

Check it out and let us know what you think.

Thank you!

Valerie, co-chair OASIS PKCS11 TC
[Update July 2014: Not sure why I said "Final"... some minor mistakes were found, we're cleaning them up and should have another review out shortly!]

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Solaris 11.2: Security Blog Round Up

In case you missed it, last month we launched the Solaris 11.2 Beta! Now is your chance to download the OS and kick the tires and let us know what you think.

To help you catch up on what's out there in security, check out: