Rand and Erin album update (Seanan McGuire Indiegogo perk!)

As you may know, Rand and I are working on an album together. I’ve already shared our Indiegogo link once, but I wanted to take a moment to highlight a really special fundraising perk.

In 2013, we were invited to be the Filk Waifs (Toastmasters) at FilKONtario and our dear friend Seanan McGuire agreed to write our bio for the program book.

Of course, if you know Seanan at all, you’ve already guessed that what she supplied was no ordinary bio: she wrote an original short story, casting the two of us as characters. That story has only appeared in the program book, until now!

Campaign pledges of $30 or more get you a digital copy of that bio/story! And that’s not all the Seanan you’ll find on this project!

One of the tracks is a parody of Seanan’s song “Dear Gina,” with lyrics by me and Merav Hoffman. The song imagines that October Daye has gained sentience outside book world, realizes that Seanan is the one doing all of these horrible things to her, and threatens revenge. 😀 (You can see the lyrics, and an early performance of this song, here.

(Additionally, Seanan is going to supply us with some vocal tracks!)

I hope you’ll click the link and find out more about our project!

OVFF concert set

Rand and I had a truly fantastic weekend at OVFF. Among the highlights for us was our 4-song concert set on Sunday afternoon, during which we got to debut 3 new songs that will appear on our upcoming album! (Here’s our Indiegogo page, if you are so inclined!)

The four songs we played were:

I’m a much more confident performer than I was four years ago at FKO, and I owe it all to this wonderful, supportive, nurturing community. Thank you for making me believe I could do this!

I’m so proud of the songs Rand and I have written for this album. They are all the results of truly collaborative efforts–I don’t (yet) write any music, just lyrics, so the music/melodies are all Rand (except “Do As Peggy Says,” which was a collaboration with Adam!). With only a couple of exceptions, all the original lyrics on our upcoming album were written by the two of us together, with the actual process varying from song to song.

And I can’t end this post without mentioning the amazingly talented Amy McNally and Brenda Sutton, who helped make “Nasty” everything we dreamed it could be. <3

We also got to spend some time hanging out with the whole Vixy & Tony band to talk about some tracks on the album they’re going to assist us on. (squee!)

I’m probably not going to get around to a full con report, but it was an amazing weekend filled with friends and music and laughter, and I’ve got a bit of the back-to-work blues today. (And as usual, there was too much to do and I did not get around to a whole bunch of things I had planned on doing, so my apologies to anyone I neglected!)

As always, many thanks to the ConCom for all you do!

Inside the burst bubble

In November 2011, after the whole Penn State scandal blew up, I wrote a little essay on my blog titled “We are…heartbroken.” Shortly after that, I was contacted by a professor at PSU who was interested in putting together a book and wanted to know if my essay could be included. I said yes, and waited.

There were some ups and downs in the process, but the final decision was to fund the project using indiegogo, with all proceeds beyond the cost of the book itself to be donated to RAINN. Here’s the link to the project page, where you can read more of the details:

Notes from Inside a Burst Bubble: Penn Staters on the Penn State Scandal

I am proud to be a part of this project. If you are so inclined, please help me spread the word.