Wednesday, December 31, 2008

New Year Bragging


Clocks are ticking and hearts following their rhythm – we are in 2009 now. Let me wish everyone a very Happy New Year on behalf of World Audience Publishers. Was 2008 a special year for you? If so, what was especially special about it? Here is what I found in the year that just departed in the irretrievable train of time.

This year (and I mean 2008, of course) I took over as the chief editor of The Audience Review – a dream coming true, as I may put it tritely – and had some of the most remarkable interviews with scientists like Dr. Niall McLaren, Dr. Uner Tan, Dr. Robin Kelly, Dr. Rodger Murphree, and Dr. Rachel Herz. A number of other great conversations with novelists, poets, and writers of nonfiction filled my time with the greatest conceivable joy. My second poetry book Two Candles was published by Matt Ward’s My Lucky Guitar Press. All this journey in the writing life gave me enough reason to brag the way I am doing in these lines – a pleasure apart!

But that is certainly not all. In the form of a new online news channel Instablogs, where I am now the country editor for Pakistan, I started a part-time career as a citizen journalist. The supervising team of Instablogs comprises a group of very talented and well-educated people, mainly from Shimla (northern side of India), who are doing some really exciting work in a kind of interactive online journalism from all parts of the world. My experience of citizen journalism is rich and rewarding at this community; and it reminds me to tell you that anyone can be a part of our community. All you need is just register at the site (for free) and share your views with the world; and if you have a story to tell, you may find your voice in a video file watched by people from the entire world (made available at Youtube). Exciting, isn’t it?

For 2009, I have big big BIG plans. Victor Volkman’s Loving Healing Press is going to publish the first 12 issues of our newsletter Audience Buzz in book form. Also, World Audience is almost finished with editing my storybook The Blue Fairy and Other Stories, which is a collection of short stories on the theme ‘death’. So stay tuned! And that is only the beginning of the year. Hopefully(and I do mean it), I’ll finish my novel this year (now I mean 2009, of course) and start working on more ideas that inhabit the corners of my mind since antiquity!

With warm wishes in mild winter,

Ernest Dempsey

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