Hello, and welcome to the seventh issue of Aphelion's 20th year!
I am presently busier than any simile or metaphore I can think up, so
bear with me for a few brief moments...
I've been the acting Flash Fiction Editor for a couple of months now.
We had a nibble from one fellow who was interested in taking the
position, but nothing has developed as of yet. At the same time, I've
been diving back into my own writing in an attempt to pick up where I
left off a while back. It's been a lot of reading my unfinished work, a
bit of editing and proofreading, and a lot of hope I can pick up enough
threads to weave something worthwhile for my readers. I've also made a
bit of music--nothing fancy, but fun for me, as well as going to
LibertyCon last month. There's personal stuff going on too; my day job,
yard work, getting ready to have a new roof put on the house, family
reunion, talking with my kids, that sort of thing.
By the time the September issue rolls around, my wife and I will be the
owners of a brand new roof on our little brick house. The paperwork has
been filed, an insurance claim for storm damage repairs approved, a
contractor hired, and all we're waiting for now is the scheduling of
the work and some financial tidbits to come together. Another week, or
perhaps two, and the contractor will arrive with a full work crew to
strip the old shingles off, repairing any damage substructure, new
shingles applied, and some damage from leaks repaired inside the house
too. I've been doing my bit out in the yard to make it easire for the
contracters to do the work, and then search the yard with metal
detectors and big magnets for any roofing nails that get dropped while
the crew is up there hammering away. We'll have to temporarily relocate
the outdoor cats and take the dogs to a kennel so that the roofers can
work unimpeeded. And the repairs indoors means that our living room is
going to have to be stripped to the bare walls and floor so the work
can be done. The upshot of all that is my time being heavily scheduled
this month. But a roof that doesn't leak is worth the effort.
One thing I need to mention is that Edward Sullivan and I will be
interviewed next week on Yvonne Mason's "Off The Chain" internet radio
show. That'll be Wed August 9th 8:00pm EDT on Yvonne Mason
is "Off The Chain" and I'll post links to the archives where you can
hear it afterward, as well as Facebooking linkage as the night
approaches. Yvonne's show is alwasy fun. Not only to be on, but to
listen too as well.
Another thing I managed to dash off in a hurry a few nights ago was to
figure out a redimentary bass guitar riff for one of my poems. I'd
posted it on Facebook and people liked the wordage, including a very
talented singer/songrwriter/author I know from LibertyCon. When I saw
her Like, I thought you know, she's got the kind of voice
guitar skill that this thing needs to become more than words on paper.
Let me grab my bass and see if I can match what I hear in my head to
some musical notes. That'll at least give her a foundation to work
with... And so I did, posted that note pattern and invited
her to make of it what she would, if she was so inclined. And so she
might. It's in the laps of the Gods now whether anything comes of this
or not. Time will tell, as it always does.
Here is a little something I made to promote Ed and I beng interviewed
next week:
Now, here is a repeat of the interview Stephanie Osborn and I did on
Yvonne Mason's Off The Chain internet radio show. Next month I'll have
links to Edward Sullivan and myself being interviewed on Off The Chain.
On June 22nd at 8:00pm EST Authors Stephanie Osborn and Dan
Hollifield were interviewed on Internet Radio on the show "Off The
Chain," which is hosted by Yvone Mason at Yvonne Mason
is "Off The Chain"
And now, this is ALSO a thing! Aphelion's first advert!
Feel free to share this on Facebook, G+, blog posts, and other
webpages. But only with the permission of the page or group owners! Be
polite and considerate, always. You'll have to look up the embed code
for the ad on You Tube, sorry about that, but the code won't display
correctly here. But the Share Code for Facebook and G+ is:
https://youtu.be/23qfziyt9Jo
BOILERPLATE:
First off, if you do the Facebook thing, feel free to join us
on the Aphelion page there. The link is Aphelion
Webzine.
As an aside, the Editorial Mafia and I have found Facebook to be very
useful. Given our different
locations and schedules, it's come in handy as a way to discuss
production details of new issues. Sometimes there are several of us
using Facebook at the same time, so it's almost like the old chat room
days back in the 1990s.
My first collection of Mare Inebrium spaceport bar short
stories was
published in February of 2015 by Dark Oak Press. It is available in
both Kindle
an Nook e-book formats, paperback, and hardback. I also have three
albums of instrumental music out through the Create Space
self-publishing website. If you like, you can click on the photo or the
link below to
fin all the info you would need to purchase my book in your preferred
format, or an e-book of Flash of Aphelion, buy a CD of my music, or
listen to tracks off of the albums on my Bandcamp website. Enjoy!