Hello cowboys & vampires!

Headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times about near-death experiences: “Surge of brain activity may explain near-death experience, study says.” The research showed that seconds before death the brain experiences anomalous neural activity in what may represent a heightened state of consciousness. That’s the same few seconds of the near-death experience, or NDE. It’s important to mention upfront that the surge was observed in the scanned brains of nine sacrificial rats, not people. Scientists haven’t yet figured out how to scan the human brain at death, but this study is likely to make a few more of them take up that challenge. Here’s a key take-away from our doomed rats: it happened in all nine rats. There’s no escaping the clarity of that finding. The surge is real. But what does it signify?  Read the rest of this entry>>topod

Thanksgiving is the only day of the year I (kind of) hate being a vegan. Usually, I am quietly proud of my choice but not on Thanksgiving.

To me, Thanksgiving is about family, football and snarky Nouveau Beaujolais-infused fights about politics. Thanksgiving is about laughter, communal cooking and the joy/frustration of claustrophobic togetherness. On Thanksgiving, decades of accumulated memories get coaxed from neurological hibernation by the seductive smells of thyme and pumpkin spice and – I am loath to admit it – roasted turkey.

At least that’s what it used to be about; until veganism snuck up on me three years ago and irrevocably stole my heart. Now, on Thanksgiving, I find myself slogging through a day that has a celebration of animal cruelty and dead flesh as its centerpiece. A plucked, baked turkey carcass held high, presented to the gathering of family and friends, to me, feels like people applauding murder. Read more of the vegan’s diagnosis >>aracer.mobi

Volcanoes got me writing. And coal, too. That combined with an existential moment in a swimming pool, but most of all it was because of love.

I started out my professional life as a geologist, and that’s where I unexpectedly cut my writing teeth. Turned out I was good at translating scientific jargon into common language. I wrote about coal seams infused with natural gas, oil that dripped from sandstones, and murderously fractured shale.

Eventually, I got bored (a lifelong theme) and parlayed that unexpected talent into a gig as a science journalist. That was fun, but I couldn’t shake my creative urge, which played out in far too many ways. While writing about western gas fields, I dabbled in film-making, painting, poetry, short stories, ceramics — you-name-it. I was an accomplished creative dilettante. And then my mom died, sending me veering off into a chasm of grief.

This is an excerpt of an interview with Kathleen at Write 1 Sub 1. Read the full piece over at their website.продвижение

We are nearly done with Book 3. Yippi-ki-yay!  Relentless writing. Exciting writing. It’s the best of the series, hands down. This third book has been hypnotic and revelatory to write. It’s also been emotionally exhausting and draining. (You’ll see why soon.)

The manuscript, currently coming in at about 75,000 words, will be submitted to Pumpjack Press on September 26. Shortly after that, Pumpjack Press will announce the release date.

Where will the radical romance between Lizzie and Tucker take them this time? A clue is in the title. To mark our achievement, we’re excited to rerun the sketches by Aaron Perkins of his vision of Lizzie and Tucker.

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My neighbor, evidently, thinks he is John Audubon. He put up a bird feeder recently. He’s a very industrious fellow. I never see him during the day, of course, but sometimes at night I stroll through his garden and admire his handiwork, and occasionally pilfer a fresh tomato or two. I also like to watch him sleep, snoring away next to his sexually repressed and chemically befuddled wife, both in their matching flannel pajamas with their Egyptian cotton sheets pulled up tight around their inviting necks. Don’t worry, gentle readers, I learned many years ago to never feed too close to home, but they really should invest in better locks. Read more of this entry>>продвижение