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spine-buster · 4 years ago

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The President Wears Prada (William Nylander) | Epilogue 1: In August

A/N: Well, I think this is the answer to everybody’s questions...! Epilogue 2 will be up next Monday as well! :)

September 2021

Aberdeen Bloom was at a book talk and signing.

Her own book talk and signing.

It had all happened so fast, really. The article about the NHL bubble had really put her on the map and had garnered a lot of positive reviews and comments. She’d been working steadily at Toronto Life for a few months, writing another big feature for the magazine. She had a short story published in The Walrus that also got rave reviews. Aberdeen even got to live out another dream – interview Margaret Atwood for the magazine, and write an entire feature on the bustling arts, culture, and publishing scene in Toronto she was now, miraculously, involved in by virtue of working at Toronto Life. It was all a dream, really.

Then one day, after peeping Aberdeen’s computer screen, Beth Zadakis noticed Aberdeen was adding to a manuscript. She inquired about it. Aberdeen tried to play it off, but eventually relented and told her all about it. ‘Send me the first hundred pages’ Beth told her. Aberdeen did. Beth stayed up all night reading it. ‘Send me your entire manuscript’ Beth said the next morning in the office. ‘I know the senior editor at Coach House. Do you have an agent? I’ll get you an agent. Aberdeen, this is going to get published.’

And it was. When Aberdeen walked into the Coach House Books offices – the small, independent publisher famous in Toronto that launched a lot of literary careers – she sat down in a chair and looked the senior editor in the eye as she told Aberdeen, “This is what I’ve been looking for all along.” After a $10,000 advance, and more meetings with editors at Coach House Books, her first novel, In August, was published.

She held it in her hands for the entire interview, like it wasn’t real and would float away, even though it had already been out for months. Just last week, it had been announced on the longlist for both the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award, the two biggest literary awards in Canada. For a book from an independent publisher, this was a big deal. And for Aberdeen, this was of course the biggest deal.

A dream. It was all a dream.

“We have time for one more question from the audience before we switch to the book signing portion of the evening,” the host of the event said. The full room got antsy in anticipation to meet Aberdeen; the young woman at the microphone knew she should make her question good. “Miss, what’s your question?”

“Hi, I—I first just wanted to say I absolutely loved your book,” she started nervously.

“Thank you,” Aberdeen smiled, hoping to calm her nerves.

“I—I was just wondering what advice you have for young women who want to become writers? I mean, if you get on the Shortlist for the Giller and the Governor General’s Award, you’ll be the youngest woman – not just woman, the young person – to ever win the award. I mean that’s amazing. What advice do you have?”

Aberdeen considered the question for a moment before a small smile appeared on her face. “Bank on yourself,” she said confidently into the microphone. Virtually the entire room smiled along with her. “I mean that sincerely. Bank on yourself. Don’t let people’s averse opinions about you or your writing get to your head. If you’re good, and you know you’re good, bank on yourself. Surround yourself with people who believe in you. They don’t always necessarily have to be in the literary world either. I mean, listen – I was a bank teller throughout university. I had some boyfriends at that time who thought writing was a waste of time and that I was fighting a lost cause. It affected me…a lot. More than I like to admit. It tears you down and makes you second guess yourself and your talent. I’m here to tell you to not let it get to you. My first job out of university – I mean I’ve spoken about this at length now – but my first job out of university was being a personal assistant to Brendan Shanahan of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He’s been one of my biggest supporters ever since. That’s where I met my partner William, who’s my biggest supporter and the man who encouraged me to write and told me I had what it takes to be a successful writer. I got my job at Toronto Life by writing an article they didn’t want me to write, but I banked on my writing to get me the job. And it paid off. So truly – I mean it. Bank on yourself.”

***

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Aberdeen smiled as she looked up at a young woman – who couldn’t have been much older than her, as she opened the cover of the book. “Who am I making this out to?”

“Clara.”

“Clara,” Aberdeen repeated as she wrote out her name and proceeded to sign the novel. She’d been at it for almost two hours now and was nearing the end of the line. She wouldn’t leave until everyone got an autograph.

“You have a way with words,” Clara said. “I just love your style and voice. It’s so unique. I’d give my left arm to write like you.”

“You better not be left-handed,” Aberdeen joked, causing both women to giggle as she slid the signed book back towards Clara. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too. Can we take a quick picture?”

“Of course!” Aberdeen said. Clara turned towards her friend who had just met Aberdeen, ready with a camera. Clara thanked her once more before moving past her. Aberdeen watched as Clara did a little excited jig and held the book against her heart. She smiled.

When she turned her head back to greet the next person, she was shocked at who she saw.

Jason Spezza.

They both looked at each other for a few moments, speechless. Aberdeen couldn’t formulate any thoughts, let alone any words. The only thing she could say was his name. “Jason.”

“Aberdeen,” he said nervously. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

Jason looked nervous. Very nervous. And Jason Spezza did not get nervous. “Congratulations,” he said, and it was only then that she realized he was holding her book in his hand. “I read it. It’s amazing.”

“Thank you.”

“The whole team read it. I mean they probably didn’t understand a word of it but they read it. I’m sure William told you that,” he followed up. “It’s brilliant, Aberdeen. It really is.”

“Thank you,” she repeated.

Another awkward silence. “Listen…” Jason began, looking around so he didn’t have to make eye contact with her. “Are you free after this? Can…can we talk?”

A shiver ran up her spine. “Uh…yeah. Yeah of course.”

“Want to meet me at Alo for a drink?” he asked.

She nodded her head. “Sure.”

“Alright. Thanks. The book was great. Uh…bye,” he said quickly, turning around and walking the opposite way he should have been walking, pushing the door to the bookstore open so he could leave.

***

Aberdeen shook off her umbrella and brushed the stray raindrops off her blazer as she walked into Alo. The restaurant was packed – typical for Alo – but through the droves of people, Aberdeen could see Jason sitting at a booth against the side, swirling his wine nervously.

“It’s a two hour wait,” the hostess said.

“I’m meeting a friend,” Aberdeen nodded in Jason’s general direction before leaving the hostess there.

She slowed her pace as she walked in between tables, mentally preparing herself for the conversation she was about to have. She had no idea what he was going to say to her. They hadn’t spoken for an entire year. He and William played together but there was no love lost. From what William would tell her, the entire team knew that she and Jason had stopped talking and were really, really shocked to hear so, considering everyone knew how close they were. They knew better to ask William, and they definitely knew better than to ask her, but whenever they’d ask Jason about it, he wouldn’t answer either. He’d shake his head or say “We’re not going to talk about that” or just pivot to something completely different, signalling that, well, he wasn’t going to talk about it. So there was this air of mystery. And though her year had been successful – articles and book deals and now book talks and signings – in the back of her mind, she always remembered that Jason was disappointed in her. She always remembered that despite her success, she couldn’t share this with him like she wanted to.

“Hi,” she said out of the blue, startling Jason slightly.

He looked up. “Hi Aberdeen,” he said, moving to get up like a gentleman.

“You don’t—” she held her arm out, shaking her head.

He stopped, nodding. “Sit,” he said, motioning across from him. She slipped in.

Before she could say anything else, a waitress approached their table. “I see your guest has finally arrived,” she smiled at Jason before turning to Aberdeen. “What can I get you?”

“Oh, I’ll have what he’s having,” she said, pointing to the red.

The waitress nodded before walking towards the bar. She and Jason sat there, staring at each other for a few moments. “It’s really nice to see you, Aberdeen,” he spoke first, his voice soft but very clearly nervous.

“It’s nice to see you too, Jason,” she smiled slightly.

“I wanted…” he began, hesitating, considering his words. “I wanted to come see you to talk to you. To…well, to talk about what happened that day. I was so…I…” he kept trailing off, not knowing what to say or how to say it. “I was an ass that day.”

“You were justified—”

“Let me—” he put his hand up to interrupt her as gently as possible. “I was an ass that day, but I don’t think you can blame me. And you can tell me to fuck off, you can tell me to do whatever, because I deserve it – I mean, we haven’t spoken in a year – but I realized how big of a mistake I made that day in being so harsh to you, and I want to…solve this. I want to work through it. I miss having you around. I don’t want to not speak to you again for an entire year.”

Aberdeen nodded her head. They were going to do this. “Do you want me to start from the beginning?”

Jason nodded his head.

So she told him. She told him everything. About how she’d hooked up with William that summer not knowing he was William Nylander of the Toronto Maple Leafs. She told him how they met again in the elevator with Brendan Shanahan present and that was how she realized who William was – this got a smile out of Jason. Then Aberdeen told him about keeping William at a distance, but his persisting, and her wall breaking away. She told him of the late night drives, the late night hotel rooms talks they’d have and how she learned so much about him. She told him about what William had done for her in terms of Ethan. She told him about Christmas. About New Year’s Eve. About the Night With the Blue and White. About how they promised each other they’d tell no-one – not even their families – and how good they’d been at keeping that promise. She told him how she fell deeper and deeper for Will. What he’d do for her, what he’d say that would make her go off in the deep end. She told him about how she fell in love. She told him what he’d done for her, what he continued to do for her.

Aberdeen felt like she had been talking for hours. She probably had. She had barely taken a sip of her wine. But when she saw everything that she needed to say, she waited for Jason’s reaction. He’d been silent the entire time, just listening. Listening intently. And she could see it on his face – him processing all the information. He understood the ramifications of it. The only people in the world who knew the true timeline of events now were him, Aberdeen, and William. He realized that. Not even Brendan knew. Not even Siena. Not even her parents.

“You love him,” Jason said it as more of a statement than a question.

“Of course I do, Jason,” Aberdeen said softly. She had William had been together almost two years now. One year publicly. Two years if we were really counting.

Jason bit his lip and nodded his head slightly. “I can’t hate you for that.”

“You can hate me for breaking your trust, though,” Aberdeen said. And it was true. She knew she would hate someone if they broke her trust the way she broke Jason’s that day.

Jason shook his head. “No. I can’t hate you for that anymore either. I can’t hate you at all.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat before continuing. “I just…I want to put this entire thing behind us. And I want to tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way I acted that day. I’m sorry for not speaking to you for a year. I’m sorry about all of it.”

“I should be the one apologizing.”

Jason shook his head. “You don’t have to. Can we…can we just acknowledge that it happened and move forward?”

Aberdeen couldn’t help but smile. “I’d like that a lot,” she said. “I’ve missed you, Jason.”

“I’ve missed you too,” he smiled back, holding up his wine glass. “To unlikely friendships,” he toasted.

“To unlikely friendships,” she clinked her glass. As she took a sip of wine, she still had one lingering thought in the back of her mind. One she knew she needed to address with Jason. She could honestly just leave it – half of her mind was telling her to do so – but the other half wasn’t having it. “Jason?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you for not telling Brendan.”

He nodded his head. “I was mad at you. But I didn’t want to ruin your life. Your secret is safe with me.”

***

“There you are, minskatt,” William’s sing-songy voice crooned through the apartment once Aberdeen shut the door behind her, tossing her keys into the bowl at the front door and slipping off her blazer. She walked into the apartment to see William watching TV – hockey of course. The Chicago Blackhawks, which meant he was watching Alex. If only for a moment, his eyes were momentarily taken off the screen and settled on Aberdeen at the foot of the couch. She was the only person able to divert his eyes. “Talk ran long? Did you insist on signing every single person’s book even when they wanted to cut you off like last time?” he asked with a smile.

She smiled back but said nothing. She felt too giddy inside, still, to speak. Instead, she crawled along the couch until she reached him, giving him a long, lingering kiss before pulling away and snuggling herself into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her tightly. “What’s got you all smiley?”

She couldn’t hold it in any longer. She finally found the words. “I was having drinks with Jason.”

She could feel William stiffen slightly at her words, but not out of fear. She knew it was mostly out of shock. “Jason Spezza?”

Aberdeen nodded her head. “He showed up at the book signing. He asked if we could go for drinks at Alo and when I met him there we sort of…well, you know…we talked about everything that happened.”

“And?”

“And…there’s now three people that know our entire story.”

“But what about you and him?” William asked, knowing her relationship with Jason was much more important. “Is everything okay between you and him now?”

Aberdeen could only smile and nod her head. It made William smile too. Knowing that his girlfriend, the love of his life, was happy again – happy to be speaking to one of her friends again, happy to have buried a hatchet – made him all the happier. It had been a year of personal triumphs for Aberdeen but also a year of pain, and now that pain had gone away. He leaned in and kissed her again, the both of them smiling. “I love you, minskatt.”

“I love you too, Willy.”

***

October 2021

“ABERDEEEEEEEEEEEEN! MOM NEEDS THE VEGETABLES!” Camden screamed down the basement steps.

“Better watch it,” William said from behind him. “She’s a published author now. She isn’t gonna take crap from you anymore.”

Camden looked behind him and shrugged. “She’s still always gonna be my sister. She’ll always take crap from me.”

William couldn’t help but giggle as he smiled. “You’re very smart, Camden.”

“And besides, I’m her little brother. I’m allowed to. You on the other hand—”

“Whoa whoa whoa!” William protested.

“Camden!” Aberdeen screamed from the bottom of the stairs. “Don’t think I don’t hear you!” she started stomping up the stairs. When she finally reached the top, holding the casserole dish full of roasted vegetables in between her hands covered in oven mitts, she furrowed her brows. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping Siena with the dessert?”

“Siena told me to make sure you and William weren’t doing too much kissy kissy,” he smooched his lips together.

“She did not say that.”

“I did say that!” Siena called out from the kitchen.

Camden smiled and wiggled his brows before skipping away, having done his duty and fulfilled his job. Aberdeen looked at William. “You can leave if you want. I understand if you just want to spend Thanksgiving alone in a quiet condo.”

“Are you kidding?” he asked, bending down to kiss her quickly. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“Mooooooom! They’re kissing again!”

***

Jason was purposely slow in putting on his gear. He was eyeing William the whole time as William worked to put on all his own gear – the pads and the socks and the practice jersey. Most of the boys had already left to go out onto the ice. But Jason had been slow. Jason stayed back. He and William had been making eye contact throughout their getting ready. “We talked,” he said simply, but loud enough so William could hear.

“I know,” William said, nodding his head slightly. “She came back from that book talk the happiest I’ve seen her in a while. She couldn’t stop smiling the entire night. She cried as I held her,” he said, pausing for a bit of a dramatic effect. “Happy tears, of course.”

Jason nodded his head. He got up from his stall and walked over to William, who was still sitting in his. “Listen,” he began. “I should apologize to you too.”

William shook his head. “You don’t need to. So long as you apologized to Aberdeen that’s all that matters,” he said. And he meant it. William never expected an apology. Truth be told, he didn’t want one – he didn’t want Jason to apologize to him. He didn’t really deserve it. The only person who deserved an apology was Aberdeen.

“No,” Jason said a bit more emphatically. “I do need to apologize to you. I was a dick. And…” he trailed off.

“And…?” William egged on.

“And you love her,” Jason said. The heavy words hung in the air between the two men for a few silent moments. “You love her, and you’ve shown her you love her for almost two years now, and that’s what counts here.” Jason paused again, both men looking each other in the eye. “You loved her since the beginning, didn’t you? Since the day you laid eyes on her in that bar, the night of her graduation.”

“Of course I did,” William said softly.

Jason nodded his head slightly, in understanding. “You’re the luckiest damn son of a bitch on this Earth to be with her.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“And wh—”

“And if I ever hurt her, I’m sure your fist is going to be the first one connecting to my eye,” William finished Jason’s sentence for him. “I know, I know.”

“No no, that’s not what I was going to say,” Jason said. William furrowed his brows. “What I was going to say, was…when you two get married, I better be the guest of fucking honour,” he smiled mischievously.

It was only then that William noticed Jason’s arm and hand outstretched. He smiled, bringing his hand up to grasp Jason’s.

They hugged.

***

February 2022

“Aberdeen!” Bee McTavish’s voice rang out as Aberdeen stepped foot into the family suite at Scotiabank Arena. After a long day at work in Toronto Life and balancing a phone interview about In August with a literary magazine based out on Montreal, Aberdeen was tired. But tonight was a Hockey Night in Canada against the Montreal Canadiens, and Aberdeen couldn’t miss it. Wouldn’t miss it.

Aberdeen saw Bee balancing Jace on her hip. Behind her, Aryne was on the phone with someone. “Hey Bee,” she smiled wide, approaching the two. “Hey Jace!”

“Hiii Baberbeen,” he smiled.

“How did your interview go today?” Bee asked.

Bee was always keeping up with her writing and the interviews she was doing, and what she was going to write next. It was one of the things Aberdeen loved most about her. She was incredibly supportive of Aberdeen’s career, keeping tabs and taking a real interest in it. Bee even requested that Aberdeen autograph some first edition copies of In August because “When you win the Governor General’s Award or the Giller Prize or the Booker it’s gonna become a Rielly family heirloom! First edition Aberdeen Bloom novels! I mean come on!” Aberdeen signed however many Bee wanted her to sign. “It was great. It’s for their next issue, so I should only have to wait about a month or so to see it in the magazine.”

“Any others coming up?”

“There’s a journal based out of Vancouver that wants to do a profile, too.”

“Look at you!” Bee cooed, smiling from ear to ear. “When you become a famous novelist don’t forget us in the family room at Scotiabank Arena.��

Aberdeen giggled. “Are you kidding? I could never forget this place. This is like my second home.”

***

August 2022

William could hear the soft waves crashing against the shore as he walked out the back door of the cottage. In the distance, he could see Alex jumping off the boathouse – typical. If he got injured the Blackhawks wouldn’t be very happy. He saw Daniella follow Alex by diving into the water. Jacqueline and Stefanie were tanning on chairs. He looked to his left to see his dad barbequing and his mom helping.

Then he saw who he was looking for.

Aberdeen was sitting on the edge of the dock, beside the flagpole flying the Swedish flag, feet dangling over and toes grazing the water as she watched Alex and Daniella’s diving competition. William couldn’t help but smile to himself as he got closer and closer to her with each passing step.

“Whose dive was better, Aberdeen?!” Alex asked from the water.

“Definitely Daniella’s!” she called out, much to Alex’s very, very vocal displeasure and Daniella’s very, very vocal satisfaction.

Her hair was down; long and flowing in the slight breeze until she turned her head and looked over her shoulder and back at him. She smiled when she saw him, and she brought her hand up to shield the sun from her eyes. “Hey you,” she cooed.

She wore a floral dress. The sky was blue and so was the water as William crouched down and sat behind her. He adjusted himself until Aberdeen was sitting in between his legs and his legs were dangling off the dock with hers. He made sure to wrap his arms around her waist. He gave her a kiss on her shoulder before she turned her head and he gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” Aberdeen smiled. “Jag tänker på dig när jag inte ens tanker,” she said in an almost perfect Swedish accent. She’d been practicing for two and a half years now, after all.

William smiled, giving her another kiss. “Jag tänker på dig när jag inte ens tanker.”

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esotericworld · 6 years ago

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CRISPR news always feels like an incredible movie unfolding... only its real life.

This story mentions efforts by the CIA, DARPA, and even the JASONS to tackle the threats that CRISPR technology could potentially impose. Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613309/the-search-for-the-kryptonite-that-can-stop-crispr/ Read the full story at the link^ I tried to pull the synopsis here, but the entire story is fascinating. “In September 2016, Jennifer Doudna called a new colleague named Kyle Watters to her office. By then, the University of California, Berkeley, biochemist was famous as the coinventor of CRISPR. The invention of the fast and versatile tool to edit genes had vaulted her to global notoriety and to considerable wealth. She was the founder of several startup companies and had collected millions in science-prize money.

Ominously, though, as Doudna has recounted, she was haunted by a dream in which Adolf Hitler appeared, holding a pen and paper, requesting a copy of the CRISPR recipe. What horrible purpose could Hitler have? Doudna, in her retellings of her dream, didn’t say...

… if scientists learn to deliver gene editors inside people’s bodies, what’s to stop a madman, terrorist, or state from employing CRISPR to cause harm? People imagine personalized attacks that would strike only at certain ethnic groups or super soldiers edited to feel no pain…

…in 2016, the US intelligence agencies had designated gene editing as a potential weapon of mass destruction. That September, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had jumped in, putting out a call for new ways to control or reverse the effects of gene-editing technology. The program, called Safe Genes, would end up with a budget of more than $65 million, making it one of the largest sources of cash for CRISPR research, aside from biotech startups developing new genetic treatments. One problem, as DARPA saw it, was the lack of any easy-to-use countermeasure, undo button, or antidote for CRISPR. And the more powerful gene editing becomes, the more we might need one—in case of a lab accident, or worse. As UC Berkeley put it in a 2017 press release after Doudna, with Watters’s help, claimed part of the big DARPA contract, the university intended to build tools to counter bioterrorism threats including “weapons employing CRISPR itself.”

CRISPR weapons? We’ll leave it to your imagination exactly what one could look like. What is safe to say, though, is that DARPA has asked Doudna and others to start looking into prophylactic treatments or even pills you could take to stop gene editing, just the way you can swallow antibiotics if you’ve gotten an anthrax letter in the mail. Scientists under Doudna’s project say they are set to begin initial tests on mice to see if the rodents can be made immune to CRISPR editors. Anti-CRISPR By the time Doudna drafted her proposal to DARPA, other scientists already had one big clue for how to stop CRISPR. In the ancient struggle between bacteria and the viruses called phage that infect them, phage had developed their own antidotes to CRISPR. In fact, their genomes, it’s been found, harbor the ability to produce what is essentially CRISPR kryptonite—small proteins exquisitely tuned by evolution to disable the gene-editing tool. Scientists call these molecules “anti-CRISPRs.”…

The number of labs studying such defenses is smaller than the number working with CRISPR. But anti-CRISPR is becoming a booming field in its own right. More than 40 anti-CRISPR proteins have already been found, many by Doudna’s lab. Other teams are having early success locating conventional chemicals that can inhibit CRISPR as well. Today, Amit Choudhary of Harvard Medical School, in Boston, also with funding from DARPA, reported he had found two drugs that prevent gene-editing when mixed with human cells.… A biosurprise The advent of the CRISPR tool starting in mid-2012 surprised scientists. Essentially overnight, ham-fisted ways of genetic engineering were replaced by a cheap, versatile, and programmable means of changing DNA inside any living thing. Forecasters whose job was to anticipate new dangers “totally missed” CRISPR, says Renee Wegrzyn, the biodefense scientist who runs DARPA’s program. The humbling failure to see the future quickly morphed into a “critical urgent issue for national security.”

That’s because researchers, doctors, and startups backed by venture capitalists began a race to learn how to deploy CRISPR inside plants, animals, and humans, using viruses, injections, nanoparticles, or electrical shocks. And the better they got at it, the more realistic some sort of novel biothreat could become… In her talk, Wegrzyn said the danger of CRISPR was obvious from how scientists were already using gene-editing to make mice sick by snipping important genes. “I don’t think you need to be a biosecurity expert to recognize that there is a need for scrutiny when you look at a tool that can both cure and cause disease,” she told the California gathering. “If we need to shut down a gene editor immediately, we just don’t know how to do this.”

There’s still no agreement about how dangerous CRISPR could be in the wrong hands. “Red team” exercises sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency over the summer of 2016, where a group of analysts called the Jasons were asked to dream up their worst ideas, didn’t settle the question. Later, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, at the request of the Department of Defense, produced an entire ranking of possible threats from synthetic biology, putting CRISPR weapons toward the middle of the pack. The military said it saw no imminent danger to soldiers.

Doudna agrees that CRISPR’s dangers should not be overblown. “I get these questions a lot about CRISPR systems and nefarious uses, and my feeling is that I am no more or less worried about CRISPR than other things. Someone could synthesize the smallpox virus,” she says. Similarly, while her research may lead to an eventual gene-editing antidote, her lab’s work with anti-CRISPRs is mainly addressing fundamental biological questions. “I am still at step one,” she says. “How do these work?”

Others, though, worry the risks are already apparent and that antidotes can’t come soon enough. For instance, some scientists have sought to prevent public discussion of specific CRISPR studies, or even delete mention of them from the internet, presumably to allow scientists more time to develop countermeasures. “The general prevailing attitude is not to give people nightmare fuel while we are actively looking for answers. There’s always a concern about an early freak-out,” says Doudna’s former collaborator Watters, who in 2018 authored a review of gene editing’s implications for biosecurity.… Schoeniger, who leads the Sandia effort, says soon his lab will instruct the mice to edit themselves but will also give them a shot of anti-CRISPR molecules, to see if the process is blocked. “Anti-CRISPR works well in nature, and we are trying to see if it works well in animals,” he says. Schoeniger believes there is a “significant risk of accidental exposure” to CRISPR agents. As a large industry leaps up around the editing tool, CRISPR is being formulated into gene therapies, injections, ointments, and food, which raises the chance of a laboratory accident. Even a secret bioweapons program is more likely to release a designer germ by accident than it is to launch an attack. “As people use this in bigger and bigger amounts, there is an increased chance of people coming into contact, of getting stabbed or sprayed,” he says. “And if I get a mutagen sprayed in my eyes, it would be nice to stop it.”… Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613309/the-search-for-the-kryptonite-that-can-stop-crispr/

#CRISPR #DARPA #CIA #JASONS #Science #technology #biology #future #weapon #antidote #biosecurity

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Ted Lasso and Other TV Bosses We’d Walk Over Hot Coals For

https://ift.tt/3ryGOvx

In the heady moments of celebration after England’s victory over Denmark in this year’s Euros semi-final, the sight of team manager Gareth Southgate prompted ITV pundit Gary Neville to comment: “The standard of leaders in this country the past couple of years has been poor. Looking at that man, he’s everything a leader should be: respectful, humble, he tells the truth.”

The former Man U right-back’s words, directed at the political rulers of a country riven by Brexit, tap into a modern craving for decency. Fed a diet of self-serving narcissism from our public figures, we hunger for more wholesome fare: moral character, humility, honesty, kindness. In the year of horrors that was 2020, that appetite was temporarily sated on TV by fictional football manager Ted Lasso.

Played in the Apple TV series by Jason Sudeikis (who, in true Ted style, wore a shirt to the Ted Lasso season two launch in support of the three young Black England footballers who received racist abuse after their team’s eventual loss to Italy in the final), Ted’s thoroughgoing decency won everyone over to The Lasso Way. He’s the gold standard of TV bosses – selfless, caring, wise, inspirational, and patiently dedicated to bringing out the best in his players and the team as a whole. He may not always win on the pitch, but he always wins in our hearts. And if those words make you want to heave, then you, friend, may just need a little more Lasso in your life. #Believe.

To celebrate his return, we present Ted’s TV peers, the bosses for whom you’d go any number of extra miles.

Leslie Knope – Parks & Recreation

There is no finer example set in the TV workplace than Leslie Barbara Knope. The Pawnee public servant leads from the front, the sides and the back. She’s the waffle-powered sheepdog of City Hall, yapping co-workers and townsfolk into shape with her relentless work ethic and bottomless optimism. Leslie’s a boss who cares so much that she’s already bought your Christmas gift. And your birthday gift. And made you a special hand-crafted gift to mark the half-year anniversary of the day you first met. She sleeps three hours a night, runs entirely on sugar (or should that be salgar?), has a binder for every eventuality, and always, always has your back. Her rubber-soled energy is so infectious that over seven seasons she even manages to motivate the lazy (Tom), disaffected (April), dumb (Andy), aloof (Donna), hapless (Jerry) and the downright obstructive (Ron). For a gal named ‘nope’, she’s a whole lot of yes. LM

Bertram Cooper – Mad Men

Technically, advertising firm Sterling Cooper on Mad Men has two bosses – Roger Sterling and Bertram Cooper. Coop, however, is the let’s say…more experienced of the two and takes on the role of boss. And what a boss he is! The eccentric office sage played by Robert Morse takes a decidedly hands off approach to managing the workplace. Do whatever you want in this Madison Avenue ad agency, as long as you take your shoes off when you enter Bert’s office. And if you’re nice enough he might show you his collection of erotic octopus art. AB

Jacqueline Carlyle – The Bold Type

The Editor-In-Chief of Scarlet magazine, the women’s title at the heart of ridiculous millennial wish fulfillment vehicle The Bold Type is part mentor, part mother figure, part fairy godmother to the three young women at the centre of the show. Jane is an intern when she first meets Jacqueline, who greets her with “Are you a writer? You look like a writer.” Because, yep, it really is that easy to get a job at a top magazine. The Bold Type is nonsense but it’s very good hearted nonsense which tries in earnest to tackle big issues while maintaining a sunny outlook. Be yourself, be passionate, be bold, the show says, and the world is at your feet. Sent a couple of tweets? Congratulations, have a promotion! Threatened with a lawsuit because of something you wrote? No bother, have a promotion! Fraudulently passed yourself off as a stylist when you’re not, thereby ruining a key relationship? Meh. Promotion for you! Promotions all round! Jacqueline is glamorous and wise, endlessly patient with her proteges and seemingly in possession of a bottomless budget. We all wish we worked for Jacqueline and she’s a wonderful (imaginary) role model. We’re just slightly nervous for any young fans of the show who ever get to work for an actual, real life Editor-In-Chief… RF

Mr. Krabs – SpongeBob SquarePants

Mr. Krabs is a good boss because he’s refreshingly upfront about what matters to him. Simply put: the crab likes money. As long as you’re putting in the hours and keeping the profit margins fat, Mr. Krabs will be your best friend. Sure, he takes advantage of SpongeBob’s naivete from time to time. But deep down, you know the guy has a heart as big as his enormous whale daughter, Pearl. AB

Supt. Ted Hastings – Line of Duty

Think of Ted Hastings, head of Central Police’s Anti-Corruption Unit 12, as Ulysses – a man sailing on dangerous waters but so determined not to be seduced by the sirens’ song that he’s tied himself to the ship’s mast and stopped his ears with wax. Except replace ‘siren’s song’ with ‘bungs from criminal gangs’, and ‘ship’s mast’ and ‘wax’ with ‘sheer force of will, son’. Ted’s a colossus of integrity in a world of backhanders and turning-a-blind-eye. He does the right thing even when it’s the hard thing, and if you’re one of his officers, then you’re his for life. (Unless you’re a corrupt gangster plant, in which case, by Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey, he’ll never live down the shame.) Ted may have more decency in his side-parting than most officers have in their whole bodies, but he still has his flaws. The stock he puts in loyalty makes him inflexible, and his temper’s a thing to be seen, but the key thing about Ted as a leader is that when he makes a mistake, he owns up to it. We should all be so lucky to have a gaffer like him. LM

Ron Donald – Party Down

Starz’s brilliant comedy Party Down premiered around the same time as classic NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. As such, Ken Marino’s perpetually stressed boss character Ron Donald didn’t get nearly as much attention as another boss named Ron: Ron Swanson. Let’s be clear, however, nobody would want Ron Swanson as a boss because that means you’d have to regularly interact with a libertarian. Instead, it’s far better to be in the good graces of Ron Donald. This Ron will support your dreams all the while telling you about his own to own a Souper Crackers franchise. AB

Press Gang: How Steven Moffat’s First Show Shaped a Generation

By Rosie Fletcher

Party Down: a US sitcom that richly deserves your time

By Louisa Mellor

Lynda Day – Press Gang

Bit of of a niche one – you probably have to be British and in your 40s to even know who this is – but Lynda Day, played by Julia Sawalha deserves a mention as the youngest boss on the list. Editor of the Junior Gazette, the after school newspaper run by pupils at the heart of Steven Moffat’s very first show she’s an erudite journalist, a ruthless news hound and a self possessed young woman who cares more about being right than about being liked. Lynda isn’t particularly soft or warm but she is a boss who would make you a better writer. You’d strive to please Lynda, want to live up to her incredibly high standards and know that the work you were doing on the paper could actually make a difference. Lynda is all about work ethic and integrity. Small of frame, sharp of tongue, you wouldn’t wanna mess with her, but you know she’ll get shit done. RF

Captain Holt – Brooklyn 99

It says something about a boss when you wouldn’t just walk over hot coals for them, you would also do it for their pet dog. Cheddar the corgi is just one of many reasons to snap your sharpest salute to Captain Raymond “Do Not Call Me Ray Or Use Contractions In My Presence” Holt. Precinct captain of the 99, Holt is a walking yardstick of fine taste, good manners, linguistic clarity and grammatical coherence. Holt values simplicity and despises vulgarity. Do your job and do it right, and you will earn his hard-won respect, perhaps indicated by a very slight incline of the head if he is feeling frivolous. Holt has already earned your respect, for leading an exemplary career as an openly gay NYC cop since 1987, facing down racists, homophobes and the lowest of the low: people who use “What’s up?” as a greeting. Captain Holt’s impossibly high standards are a bar few reach, but to which we can all aspire. LM

Ian Grimm and Poppy Li – Mythic Quest

Mythic Quest creative directors Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) are messes on their own. But when their personalities combine, they create one great boss unit who keeps things moving and keeps things lively. Granted, I wouldn’t want to work for Ian and Poppy as a programmer or dev on the Mythic Quest team because crunch is real (and I also have no such skills). They would make for a great boss team in just about any other industry though. AB

DCI Cassie Stuart – Unforgotten

Some bosses try to impress their status on employees by turning up the volume, but not DCI Cassie Stuart. Everything she does in ITV police drama Unforgotten, from case meetings to suspect interrogations, she does in the same controlled, low voice. It gives her words an intensity that shouting wouldn’t achieve and makes her cold-case murder team lean in to absorb the significance of what she’s saying. Usually, that’s on the theme of how they owe victims answers and are going to find them. Diligent and dedicated, she trusts her team, especially partner Sunny, and is the kind of boss whose praise really means something. A ‘good work’ from her and you’d be walking on air. LM

Conan O’Brien – Conan

This is technically violating the spirit of this thought exercise because Conan O’Brien is not fictional. What he is, however, is a boss…in both the metaphorical and literal sense of the word. No late night talk show host has ever reveled in being the boss of a staff as much as Conan O’Brien has on his shows like Late Night, The Tonight Show, and Conan. He views his role as boss as an opportunity to troll his employees like a corny father torturing his children with dad jokes. Many of Conan’s behind the scenes workers have become stars in their own right, like producer Jordan Schlansky or assistant Sona Movessian. And it’s all because Conan can’t help but want everyone to be involved and having a good time. Just like any great boss would want. AB

Captain Janeway – Star Trek Voyager

Anyone can be a good boss in a thriving workplace, but it takes a person of strong character to stay empathetic, decisive, and focused when everything goes to hell. In the very first episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Captain Janeway is stranded with her crew on the wrong side of the galaxy, 70,000 light years from home. She is tasked with getting not only her Starfleet crew home, but also the remaining members of the Maquis vessel Voyager was trying to capture when they were both pulled into the unexplored Delta quadrant. She does this all without the institutional support of the Federation, and without the certainty that they will ever make it back. It’s not always pretty, and Janeway makes some questionable decisions along the way, but it’s hard to imagine Voyager making it home without Janeway as their tough-as-nails boss. KB

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Ted Lasso Season 2 is available now on Apple TV+

The post Ted Lasso and Other TV Bosses We’d Walk Over Hot Coals For appeared first on Den of Geek.

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jaybeartodd · 7 years ago

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Colleagues Pt. 3/17 — Jason Todd x fem. reader

Y/N is struggling with this newly found information but decides to push it aside while things are going well. And maybe this Jason character isn’t as awful as he initially seemed...

Sorry this is so long! I was planning on making this two parts but I forgot to stop typing. Whoops. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy and thank you for the amazing feedback! You guys have been fantastic!

Warnings: swearing and mentions of alcohol

Word Count: 1974

Tagging: @sarcasmismyfirstlove

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17

It is sheer will and your hand supporting your chin that is at least keeping up the appearance of vitality as your professor lectures at the head of the classroom. After a quick digestion of the information discovered last night, you managed to hammer out a killer essay and get a whole 3 hours of sleep before having to wake up for your morning class.

You are trying to focus on what the professor is saying by watching their mouth but all you can hear is the conversation between you and Nick.

It was after a long shift at your old job that you came home to Nick using the kitchen for actual cooking purposes. Throwing your bag down you eyed him wearily as he gave you happy smile from behind a steaming stove.

"Hey sis! I got us a real meal; steak and mashed potatoes.”

You can't help but laugh at the absurdity of his appearance. He has his long purple hair tied up in a bun and your Batman apron tied around his body.

“What did I tell you about buying that disgusting meat at the butcher down the road?” you ask leaning over the sizzling pan cautiously expecting the worst.

“No sis. This is real steak from a real store,” his dimples flash seemingly innocent and the steak does look halfway decent. If you even liked steak.

“Nick,” you sigh grabbing at a headache forming from the thought of him getting into your cash again.

“No, Y/N, look I swear it was all my own money. I didn't take a cent from your jar in the dresser. Cross my heart,” he gestures to his heart. Mental note; move jar.

You let out a breath and look into his brown eyes full of pride. You see the little brother who would do this silly promise ritual years ago when hiding in your self-made fortresses. Before he lost his way.

Finally giving in, you cross your heart in sync with him and he laughs kissing you on the cheek. After finishing up the cooking, you manage to have a decent dinner with him even if you push around the steak so he won't notice you not eating it.

It is one of the best moments you have had with Nick since you had to move in with him after several of his stints in jail. But you can't help the question burning in the back of your head.

“Where'd you get the money, Nickie?” you ask somberly. Instead of the guilt you are expecting you see his face beam.

“I got a job,” your eyes widen at this. The boy who hasn't held a job in years can suddenly afford steak with work he has never even mentioned applying for.

“No really! I got a delivery job! It is with a Mr. Sionis and it makes enough money that you can stop worrying about me and start focusing on paying your school and I can finally start supporting Trey.”

You can't help but absorb the pure joy emanating from him. You hug him and enjoy the moment even though you know he could make all the money in the world but the mother of his child would never let him have anymore than the every other weekends he is getting. Not that you can blame her. She has a big house, nice husband and great career. Trey is a cute kid and deserves the best life possible, Even though you miss him dearly and you know it crushes Nick.

This memory still rings fresh in your head as one of the better ones even though Nick went straight back to his binging within one week of work leaving you to pick up the essentials. At least he has somehow held the job and pays for his own alcohol now. You aren't blind to the effect the job has had on your brother and now your curiosity grows knowing who his boss is and even more now that Mr. Wayne seems interested in the guy despite him supposedly being in Arkham.

You show up to your desk that night to find an invitation laying on it. Looking around you don't see anything out of the ordinary. Although, did you expect to see someone gazing above their respective cubicle laughing at a rather lame prank?

The Wayne logo is painted across the front of it and you open it to see an elegant flourish of details of a ball. It seems you are cordially invited to the annual Wayne Enterprise Ball. You can't help but feel a grin spread across your face. How very posh. You chuckle to yourself but you know you are excited at the chance of attending the most prized Gotham event.

You probably will not be the most lavish of the attendees considering your limited store options that pair nicely with your limited cash flow but hell you will feel damn beautiful. You clutch the invitation close to you before putting it into your bag unaware of the amused pair of eyes watching your reaction.

“Jason, your attention would be appreciated.”

Jason sighs and pushes himself off the window he was observing you from.

“Yeah yeah Bruce. You've got the fullest of my attention.”

The next two weeks go by fairly quickly, You managed to make it to break from school with only a couple of sleepless nights preparing for midterms. Nick hasn't had another binge since the night you found out the interesting tidbit about his new job. Troy had a great visit where we attempted to bake ending in a floury mess. All of this, plus your growing excitement for the ball tonight, has caused you to push the Sionis incident from your head for now. You really didn’t want to rock the boat while it was wading steadily for once.

Your rose red dress from a nearby thrift store illuminates your carefully illustrated makeup and your y/h/c piled on top of your head once you are ready to head to the ball. You lock the door behind you and can’t help but feel giddy.

Not only are you being handed the perfect opportunity to make fun of ridiculous people in one setting but you are being handed the perfect opportunity of meeting local newspaper hotshots who could be your road into journalism.

Your heels from a lifetime ago that you dug from deep depths of your closet may look great but are not the ideal footwear for a hike to Wayne Manor so you made sure to save up for a taxi. Not your atypical classy but better than appearing with bloody feet and being mugged 67 times on the way there.

The Wayne Manor is hard to miss even as you are a mile away. You find yourself dazzled by the vastness only seen previously by you on TV. Your taxi driver drops you off at an appropriate amount of distance so that you can walk.

You pass what you assume to be millions of dollars of jewelry and satins as you make your way towards the mansion. An older gentleman with a gentle face is checking invitations at the door.

You hand him yours hoping not to seem too eager. He gives you a warm smile as you thank him.

“Have a fantastic night Ms. Y/L/N.” his accented voice reads your name off the invitation.

The inside continues to astonish you as you take in the riches you thought only existed in movies. You can't help but gawk at the amount of stairs. Why do rich people need so many stairs?

After grabbing a drink, you go in search of familiar faces. You greet a few of your coworkers but then your eye catches an editor for a major newspaper in Gotham. You wander over to the assorted foods and pretend to be interested in them when in actuality you are plotting the best way to introduce yourself.

“You're staring,” a voice makes you jump and drop your plate you had began filling up.

Oh there's only one person that could be.

You turn around to find a smirking Jason Todd. He cleans up nice, you mentally note. He has a crisp, obviously expensive black suit on and his hair is semi tamed back with some gel.

“Is this some weird hobby you have? Scaring the crap out of people so that they drop absolutely everything in their hands,” you bend down to grab the food but he holds out a hand and swiftly crouches and sweeps the crackers back onto the plate. He grins and offers the plate back but your only answer in return is a look of annoyance.

He shrugs and puts the plate back on the table.

“So why are you staring at Mr. Prie?” he asks and you cross your arms.

“I'm not.” he hitches an eyebrow at this obvious lie,

“Yeah ok well since you aren't you probably don't want me to introduce you to him,” he challenges you with an amused look and his hands casually shoved into his pockets,

You contemplate your options. Ignoring Jason and hopefully keeping the clumsy at a normal rate. Or meeting the man that could possibly give you the job of your dreams.

“Fine, yes I would love to meet him. Could you please introduce me?” you grumble and this seems to feed the smirk.

“On one condition,” he says.

“Listen pal I am not being blackmailed into a date-”

“One dance. That's all I ask. One dance,”

You stare at him calculatingly.

“Is this how you usually get girls?”

“I usually don't work so hard,” you blush at this which amuses him.

“Fine, you weirdo. I will dance with you but first introduce me,” you give in.

He offers his arm with a boyish grin. You roll your eyes and stroll past him towards Mr. Prie.

Jason does an impressive job of introducing you as a highly-valued employee and even compliments your character. Damn, this man can charm the pants off of anyone. Mr. Prie ends up offering you a personal tour of the paper, making you even more successful than you thought you'd be.

You manage to keep your calm professional look as you shake his hand but when you are out of earshot you punch Jason in the arm in excitement.

“A personal tour!” you rub your hand after punching a surprisingly thick mass of muscle.

Jason’s grin matches yours as you look up at him absolutely beaming.

“Thank you so much for your help,” you say genuinely.

“Hey don't use your words to thank me,” you look at him questioningly as he does an obnoxious spin and offers his hand out to you, “Use dance.”

You chuckle at his dramatic voice.

“Yeah about that, I can't dance,” all of a sudden you are pulled into the dancefloor and you collide into Jason's firm chest.

“Nonsense,” he says and you shake your head.

He looks at you sympathetically, “Here just follow my lead.” His hand wraps around your waist drawing the breath from you while his other hand clasps yours.

Placing your free hand on his shoulder, your feet follow his and after a few toe-steppings, you find yourselves falling into a natural movement.

“I am really sorry I was so rude to you the first time we met. I'm not usually like that I promise,” you say breaking the silence.

His eyes twinkle bemused.

“I think I am the one who should be apologizing. I was being a jackals.” he admits.

You nod your head. “Yeah, you're right. Forget what I said.”

He laughs a hearty sound and you can't help but enjoy the vibrations it sends through his chest.

The night is turning out way better than you expected. But it can only last but so long.

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #red hood #red hood x reader #red hood x you #fanfic #batman #batman imagine

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rfield87 · 4 years ago

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Writing Advice from Best-Selling Authors: Jason Reynolds

This week’s re-blog was written by J.D. Myall and is titled: Sunny Author Jason Reynolds on Publishing, Writing, and Advice for New Writers. It was published on July 20, 2018. If you would like to read the original post on the Writer’s Digest website, I will leave the link below.

https://www.writersdigest.com/be-inspired/jason-reynolds-author-sunny-writing-publishing-advice-new-authors

Sunny Author Jason Reynolds on Writing, Publishing and Advice for New Writers

Award-winning YA novelist Jason Reynolds has cemented his place in literary history with titles like When I Was the Greatest, The Boy in the Black Suit and Long Way Down. Here we talk to Jason about writing, publishing and his advice for new authors.

Jason Reynolds is one of the most gifted YA novelists of this time. With titles like When I Was the Greatest, The Boy in the Black Suit and Long Way Down, Reynolds has cemented his place in literary history.

Recently, Reynolds had three titles on the New York Times Best Seller list at the same time. He has been honored with a collection of awards, including several Coretta Scott King Book Award honors, an NAACP Image Award, and his novel Long Way Down has won the Edgar Award. He’s been a National Book Award finalist and has graced stages with Ta-Nehisi Coates and Rep. Jon Lewis. Reynolds has also been featured in the pages of People magazine. He has appeared on television shows such as The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Here we talk to Jason about writing, publishing and his advice for new authors.

What was your life like, pre-book?

I was a happy shop worker. I got to dress nice going to work every day and I liked that. I saw people at these high-end stores in New York City making a lot of money. I would have been happy to do that, but I wouldn’t have been reaching my full potential.

Best advice you have heard on writing?

Sharon Draper told me that to write a novel is to climb Mount Everest. When you climb Mount Everest, the whole time you’re thinking, I don’t think I can make it. When you reach the top, you think, now I know I can climb Mount Everest. But what you don’t account for is that on your way down all the footholds change. So, when you climb again it’s not the same route. It’s difficult all over again...every time it’s a new climb.

Do you have any advice for new authors on creating a satisfying ending and a thrilling beginning?

My uncle use to say that the good books begin with “...and shots rang out.” Shots rang out is a cliche, but what he meant is that no one has time for you to get us to the minefield. Drop us in the minefield in the beginning. Drop us off in the mix and you can move backward and forward from there. End in the mix. Don’t answer any questions. Leave me in the muck at the end, too. There can be less muck, but all the loose ends shouldn’t be tied up. There should be something unreconciled. That’s life. Nobody’s life is tied up in a bow. Stories that end in a bow are kind of disrespectful to the reader. If you want your story to be compelling, let it fade to black without reconciliation.

How do you know when a novel is finished?

You always end it a chapter early.

What has novel writing taught you?

Patience. Diligence. Every time you write a novel it’s like writing one for the first time.

Your poetry is amazing. Do you have any advice for writing poetry that connects with readers?

You have to be honest. You have to choose words that breathe. It doesn’t have to necessarily be correct English, but you need words with life. Gwendolyn Brooks once had a list of goals that was published. One of them said she wanted to speak proper English. One of her most popular poems was “We Real Cool.” That’s not what anybody would call proper English, but those words breathed.

You have collaborated on writing with editors and writers. What is the key to making a collaboration work effectively?

Humility. If we are collaborating, we both need to only work for the good of the product. Nothing is sacred to me. If my best line has to get sacrificed for the good of the project, I am not in fear that I’ll never have another good line. If my editor says, “this isn’t working,” and she explains why it’s not working...it’s just not working. It’s that simple. I want to create the best thing. I don’t always know how to make the best thing by myself. Sometimes I can be way too close to something...to actually see it.

How did you connect with Marvel to write Miles Morales: Spider-Man? And can you tell us about the project?

They called me. I wish I had some romantic story about it. I was writing a lot of young, black urban males and they wanted a Spider-Man like that. They reached out to me. Then, I had to think about what that would mean. What are superpowers? Heightened senses? All of our mothers have taught us to have those, so we can stay safe in the hood. I had to ask myself what the kid’s neighbors and family are like. How does it feel to wear a mask and then take that mask off and still feel like you’re not seen? For a kid like this, his super villain would be while supremacy. So, I had to figure out how to change that thought into a comic book.

Tell me the story behind the story. How did your current novels, For Everyone and Sunny, come to be? What are they about?

Sunny is the third book of the track series. I wanted to explore what it means to be black and to be strange...I think our kids deserve to be able to stretch out imaginatively and live their best lives...even if that means being a little left of center. It’s beautiful to tell a story like that.

The other one is called For Everyone. It was basically a love letter wrote to myself when I was twenty-five years old. I decide to quit writing. It was like a curtain call, a sun setting on my career. Looking back on it, (that thinking) was very melodramatic. I thought I’m twenty-five years old and this is it for me. I’m Done. So, I was writing what it feels like to fail. Then, over the course of the two- or three-year process of writing it (things) evolved. It became less about failure and more about what it feels like to want something. We often look at freedom as attaining something. Really, it’s the ability to even have the gumption and the space to dream you could have it in the fist place.

Do your current novels address social issues? If so what themes or messages were you hoping to convey to readers in regard to those issues?

For Everything addresses the fear of living a full life. Sunny addresses depression and grief...and the breakdown of a family due to a young person’s misunderstanding of their parents. Parents are human. They deal with things like grief, depression and anxiety. To a young person that can feel like dismissal, abandonment, and other things.

Looking back what do you think you did right that helped you to become the novelist you are today?

Be honest. When I was 21, my first editor said that my intuition would take me further than my education ever would. She said what she knew about me was that I had a golden gut. I could put on a page that what felt good to me. I don’t care about the rules. If it feels good, I go with it and that hasn’t let me down yet.

How has your life changed since publication?

I feel more responsibility about what I put out in the world because a lot of people are going to read it. I feel more pressure so there are moments when it isn’t as fun. Moments when this feels like a job. I am appreciative and the fun is there, but there are times when it feels like a job. I’m on the road 100 days a year. Visiting schools, speaking at events, but I have to show up and be the Jason that everyone came to see. It’s hard on me and it’s hard on my family...but you can’t show that.

What are the biggest surprises and learning experiences that you discovered during the publishing journey?

How hard it is. The editors are like collaborators. They do a lot of work, but most writers don’t give them enough credit. (I’ve also learned) how hard it is to sell books. I would encourage everyone to go outside and try to sell fifty things to strangers and see how difficult it is. People underestimate how difficult it is...so when you land on a (bestseller) list it can feel like a miracle.

How do you respond to finding out you made the New York Times Best Sellers List? How do you celebrate?

I don’t celebrate things that have to do with me. I celebrate other people. My National Book Award medal is in a desk. My awards are in boxes. When those things happen, it’s awesome. But there is so much work to be done. I don’t have time to bask in it...People who drink their own Kool-Aid have their career cut short. I can’t believe my own hype. It’s cool to have people say nice things about me. But I have work to do.

Your novel Long Way Down was optioned for film by Universal, with John Legend scheduled to produce it. How involved will you be in that?

I don’t know. I would like to be in the room. I’d like to consult. There are slippery parts of the book I would like to be sure they understand, but other than that, I am not a movie maker. I don’t have that weird thing authors have (when they say), “Don’t ruin my book.” No one can ruin my book because it already exists. What they are creating is a different product. Having that distance helps you enjoy the process.

What matters more to you as an author: winning awards or making best sellers list?

What matters most is creating a book that will withstand. I am here to make art, but if I had to pick between the two, I would pick the awards because awards last forever. Bestsellers are nice, but you may only be on there a week. You’re only as good as what comes out that week. If you make that list and the next week Stephen King or John Green come out it’s a wrap for you. You ain’t on there no more. I think Long Way Down was on (The New York Times Best Sellers List) for seven weeks...but it won the Walter Award, and that’s forever.

Final advice for aspiring writers?

Excellence is habit. The way you live your life is the way you approach your novels...If you work to be great at every part of your life, writing a novel will feel natural for you. Excellence can’t be turned off.

What’s up next for you?

I want to work on a contemporary adult novel. Sunny and For Everyone are available now and I will continue to work hard and put out more books. I want people to scratch their heads wondering how I can put out so many books at this level. I’m my own competition...I’ll keep trying to best myself and try to be of service to others.

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wildstormoralhistory · 7 years ago

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Director’s Cut Material #10- Ryan Odagawa

One of the young interns that Jim Lee brought in to hone his craft was artist, Ryan Odagawa. While in the Consumer Products division under Ted Adams, Ryan ended up working on countless trading cards and the Resident Evil comic magazine before launching the brand new series, Savant Garde which followed Zealot's sister, Savant and Mr. Majestic as they lead a team against the WIldC.A.T.S. villain, Tapestry. Although the series was short lived, Ryan was able to realize his dream and work alongside his idols at WildStorm. And he's still doing awesome work today! Some really fun pieces from more recent years are also included.

Ryan Odagawa (Artist): They had their first talent search around 1992. It was WildC.A.T.S. #2 and I was still in high school. I remember seeing the ad and I was heavily studying to draw since I was 13. That was like 1988. I was big into Jim Lee and all those guys, and X-Men. Once I saw that ad, I told my mom that I want to move down to San Diego. She was like; “You're still in high school. You've got to finish high school first.” [laughs] So, I was like alright. I graduated high school and then went to some community college and took some art classes. I was just totally focused on art and wanting to work for WildStorm. I just totally knew that I wanted to. I had shown some of my work a little bit, but then there was an ImageCon. I think it was the first time, and then after that, I don't think they had it. It was around when they had ComiCon. I just had some samples and I met Sarah Becker, who was the editor on Gen 13. I knew who everyone was, because I collected everything and was into the artists and everything. I talked to her and sort of showed her my stuff. A lot of the influences of J. Scott Campbell were kind of similar [to mine] so my style kind of leans towards him. I was into Art Adams also, and Jim Lee. So, my stuff would look just like his stuff and I think Sarah saw that. It's like, okay, here. So, I took a test and then that was the end of '94. The following year I got a letter from her and she’s like, you want to come in as an intern? "Sure, of course!" It all came together and then I moved down there when I was about 19. Yeah, I mean, I guess it was a dream come true. It all just kind of came together. It was almost surreal, but it's kind of like -- I've been thinking about it all through high school. Then all of a sudden, it's there. All of these artists are right there, and you're working side-by-side with them. It was pretty interesting I guess you could say. I came along with Richard Friend, J.J. Kirby, Jason Johnson and Mark Irwin. Suddenly being around different artists, there’s an energy around it. I don't know. It's weird because I had to turn down an office job beforehand. I literally never worked anywhere else, and I was only 19. Now you're around all of these people that are doing what you love to do also. I was just -- It was almost surreal. And it was fun, so you'd hang out late nights and play video games or something, and talk about the computer programs. Actually, that was kind of when Photoshop was starting to get going. I would pick the brains of all of the colorists and learn Photoshop here and there. I was really interested in learning all the aspects. I learned all of the aspects of comic book creation like inking, a little bit of lettering, or coloring. I wanted to figure out out how to do all of this because typically when I was younger, I wanted to make my own comic book. My dad was actually a graphic artist so he had a lot of some of the older, pre-computer-type of art tools. So, I learned all of that stuff. I just wanted to observe everything and learn how to do everything. Create the final product. I started the internship and started it on cards. I hadn't really done a lot of sequential artwork. A little bit here and there. I just kind of started doing cards, then slowly different pages for short stories here and there. So I did the internship for maybe I think a year or so. After that, I came on staff. Then I – I was big into Gen 13, but then I was kind of interested in Savant – the character Savant. I'd talk to the different people there about doing a Savant book. Nothing kind of came of it real fast, but then they'd ask me if I wanted to work on one of their books of a different title. I think they were coming out with a, I think, a dollar seventy-five line or something like that. One of them was a book that I couldn't really connect to. I asked what else do you have? The other one, they said, was a Savant book. I'm like, well, yeah. I've been saying that I want to do a Savant book so I end up doing the Savant book called Savant Guard. I was learning on the job, I guess you could say. Jim kind of helped me with layout on the first issue. After that, I was on my own, so I was trying to figure everything out. It was a learning experience. After that, I eventually learned how to be a little bit faster, do layouts myself and everything. Obviously [it was] a kid’s dream come true, but this is a once in a lifetime chance that there's something that actually kind of came in and isn't here anymore. That's even bigger, but you know, I'm still friends with a lot of them. It's lifetime friendships. I didn't really finish college, so it definitely was my college. It's kind of funny, because one of my good friends was going to college at UC San Diego at the time, so I got to hang out with his friends and live the dorm life of college while doing comics, and not having to take any classes [laughs]. Not having to pay for school. Basically it is just a once in a lifetime thing. I'm proud to have made it there.

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cooperjones2020 · 7 years ago

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Second City, chp. 4

Summary: Sometimes she worries she’s settling — for a smaller job, a smaller city, a smaller life than she’d promised herself — but that was before she found out Jughead Jones lives in Chicago. That was before she found out the final secret of Jason Blossom’s murder.

A/N: In my brain, they have three drinks over a period of 4-5 hours, so Jughead is fine to ride the mile or so from the bar to his house. I even calculated it and his peak BAC without food is .046.

A/N 2: This chapter is just a continuation of the previous scene because it got too long, so I reprinted the end of it if you don’t remember :)

ao3–>http://archiveofourown.org/works/11409360/chapters/25805820

Second City one / two / three

Nobodies Nobody Knows one / two (ao3)

In which Jughead Jones turns the tables

(Previously on Second City:

“Did your routine change? Anything in the physical process of how you wrote?”

“Definitely. Being an established author has conveyed a huge privilege on me. The Final Fissure was written in spare time at school or late nights at the diner. I’m still a nighttime writer. I still can’t write at home, I need people around me to observe. But writing gets to be the focus of my day now. I’ve also gotten better at letting other people see my writing. As a teenager, I was obsessive about making it perfect first.”

“Oh I remember.” They’re both facing ahead, so the recorder has a better angle, but she can see him smiling at her out of the corners of her eyes.

“But now, sometimes it’s just get it on the page and send it off, especially if I’m under a deadline. Still, though, I like some feedback if only to reaffirm my own conviction that I’m headed in the right direction. Actually, Archie looked at a few chapters of Sweetwater Subtext pretty early on.”

“Really? I can’t see him as a particularly dedicated editor.”

Jughead’s laugh is big, his head is thrown back and his shoulders shake. “No, definitely not. But it was more feedback on the content I was looking for, than the style. Whether I was crossing a line with anything.”

“Well, color me intrigued.”

“Good.”

She takes a risk. “I’m surprised Archie didn’t tell you I was moving here.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t exactly talk about you.” It hurts. She knows it shouldn’t. She knows it makes sense. But it does. Because it sounds like ‘I don’t think about you.’

“Right, obviously. That was stupid of me.” Way to ruin it, Betty. “On a related note, what do you owe to the real people upon whom you base your characters?”

“That’s a question I’ve been wrestling with. The best answer I’ve been able to come up with, insufficient as it is, is honesty.”)

She manages to recover, even somewhat gracefully. They speed through the rest of her questions. She barely has to look at her notes, except as an excuse to break eye contact when the butterflies get too intense. She realizes, wounded pride aside, that she’s actually having fun.

“Okay, let’s get back to Sweetwater Subtext for a second. As we’ve said, The Final Fissure had an obvious ending point with the reveal of the murderer. I know you can’t give me any spoilers, but what’s next for these characters? Will there be a third entry in this series?”

“Unclear.” She lifts her eyes to his and they seem to burn into her, like he’s trying to tell her something she’s afraid to translate.

“Oh. Um, okay. Any idea what does come next then?”

“Well, The Final Fissure is gonna be a TV show. We’re still working out if I’m going to be involved, though right now I’m leaning no.”

She pulls the hair tie off her wrist and moves to put her hair up, then lets it slide out of her hands when it’s shorter than she expects. She knows she has enough material, knows this is going to be good, but she doesn’t want to stop. She feels drunk off Jughead’s words, like she’s a teenager sneaking champagne at a cousin’s wedding.

He interrupts her while she’s still formulating her next question. “Would you mind if we took a break? I could use some food.”

“Oh of course, I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, I was just on a roll earlier and skipped dinner.”

“Jughead Jones voluntarily skipped a meal?”

“I wouldn’t call it voluntary. Sometimes the muse is actually a slave driver.”

It’s now closing in on 11, which means the dinner menu has been replaced by the late night menu, so they order baskets of a variety of fried things.

“I didn’t mean it like that earlier. It’s just, I don’t know, I think it would be kind of weird if me and Archie talked about you. That whole same-ex-girlfriend thing.”

Betty lets out a soft sigh. “Sometimes I even forget we dated. It was such a weird, hazy time in my life. I fought so hard for so long to be my own person, not Polly’s sister or Alice’s daughter. By the time senior year came around, I was tired of fighting everyone’s expectations. Veronica was back in New York, you were on the south side. We were the only two left, of the core four, and it just made sense, you know? So we went to the back to school dance together, and then homecoming, and then winter formal. And before you know it was prom and we’d been dating for eight months.”

“I always thought you two would get married and have the 2.5 kids and white picket fence thing. You know, even when we were dating, I think I thought that in the back of my mind.”

She rolls her eyes. “I know. It wasn’t in the back of your mind. I seem to recall a certain speech in a certain red-headed person’s garage at a certain other person’s birthday party.��

“God, I’m never going to live that one down. Once I managed to go an entire eleven months without thinking about it, and then the memory just crept back in. Here, Jughead, you think you’re making progress on your social skills, well remember this?”

Betty laughs. “Well that was never in the cards for me and Archie, and I didn’t want it to be. Dating him was just…comforting you know? Comfortable. And I could really use that then.”

“Do me a favor and promise me that you will never tell Archie that. You guys may be best friends and he may be ass over elbows for Veronica now, but no guy wants to know that sex with him was just comfortable.”

She holds up a pinkie and waits for Jughead to take it. “I promise.”

“I was surprised, when I walked into Mary’s and found you.”

“I had gathered that. Though you were probably no more surprised than I was.”

“What made you decide to move?”

Betty exhales, nervous about answering truthfully but wanting to nonetheless. “I was just so sick of New York, sick of my job. I was running on a cycle of adrenaline—benzodiazepines—caffeine—melatonin that was unsustainable. I got home from a stakeout one morning at 5 am and I realized I was doing important things for other people, breaking big stories, but as a result I missed out on doing important things for myself. I was making decisions I otherwise wouldn’t have made.

“Then I got a call from Cynthia—my editor—offering me the job here. It was a deus ex machina, just what I needed at just the right time dropped out of the sky. It felt like a good time to pull the rug out from under myself. To look for a new dream.”

She’d worked so hard to get to a place where could break those big stories, doing the investigative journalism she’d always wanted. But it wasn’t what she’d imagined it would be.

“And that’s okay, you know? I feel like the hardest part is telling other people, people who knew me then. Like I’m afraid they’re going to think I’ve compromised, but I’m happy. Dreams change. Well, at least for most of us,” she ends by nudging him with her elbow.

Jughead looks at her like he believes her, like he doesn’t pity her.

“I think you probably filled your quota of breaking big stories before you even left high school. I’m glad you realized you weren’t happy and did something about it.” He pauses and takes a big breath. “And I’m glad you’re here. Glad we could do this.”

She smiles at him, the corners of her lips curving down. “Me too.”

Time for a change of topic. “Polly said Jellybean works at Pop’s now.”

“Yeah, for about a year.”

“Does that mean you get free burgers?”

“No. Only half-price. But yeah, she mentioned last week that Polly and your mom come in sometimes with the twins.”

Betty can’t help the goofy grin that breaks out at the mention of her niece and nephew. “Yeah. Her and my mom have gotten a lot closer the past couple years. Since my dad died.”

“Oh, Betts, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. He’d been sick for a while. We…made our peace with it. With each other. But you know what’s sick? My mom’s been happier since. Like thirty fucking years and I’m pretty sure they were both miserable almost the whole time. How do you get to the point where it’s not even worth trying to go after happiness?”

“Sometimes you fall into a pattern that isn’t worth the effort it would take to break. Not everyone is as brave as you. I’m certainly not. And they had other things they were living for. Polly. You. I think that’s something I’ve learned since FP got out. My mom died, too, before— well, before. I think that’s that one thing that really fucked my dad up. That he didn’t get a chance to make it right with her. I’m sure it’s why he’s been a model citizen ever since.”

“No, Juggie. He was always so proud of you. I’m sure it’s for you. For what you’ve done for him, and for Jellybean.”

“Did Archie ever tell you about Thanksgiving our sophomore year of college?”

“No. That’s the first one he spent here, right?”

“Right. Mary and Mike had just moved in together, in the house they’re in now. I don’t think he was quite ready to see Mommy share a room with someone other than Daddy. Over the course of the morning, his face got redder and redder until it matched his hair. Then, when we were about to sit down for dinner, he flipped out and somehow wound up spraying mashed potatoes all over the table.”

“What! Oh no!” Years later and Betty feels the burgeoning heat of secondary embarrassment for her best friend.

“Yeah, it was great. Mary locked him outside.”

“I would have too.”

“And while all that was going down, I was upstairs, face timing with Jelly, who was still in Ohio then. I came down to Archie outside, Mary crying, and food everywhere.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, after we cleaned up the worst of it, Mike and I ate like nothing was wrong. Archie and Mary made up after a few hours. I never did get any mashed potatoes though.”

“Obviously the worst part. Oh god, the twins had been in their terrible threes that year. I spent the whole day going back and forth referring their screaming and then my parents’.”

“Mine’s worse.”

“It is. Which means I will get us the next round of drinks.”

“That is an offer you will never hear me turn down.” Her heart stops when he smiles at her, one dark curl dropping in front of his face.

She lifts her empty water glass up and twists it back and forth in her fingers, swishing the melting ice cubes around. He looks at her upturned palm for a beat too long, and she realizes he’s looking for her half-moon scars.

“I don’t do that anymore. I…haven’t since college.”

“Can I ask what made you stop?”

“I had to de-escalate. It didn’t work at first. I just switched to picking at my skin—my nails or acne or scabs. I still have pretty bad scars on my shoulders. But when I got to college, I was able to see a therapist who my mom couldn’t interrogate so that helped. She told me to hold an ice cube when I have the urge to do something destructive.” She doesn’t know why she’s telling him all of this, but for the simple fact that he seems to genuinely want to know.

“An ice cube?”

“Yeah, to cup it in the palm of my hand. Anyway, I’m a work in progress.” She’s been looking at her hand, but she switches to his face. “Wait. How did this turn into you interviewing me?”

“Well technically we’re still on our dinner break.”

“Okay, whatever.” She turns the recorder back on and asks him a few more perfunctory questions about release dates and promotional schedules. His answers are just as perfunctory, so his must be too.

“I should probably go home soon.” He just stares at her. When she begins to pack up the recorder and her notes, he snaps out of it and signals to the bartender to bring their check.

When it comes, he moves to take it but she swipes it before he can. “Nope.” She pops the p. “My interview, my expense report.”

Outside, he tries to convince her to let him take her home again, but she refuses. “I can expense the uber too and my house is way out of your way this time.”

He tries to argue with her, but she stands her ground. She believes him when he says he’s fine to ride but that doesn’t mean she wants him on the road any longer than he has to be.

He takes her phone out of her hand and minimizes the uber app. “Fine, then text me so I know you got home safe?”

She agrees and lets him hand her into the car when it comes. Then, as she turns to look at him out of the rear window, she realizes he’s given her his phone number.

When she gets home, she texts him: “home and locked in where the bad guys can’t get me.”

He responds with: “don’t forget to check under the bed. sleep tight, betts.”

She locks the deadbolt, then turns to lean against the door, her phone pressed to chest. Fuck. This isn’t good. She should feel awkward. She should feel the weight of delayed embarrassment at her reckless oversharing of her life. But she doesn’t.

Instead, she listens to the tape while she washes her face, flosses her teeth. She only gets through the first half an hour to forty-five minutes before she’s too tired to pay attention anymore, but she can already tell it’s good. It’ll be the best thing she’s ever written. The last thing she thinks before she falls asleep is that he’s always brought out the best in her.

#bughead fanfiction #riverdale fanfiction #bughead #betty cooper #jughead jones #riverdale #second city #mine

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tsgjacksonholewyoming · 6 years ago

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Meet Jill King: New Editor/Owner of The Scout Guide Jackson Hole

A southern girl raised near Louisville, Kentucky, Jill found her way to Boulder, Colorado, for college, and then went on to call New York City home for almost five years. Working at 51st Street and 5th Avenue for a real estate firm in their marketing department by day and performing and writing music at the folk clubs in the West Village at night, she loved the city and everything it offered.

While pursuing her dream to make a living performing, Jill accepted an offer for a full-time singing job from an aunt who ran the Wort Hotel in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Soon after arriving out west, she met her husband, Jason, a rancher and real estate developer. They started a family while Jill enjoyed a full-time singing career, recording CDs in both Nashville and Austin, and raised their three young ladies in both Chapel Hill, Texas, and Jackson, Wyoming, and now call Jackson Hole their home full-time.

After becoming a TSG member last year, Jill saw firsthand the extensive value TSG offered, and realized it would be a natural fit for her now full-time styling business, in which she styles for real estate photography shoots, interior design firms, and private clients. When she found out that the previous owner was ready for new challenges, she jumped at the opportunity to take over as Editor/Owner. Already versed in event planning, blogging, and social media for her own business, Jill is looking forward to supporting the unique members in her one-of-a-kind western ski town.

JILL’S THREE FAVORITE REASONS TO VISIT JACKSON HOLE:

Our National Parks full of western wildlife, hiking, and cycling.

Our adventurous black diamond skiing.

Our world-class town filled with gorgeous art, amazing hotels, and wonderful restaurants.

WORDS JILL LIVES BY:

“Be the person you want to hire: not duplicitous, but authentic in everything you do. And always give more, not worrying about receiving.”

Contact Jill to learn more about TSG Jackson Hole and her plans for supporting the small businesses, entrepreneurs, artisans, artists and tastemakers of Jackson Hole. Follow @TSGjacksonhole on Instagram.

#Jackson Wyoming #Jackson Hole #Jackson Hole Wyoming #Scout Guide #Scout Guide Jackson Wyoming #TSG Jackson Hole #Jill King

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uacboo · 8 years ago

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Tissue Alert😢This was written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal on Valentine's Day:

I have been trying to write this for a while, but the morphine and lack of juicy cheeseburgers (what has it been now, five weeks without real food?) have drained my energy and interfered with whatever prose prowess remains. Additionally, the intermittent micronaps that keep whisking me away midsentence are clearly not propelling my work forward as quickly as I would like. But they are, admittedly, a bit of trippy fun.

Still, I have to stick with it, because I’m facing a deadline, in this case, a pressing one. I need to say this (and say it right) while I have a) your attention, and b) a pulse.

I have been married to the most extraordinary man for 26 years. I was planning on at least another 26 together.

Want to hear a sick joke? A husband and wife walk into the emergency room in the late evening on Sept. 5, 2015. A few hours and tests later, the doctor clarifies that the unusual pain the wife is feeling on her right side isn’t the no-biggie appendicitis they suspected but rather ovarian cancer.

As the couple head home in the early morning of Sept. 6, somehow through the foggy shock of it all, they make the connection that today, the day they learned what had been festering, is also the day they would have officially kicked off their empty-nestering. The youngest of their three children had just left for college.

So many plans instantly went poof.

No trip with my husband and parents to South Africa. No reason, now, to apply for the Harvard Loeb Fellowship. No dream tour of Asia with my mother. No writers’ residencies at those wonderful schools in India, Vancouver, Jakarta.

No wonder the word cancer and cancel look so similar.

This is when we entered what I came to think of as Plan “Be,” existing only in the present. As for the future, allow me to introduce you to the gentleman of this article, Jason Brian Rosenthal.

He is an easy man to fall in love with. I did it in one day.

Let me explain: My father’s best friend since summer camp, “Uncle” John, had known Jason and me separately our whole lives, but Jason and I had never met. I went to college out east and took my first job in California. When I moved back home to Chicago, John — who thought Jason and I were perfect for each other — set us up on a blind date.

It was 1989. We were only 24. I had precisely zero expectations about this going anywhere. But when he knocked on the door of my little frame house, I thought, “Uh-oh, there is something highly likable about this person.”

By the end of dinner, I knew I wanted to marry him.

Jason? He knew a year later.

I have never been on Tinder, Bumble or eHarmony, but I’m going to create a general profile for Jason right here, based on my experience of coexisting in the same house with him for, like, 9,490 days.

First, the basics: He is 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, with salt-and-pepper hair and hazel eyes.

The following list of attributes is in no particular order because everything feels important to me in some way.

He is a sharp dresser. Our young adult sons, Justin and Miles, often borrow his clothes. Those who know him — or just happen to glance down at the gap between his dress slacks and dress shoes — know that he has a flair for fabulous socks. He is fit and enjoys keeping in shape.

If our home could speak, it would add that Jason is uncannily handy. On the subject of food — man, can he cook. After a long day, there is no sweeter joy than seeing him walk in the door, plop a grocery bag down on the counter, and woo me with olives and some yummy cheese he has procured before he gets to work on the evening’s meal.

Jason loves listening to live music; it’s our favorite thing to do together. I should also add that our 19-year-old daughter, Paris, would rather go to a concert with him than anyone else.

When I was working on my first memoir, I kept circling sections my editor wanted me to expand upon. She would say, “I’d like to see more of this character.”

Of course, I would agree — he was indeed a captivating character. But it was funny because she could have just said: “Jason. Let’s add more about Jason.”

He is an absolutely wonderful father. Ask anyone. See that guy on the corner? Go ahead and ask him; he’ll tell you. Jason is compassionate — and he can flip a pancake.

Jason paints. I love his artwork. I would call him an artist except for the law degree that keeps him at his downtown office most days from 9 to 5. Or at least it did before I got sick.

If you’re looking for a dreamy, let’s-go-for-it travel companion, Jason is your man. He also has an affinity for tiny things: taster spoons, little jars, a mini-sculpture of a couple sitting on a bench, which he presented to me as a reminder of how our family began.

Here is the kind of man Jason is: He showed up at our first pregnancy ultrasound with flowers. This is a man who, because he is always up early, surprises me every Sunday morning by making some kind of oddball smiley face out of items near the coffeepot: a spoon, a mug, a banana.

This is a man who emerges from the minimart or gas station and says, “Give me your palm.” And, voilà, a colorful gumball appears. (He knows I love all the flavors but white.)

My guess is you know enough about him now. So let’s swipe right.

Wait. Did I mention that he is incredibly handsome? I’m going to miss looking at that face of his.

If he sounds like a prince and our relationship seems like a fairy tale, it’s not too far off, except for all of the regular stuff that comes from two and a half decades of playing house together. And the part about me getting cancer. Blech.

In my most recent memoir (written entirely before my diagnosis), I invited readers to send in suggestions for matching tattoos, the idea being that author and reader would be bonded by ink.

I was totally serious about this and encouraged submitters to be serious as well. Hundreds poured in. A few weeks after publication in August, I heard from a 62-year-old librarian in Milwaukee named Paulette.

She suggested the word “more.” This was based on an essay in the book where I mention that “more” was my first spoken word (true). And now it may very well be my last (time shall tell).

In September, Paulette drove down to meet me at a Chicago tattoo parlor. She got hers (her very first) on her left wrist. I got mine on the underside of my left forearm, in my daughter’s handwriting. This was my second tattoo; the first is a small, lowercase “j” that has been on my ankle for 25 years. You can probably guess what it stands for. Jason has one too, but with more letters: “AKR.”

I want more time with Jason. I want more time with my children. I want more time sipping martinis at the Green Mill Jazz Club on Thursday nights. But that is not going to happen. I probably have only a few days left being a person on this planet. So why I am doing this?

I am wrapping this up on Valentine’s Day, and the most genuine, non-vase-oriented gift I can hope for is that the right person reads this, finds Jason, and another love story begins.

I’ll leave this intentional empty space below as a way of giving you two the fresh start you deserve.

With all my love, Amy

*Amy Krouse Rosenthal passed away today. You can read her obituary here: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/style/amy-krouse-rosenthal-dies-modern-love.html?

Source: The NY Times We just bought this book for our school library because we have a Kindergartner who only wants books about unicorns. But the first person who checked it out is one of my favorite little 2nd grade boys. The other students were making fun of him and he pushed out his lip and said he "likes girl books". Needless to say, I did a bit of reprimanding to those students and praised him for his selection. May Amy RIP and condolences to her husband and children.

#amy krouse rosenthal #uni the unicorn #children's author #ovariancancer #cancer sucks

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tmbacorbett · 6 years ago

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Author Interview: Love or Fame by Zoe Conner

Title: Love or Fame

Author: Zoe Conner

Genre: Sweet Romance

Cover Designer: Designed by Kris Norris

Publication Date: June 18th, 2018

Hosted by: Lady Amber’s PR

Blurb: They met in Paris…

A chance reunion—then he was gone.

Sweet Sabrina loves her quiet island life creating art.

She fell hard for a Hollywood actor.

Was their whirlwind relationship real or a fantasy?

Jason comes back with his entourage…including an ex.

Sabrina is the woman of his dreams but he’s not sure she can handle his celebrity.

1. A common misconception entwined with authors is that they are socially inept, how true is that? Authors work alone a lot. Honestly, it means we need social interaction more because we don’t get it. A lot of authors may be introverts but they just need quiet time to recharge. No, authors aren’t socially inept, in fact when I attend conferences authors are usually longing for social time with readers and other authors. 2. Do all authors have to be grammar Nazis? No! Plenty of authors are flexible about it. Some sentences work, even if they are technically fragments. This is why hiring an editor is so important (if self-pubbing)…having someone to check the grammar and make sure any rules broken work… 3. If you could have been the original author of any book, what would it have been and why? Jane Austen’s Persuasion….I just love how you can have a story where people are doing what they think is best and there is still conflict and problems. It’s very much like life can happen. 4. What makes this particular genre you are involved in so special? There are a lot of dysfunctional families portrayed in the media. I love the idea of writing close families that look out for each other. They’re not perfect but they are trying! 5. How important is research to you when writing a book? Thanks to the Internet, research is not as hard as it could be. It’s important to get facts and details right. Social media also helps, you can ask people who live in a certain location to answer various questions or even beta read. 6. What works best for you: Typewriters, fountain pen, dictate, computer or longhand? Laptop 7. When did it dawn upon you that you wanted to be a writer? When I was young. I was always making up stories. 8. What inspires you to write? The characters talk to me…makes me crazy until the story is out. 9. How often do you write? I try to write daily, with exceptions for holidays, vacations, sick time, and then there are days when editing/promotion take priority. 10. Do you have a set schedule for writing, or are you one of those who write only when they feel inspired? I do my best to keep a schedule. If I could just write the rest took care of itself, it’d be so much easier. But it’s my job so sometimes you have to face the blank page and find the inspiration for that day.

Obsessed with Jane Austen and Downton Abbey, Zoe writes modern day stories of intense love with strong yet complicated characters. She loves being near the water and island living is a dream. Her writing is supervised by demanding feline critics. A small-town recluse, Zoe travels rarely for family visits but explores the world through her stories.

Author Links:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2CGOAbY

Website: www.zoeconner.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorzoeconner

Twitter: https://twitter.com/authorzoeconner

Buy Link:

Love or Land: http://amzn.to/2CHnUaP

Love or Fame: https://amzn.to/2rHyP0S

source https://www.tmbacorbett.com/2018/06/author-interview-love-or-fame-by-zoe.html

#booklove books read tmbacorbett

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michaelfallcon · 6 years ago

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Elle Jensen: The Sprudge Twenty Interview

Photo by Tony Adams.

Our coverage of the Sprudge Twenty interviews presented by Pacific Barista Series continues this week on Sprudge. Read more about the Sprudge Twenty and see all of our interviews here.

Nominated by Kat Melheim

Elle Jensen is an entrepreneur, community organizer, and coffee professional based in Denver, Colorado. In 2015 Jensen opened Amethyst Coffee on Denver’s Capitol Hill; in 2018 the brand’s second location opened in the Berkeley neighborhood. In 2015 she launched the Cherry Roast, a landmark “platform and coffee competition to support and provide visibility for womxn/trans/GNC/gender queer coffee professionals.”

In her nominating essay, Coffee People Zine creator Kat Melheim writes “[Jensen] creates a welcoming and inclusive space for guests and baristas alike. She is an amazing, transparent, and honest business owner with the interests of the community at heart.”

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

I’ll give you the answer that strikes a chord with me most in this moment, but I don’t think as business owners we get to choose an issue that we care about “most” because we are in a privileged position that demands we care about all issues at the right time. Currently, most of my brain space is taken up with ways to increase cafe transparencies to make hospitality work more sustainable for people who want to make it their career, but behind that is a multifaceted web of decisions that inevitably require that I also care about every aspect of our industry. I suppose I could distill it down into I care about making coffee a sustainable career for everyone along the value chain, with a focus specifically on front of house staff. I don’t imagine I’m known for giving simple answers…

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

The social awareness that I believe serving coffee requires. I think coffee is a beautiful conduit for human interaction, in so many different ways, and I think we have a responsibility as folks who live in consuming countries, and have chosen to serve coffee professionally, to challenge the social norms that are so harmful to so many.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

Again, I think there are many issues on a large scale that are critically overlooked, but being that I am, and always have been, a front of house worker, I think that there is a total lack of efficiency in coffee shops that make them much more stressful to work in and run. I always say that managers are like goalies, the ball has to get by everybody else first, but no one is mad until the goalie lets the shot in/drops the ball. This is not a sustainable infrastructure to promote people into. We set them up for failure; we reward people in the wrong ways for their hard work and dedication to our companies. There is a lack of re-addressing our existing cafe infrastructure that is holding us back and making us unsustainable.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

It’s a tropical fruit, borrowed from D.

Did you experience a “god shot” or life-changing moment of coffee revelation early in your career?

Well, god-shots don’t exist, but, yes, I did have a defining coffee moment. It was in the basement office of Pavement Coffee on Boylston Street in Boston. There were maybe eight of us at this cupping and probably no more than six bowls. I had a Kenyan coffee, roasted by Counter Culture, that tasted just like carrot juice. It was the first coffee I didn’t relate to a memory or personal experience and actually was able to relay a flavor call. I was at the cupping table, fortunately, with some really supportive people and it is a truly cherished sensory memory.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

Living in a world where the whole coffee supply/value chain is at peace and not just living but thriving.

If you could have any job in the coffee industry, what would it be and why?

My job. It’s an incredible job.

Who are your coffee heroes?

Breezy Sanchez, my business partner. She is a living freaking legend.

If you could drink coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

My dad, #ddc. I have a lot of questions.

If you didn’t get bit by the coffee bug, what do you think you’d be doing instead?

Coffee is my career, and I’m privileged that I got to make that choice. Coffee took over my life at some point, and I’m just now sorting out my identity outside of it, therefore this question is hard for me. I don’t think I need to be “doing something instead” but rather “also doing other things”. However, if you end up with access to another dimension and happen to also run into alternate dimension Elle, please introduce us. I’d love to meet her and see what she’s up to.

Do you have any coffee mentors?

If we’re talking about the traditional mentor/mentee relationship, no I do not. However, I have dear, dear friends whom I bounce ideas off of, cry to, call when I don’t know what to do about an employee situation, look up to as people outside of coffee, and who I whole-heartedly depend on as a human. I recently had a conversation with one such person and he brought up the idea of community and dependency. This man is an integral part of my life, and my business greatly depends on him. He pondered if because we are so dependent upon one another, are we more invested in each other’s lives? The answer is yes. At first that sounds strange, because it sounds like our care for one another is contingent upon our working relationship. However, it really means that in a world where everything feels temporary and “community” is a word that is tossed around like an Aerobie frisbee, coffee has afforded us the space for actual connection and a relationship that is real, happy, and beautifully human.

What do you wish someone would’ve told you when you were first starting out in coffee?

No one has the right to treat you like you are lesser than them. Also never underestimate a floor drain’s propensity for nastiness and clean that shit regularly.

Name three coffee apparatuses you’d take into space with you.

Look, I’m really not sure about the whole space thing. I’m much more interested in the bottom of the ocean, and if I’m journeying to either of those places I’m a multi-billionaire or a scientist (spoiler: I am neither of those things), because these hypothetical questions aren’t really my imaginative style. Anywhere I go I will always choose to take my people with me over any apparatus. This means I really need some buddies for the zombie apocalypse because I will have a lot of people and ZERO apparati with me. So we’ll all die if I’m in charge.

Best song to brew coffee to:

Go! by Santigold and Karen O.

Look into the crystal ball—where do you see yourself in 20 years?

This is not a question I regularly ask myself because I find it stressful and rather useless (I’m not a dreamer in this way, life comes at ya fast), but I have thought about it for the purpose of this questionnaire and here it is…

I have puppies. My husband, Stuart, and I grow our own food and have a sweet little homestead with some friends. Breezy Sanchez, my business partner, and I maintain our YouTube channel which went viral and has over 2.3 million followers. Amethyst has grown to a company run by an incredible group of passionate, courageous, smart, funny, mostly gender/sexuality fluid folks who are having the time of their lives. I have more time to be involved in social activism and political issues. Stuart and I visit Breezy and her wife at their adorable bed and breakfast in New Mexico often. I might be running for office. Stuart and I are planning to open our breakfast restaurant in which I get to live out my dreams of being a salty, feminist diner waitress.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

Seeded rye toast from a bakery called Dry Storage in Boulder, CO who mills all of their own grains! What!

When did you last drink coffee?

*sip*

What was it?

Girma Eshetu, a washed Ethiopian roasted by Jason Farrar of Commonwealth Coffee.

Thank you.

The Sprudge Twenty is presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2019 Sprudge Twenty honorees please visit sprudge.com/twenty

Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge.

The post Elle Jensen: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

Elle Jensen: The Sprudge Twenty Interview published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee

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shebreathesslowly · 6 years ago

Text

Elle Jensen: The Sprudge Twenty Interview

Photo by Tony Adams.

Our coverage of the Sprudge Twenty interviews presented by Pacific Barista Series continues this week on Sprudge. Read more about the Sprudge Twenty and see all of our interviews here.

Nominated by Kat Melheim

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

It’s a tropical fruit, borrowed from D.

Did you experience a “god shot” or life-changing moment of coffee revelation early in your career?

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

Living in a world where the whole coffee supply/value chain is at peace and not just living but thriving.

If you could have any job in the coffee industry, what would it be and why?

My job. It’s an incredible job.

Who are your coffee heroes?

Breezy Sanchez, my business partner. She is a living freaking legend.

If you could drink coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

My dad, #ddc. I have a lot of questions.

If you didn’t get bit by the coffee bug, what do you think you’d be doing instead?

Do you have any coffee mentors?

What do you wish someone would’ve told you when you were first starting out in coffee?

No one has the right to treat you like you are lesser than them. Also never underestimate a floor drain’s propensity for nastiness and clean that shit regularly.

Name three coffee apparatuses you’d take into space with you.

Best song to brew coffee to:

Go! by Santigold and Karen O.

Look into the crystal ball—where do you see yourself in 20 years?

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

Seeded rye toast from a bakery called Dry Storage in Boulder, CO who mills all of their own grains! What!

When did you last drink coffee?

*sip*

What was it?

Girma Eshetu, a washed Ethiopian roasted by Jason Farrar of Commonwealth Coffee.

Thank you.

The Sprudge Twenty is presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2019 Sprudge Twenty honorees please visit sprudge.com/twenty

Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge.

The post Elle Jensen: The Sprudge Twenty Interview appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge http://bit.ly/2HyWslr

#Sprudge

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lindyhunt · 6 years ago

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Lab Diamonds VS “Real” Diamonds: We Break Down the Ethics, Cost and Environmental Impact

In our Winter issue, FASHION editors rounded up the 100 people, products and experiences we think will blow up in 2019. It’s our inaugural Hot 100 Fuse List. From the workouts you’ll be doing, to the new designers and artists you’ll see on your feed, this is your guide to being in the know this year. With the FTC’s new stance on lab diamonds and the debate around the ethics and environmental ramifications of mined diamonds, we predict consumer interest in—and access to—lab diamonds will be bigger than ever in 2019.

View this post on Instagram

We’re here to make buying a diamond clear, easy and free of stress. #createdbyspence #spencediamonds #diamonds #diamondjewelry #bling

A post shared by Spence Diamonds (@shopspence) on Feb 5, 2019 at 10:48am PST

75: Lab Diamonds

Rue Saint-Honoré, in Paris, is the stuff of retail dreams. It’s not unusual to see a lineup snaking outside the Balenciaga boutique, a stone’s throw from Goyard’s flagship, while a Porsche idles in front of the Mandarin Oriental hotel. It’s also where Swarovski hosted a fall preview during Paris Fashion Week earlier this year. Tucked in the back of the showroom is a smaller room devoted to Atelier Swarovski. This is home to high-end pieces such as designer collaborations with Mary Katrantzou and Jason Wu. It’s also where you’ll find the brand’s Red Carpet collection, which features lab-created diamonds.

“Not even trained jewellers know the difference,” says one publicist of the lab- versus mined-stone debate. Nadja Swarovski, a member of Swarovski’s executive board, might be part of a crystal empire built on the idea of “a diamond for everyone,” but even she once described lab diamonds as a “conscious luxury” for people who “want to know where their products come from.” A few months later, Swarovski announced that its lab-diamond brand, Diama, would be integrated under Atelier Swarovski, with pieces starting at $595 U.S.

Lab Diamonds VS “Real” Diamonds: Pro: Jewellers cannot tell them apart. Con: They’re not billions of years old.

Mined diamonds, the ones we’ve learned to love in part because of De Beers’s post-Depression-era marketing campaigns, were formed over 150 kilometres below the earth’s surface, in the mantle. There, high pressure and temperatures turned carbon atoms into diamonds over the course of a billion years or more. A laboratory setting can recreate conditions present deep within the earth and complete the process in as little as 400 hours.

It’s space age, and a little freaky, to think that the world’s most “romantic” stone can come from a lab, but it’s not entirely new. Lab diamonds used primarily for industrial purposes have been around since the 1950s, but clean, gem-quality diamonds made an appearance in 2006, not long after the film Blood Diamond, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which exposed the sinister side of high-priced gems and how mining in war zones can help finance warlords with illicit diamond sales. DiCaprio is also a backer of the California-based Diamond Foundry, one of the industry’s biggest lab-diamond producers.

View this post on Instagram

Buying a diamond shouldn’t be like buying a diamond. At Spence, you can reach into any display and try on as many styles as you like! . . . . . #SpenceDiamonds #CreatedbySpence #Spence #Diamonds #EngagementRings #DiamondExperience #JewelryAddict #RingSelfie #PutARingOnIt #Bling

A post shared by Spence Diamonds (@shopspence) on Jan 24, 2019 at 10:33am PST

At the Mississauga, Ont., showroom for Canadian retailer Spence Diamonds, display cases of engagement rings are divided into style categories like Modern, Solitaire, Vintage and Halo. The cases are open, so you can just reach in and try an item on. (All the engagement rings in the showroom contain placeholder glass.) Flip a ring over and you’ll see a tag with two prices: one for “mined” and another for “ACD,” or “artisan created diamond,” which is Spence-speak for lab diamond.

Innocently enough, I ask Spence CEO Eric Lindberg if lab diamonds are as good as mined. “‘Good’ is an arbitrary word,” says Lindberg. “I would say this: A lab diamond, from an atomic standpoint, is identical to a mined diamond in the structure of that stone. From a physical chemical property standpoint, it’s exactly the same as a mined diamond. Jewellers cannot tell them apart.”

“From a physical chemical property standpoint, it’s exactly the same as a mined diamond. Jewellers cannot tell them apart.”

And the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would agree. In July 2018, the FTC amended its jewellery guidelines to allow lab diamonds to be marketed as “cultured,” the way pearls are. The term “natural” is out because, as the FTC wrote, it’s “now possible to create products that have essentially the same optical, physical and chemical properties as mined diamonds.”

In the showroom, I admire a ring with a simple princess-cut diamond that would cost $8,550 for a mined stone and $6,600 for an ACD. The store’s director of sales shows me two diamonds: one mined, one lab. To my untrained eye, the only difference between them is that the mined diamond has a minor, yet charming, flaw.

“Ethically, if you have concerns about buying a diamond, a created diamond comes from a laboratory facility that is shipping that diamond directly to us; it’s trackable,” says Lindberg. “Tearing a big mine in the ground and then shipping diamonds around the world—that is not an environmentally-friendly practice.” Spence also donates a portion of its ACD sales to the global non-profit Not for Sale, which helps victims of human trafficking.

“Tearing a big mine in the ground and then shipping diamonds around the world—that is not an environmentally-friendly practice.”

There’s also the matter of pricing: Lab-created diamonds at Spence are 25 to 50 per cent larger than similarly priced mined ones. Which is how De Beers, the world’s largest diamond distributor, pulled the jewellery equivalent of a mic drop when it unveiled Lightbox, a subsidiary now selling lab-diamond jewellery online. Lightbox pieces are priced lower than those of competitors (a quarter-carat stone starts at $200 U.S.) and advertised in a way that recalls long walks on the beach, frosted doughnuts and pink Champagne.

It’s worth noting that De Beers was part of the 2015 “Real Is Rare” worldwide campaign by the Diamond Producers Association that targeted millennials and took aim at lab diamonds. David Johnson, head of strategic communications at De Beers, says that Lightbox is a response to exhaustive consumer research. “They [consumers] don’t see [lab diamonds] as having enduring value,” says Johnson. “They’re not unique or billions of years old; they’re not from nature. You could just produce more and more of them. So consumers didn’t feel they should be valued as highly.”

View this post on Instagram

This ring! It’s the trickiest and longest job I’ve ever taken on. Audrey and Bertie were adamant they wanted lab-made diamonds, and they loved a previous trilogy ring that we’d made. However, who knew 🤷🏻‍♀️ it’s so difficult to acquire lab-made diamonds in matching pear shapes! I literally scoured the world. I had suppliers in India, USA, Russia, China, Japan and Australia of course, hunting for these pears. After three months, I finally found one pair in the USA. The relief. This ring drove me ‘round the twist, but the outcome is worth it. Undeniably beautiful, ethical and made with love. I’m so happy Audrey and Bertrand never gave up on me 💕

A post shared by Bert Jewellery (@bertjewellery) on Dec 16, 2018 at 11:01pm PST

Value. What we value is a conundrum I remember well from my own engagement. My then-fiancé knew not to propose with a ring; I had to be involved because I was far too sophisticated to be bedazzled by a diamond. In the end, I proved to be more conventional than I thought—yes, there’s a diamond in my wedding band. But my next diamond will probably be lab-made because—what with a mortgage, kids and educations to finance now—it’s not as important to me as it once was.

It’s a similar story for Spence shopper Michael DoBush of Edmonton. He purchased a white-gold infinity band with a 3.10-carat round brilliant-cut diamond and 13 quarter-carat diamonds to replace his wife’s ring after it was stolen in a break-in. “Sounds like a sad story, but it was our fifth wedding anniversary,” says DoBush. “The end result was a larger ring for less money without sacrificing quality, and the ethical aspect was important.”

“There are consumers under a certain age who have grown up thinking that technology solves everything and this is yet another example of ‘Well, of course technology solved this problem.’”

That sliding-value scale is what will either help or continue to hurt the lab-diamond marketplace. But people like Lindberg are optimistic. “There are consumers under a certain age who have grown up thinking that technology solves everything and this is yet another example of ‘Well, of course technology solved this problem,’” he says. “Technology now allows us to have a diamond that’s equally beautiful, and it’s bigger, and I know it comes from an ethical source. That makes all the sense in the world.”

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jessicakehoe · 6 years ago

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Lab Diamonds VS “Real” Diamonds: We Break Down the Ethics, Cost and Environmental Impact

View this post on Instagram

We’re here to make buying a diamond clear, easy and free of stress. #createdbyspence #spencediamonds #diamonds #diamondjewelry #bling

A post shared by Spence Diamonds (@shopspence) on Feb 5, 2019 at 10:48am PST

75: Lab Diamonds

Lab Diamonds VS “Real” Diamonds: Pro: Jewellers cannot tell them apart. Con: They’re not billions of years old.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Spence Diamonds (@shopspence) on Jan 24, 2019 at 10:33am PST

“From a physical chemical property standpoint, it’s exactly the same as a mined diamond. Jewellers cannot tell them apart.”

“Tearing a big mine in the ground and then shipping diamonds around the world—that is not an environmentally-friendly practice.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bert Jewellery (@bertjewellery) on Dec 16, 2018 at 11:01pm PST

“There are consumers under a certain age who have grown up thinking that technology solves everything and this is yet another example of ‘Well, of course technology solved this problem.’”

The post Lab Diamonds VS “Real” Diamonds: We Break Down the Ethics, Cost and Environmental Impact appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Lab Diamonds VS “Real” Diamonds: We Break Down the Ethics, Cost and Environmental Impact published first on https://borboletabags.tumblr.com/

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seanpatricklittlewriter · 6 years ago

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Updates and Reviews

It’s been a while since I’ve written a major post, so I figured it was time to remedy that. Things are still progressing on the novel front. As soon as Paige finishes the cover to All We Have, that will go to press. I’ve completed edits on the two TeslaCon novels I’ve prepared for this fall, so hopefully I’ll be able to get on the same page with Eric about those covers, and we’ll make something happen.

I’m a little nervous about releasing any of these books, because I always get that way. In Henry Rollins’ most recent special, “Keep Talking, Pal,” he tells a story about opening for Ozzy Osbourne. Over 19,000 people came to see Ozzy play, and before the show, after Rollins Band played their opening set for Ozzy’s band, Henry sees Ozzy huddled in a corner, hands on his knees. When Henry checks on Ozzy, the Blizzard of Oz, in his distinct Birmingham accent, says, “Is there anybody out there, man? I always get nervous that no one will show up.” That says something about the self-doubt that fills all artists. If Ozzy is worried that people aren’t coming to see him, then none of us have any hope.

I think it’s even tougher for writers, though. Unless you’re one of the big names, there are no direct lines to tell how you’re doing. You can upload your books and hope for the best. Once a month, or once a quarter you can check your sales stats, but those are meaningless. You can get a few reviews. However, for the most part, you’re just shouting into a void.

I know that Geoffrey Owens (The Cosby Show actor who played the guy who married the oldest daughter) got somewhat shamed by some yokel taking his picture as he worked a second job at Trader Joe’s. He still acts on stage. He still teaches acting classes. But, he needs to make ends meet, and so he works another job. It’s a stark reminder that those lucky few who are able to make a living from their art, and solely from their art, are the exceptions, not the rule. Even most traditionally published writers have to have second jobs, or even third jobs. Most writers have to work to finance their writing habit, and so it is with me, as well. Despite AFTER EVERYONE DIED selling more than 20,000 copies over two years, I don’t think my entire catalog of sales over more than twelve years of publishing has added up to what I make in a year in my day job. It is what it is, though. I write because I must. No other reason. It’s my dream that someday I can make a living solely from hanging out at Culver’s and jamming out stories, but that’s lottery odds. It just doesn’t happen for most of us. And that’s okay.

It’s so hard to sell any books, even the big names, and it’s even tougher for niche books (like post-apocalyptic survival stories, or steampunk adventure novels). Most of those books exist only as ebooks, and most of them sell only a few thousand copies, at best. That’s just the way it is. Nothing any of us do can change it.

Which brings me to my reviews for this post—I just finished reading THE FAT LADY’S LOW, SAD SONG by Brian Kaufman. This book is a perfect example of how traditional publishing misses great books. This book, an indie title self-published through an aggregate house called Black Rose Writing, is easily the best book I’ve read this year.

Parker Westfall is a career minor-leaguer. He’s never made The Show. For more than a decade, he’s been grinding out a career playing baseball in podunk towns for podunk teams, and those playing days are coming to a close. He’s given one last chance for a season in the sun playing first base for the Fort Collins Miners, an independent baseball team. If there’s one step below the minor leagues, it’s independent baseball. With no other options, Westfall signs on. When he gets there, the team owner asks Westfall for a special favor—mentor a young pitcher who throws a helluva knuckeball.

Oh, yeah—that pitcher is a woman.

The signing of Courtney Morgan could be just a publicity stunt, and the book could have turned into a trite, damsel-in-distress novel, but it doesn’t. Parker and Morgan don’t fall in love. Parker isn’t the white knight who teaches her the game, but rather a coach who helps her find her own way to play.

The book is a sweet paean to baseball, the unsung heroes who never get to be on baseball cards or interviewed on ESPN, and the tiny towns that keep the spirit of real baseball alive. As a baseball fan, and as a fan of good writing, this book falls into place at the top of my reading list (so far) for 2018. It’s one of those books that probably should have gotten more looks from agents or publishers. It’s one of those books that should get more readers than it’s ever going to get.

But, like the minor leaguers this story encompasses, sometimes what you get in the end is just good enough. I loved this book. I can’t recommend it enough.

I haven’t read too many other books, lately. I’ve started a bunch, but for various reasons have not plowed through to the end. I’m getting curmudgeonly in my old age. I’m not willing to invest time in something that isn’t knocking my socks off, maybe. Or maybe it’s because I realize how limited my time is lately, so I can only indulge in books that are really moving me at that moment.

I’ve also found that a lot of books are victims of headspace—how am I feeling when I read them? I’ve started some books in the past that I just wasn’t feeling at that moment, but later on, I’ve gone back to find that I loved them. That’s how I’m feeling at the moment.

As far as movies and TV goes, however: I just saw ALPHA today. It was very good. Not as good as I hoped it would be, given the trailer, but still a solid flick. It’s a survival story set 20,000 years ago, and tells a hypothetical tale of how the first wolf might have been domesticated. While the story is beautifully shot and well-acted, I think it missed some real chances to swing for the fences emotionally and a better director and editor would have really been able to bring a larger emotional scale to the film. It’s still worth checking out, though.

I saw THE MEG last weekend, because my kid likes any movie with giant animals eating people. THE MEG is everything the trailer promised. It’s a Megalodon shark eating people and fighting Jason Statham. That’s what the trailer promised. That’s what the film delivered. If you go to this film hoping it will be some great think-piece, you’ll be disappointed. However, if you go to have some mindless fun, you’ll be happy. It’s not great. It’s not bad, either. It’s exactly the movie you think it will be.

On Netflix, I’ve been binge-watching PERSON OF INTEREST lately. I never watched it when it was first broadcast, but I’ve found that I greatly enjoy this. It’s a solid series.

I’ve also gotten through the first five episodes of Amazon Prime’s new JACK RYAN series. I’ve always loved the Jack Ryan character (even though I’m not a fan of Tom Clancy’s writing style), and I’m a fan of John Krasinski, so this series works very well. The first five episodes have been quite good, and I’m looking forward to finishing it.

Musically, I’ve been digging Brett Newski’s new album “Life Upside Down,” and the new album from Lords of the Trident, “Shadows from the Past.” Both are Wisconsin-based acts, and both are really solid. Brett’s more the indie-folk-geek genre (think, dude with an acoustic guitar and a silly sense of humor), and Lords are doing what I consider to be 80’s-style metal—big, loud, over-the-top, and silly in the best possible way. The lead singer, Fang Von Wrathenstein, has a great set of pipes. Much like how indie books get overlooked by the masses, both of these indie music acts should be much bigger than they currently are. Get in on the ground floor and listen to them on Spotify, or be a mensch and purchase their records. Every little bit helps.

That’s probably enough rambling for now. As always, please tell friends about books you enjoy. Write reviews. Share links. Encourage others to support the artists who are grinding it out.

Stay tuned for further updates on the release of ALL WE HAVE. In a perfect world, it would have been out by the end of September. It’s looking like early-to-mid-October will be more likely.

Thanks for reading.

--Sean

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