isleburroughs

I won the second picture prompt contest at Gypsy Shadow Publishing here:

http://www.gypsyshadow.com/

( Read more below the cut... )

~Ruthie~

http://www.grantvillegazette.com/articles/Introduction_to_the_Universe_Annex

Open for submissions through Baen's slush.

Writers Digest
Dear Lucky Agent Contest


http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/Dear+Lucky+Agent+Contest+Fantasy+And+SciFi.aspx

I was looking up music for my Elf novel and I found New Wave Folk Metal, aka Pagan Metal, and one of my favorite instruments, the hurdy gurdy! I'm in seventh heaven.

I'm going to start with this band. Some of their "lyrics are in Gaulish". Check out Eluveitie.

http://www.eluveitie.ch/

While doing research I also found the Ragnarok Pagan Metal Festival for 2010:

http://www.ragnaroek-festival.com/index.php?article_id=5&clang=1

I'd like to announce that my fabulous feghoot, Zombie Bouillabaisse, has found a home at Macabre Cadaver Magazine:

http://www.macabrecadaver.com/features/fiction/flash/2010/03/zombie-bouillabaisse-ruth-j-burroughs.html


Woo Hoo! *dances*

And if enough readers like it, it may find a home in one the anthologies! :D

I was tagged by safewrite and I bit. Meme optional. I'm tagging five others but you don't have to retag:D

Here are mine:

1) When I was three and learning how to read I had an imaginary friend I called Mr. Bubbleman because he was made out of bubbles.

2) When I was learning the names of things my favorite color from the crayon box was red but I thought it should have a prettier name and was very upset that pink had a better name than red, now formally renamed rufescent or rufescence.




3) I have a high brown belt in TaeKwonDo and can break wood with my hands. Fist and knife hand. I have some awards from that. Me and the father unit used to watch all those dubbed Kung Fu movies. Never thought I'd actually try it in real life.

4) I played tenor and soprano recorder for the Early Music Consortium for Miami-Dade Community College south campus for two years. I can sight read.

5) I could ride a 3 speed bicycle when I was still in kindergarten.

6) I wrote a dinosaur/teen story when I was in 7th grade.

7) I'm obsessed with dinosaurs, dogs, potato chips and prehistorical things. Not always in that order.

8) Before Stubby died from cancer I was walking three large dogs simultaneously, which makes me eccentric.

9) When it was Sunday, clean the house day, I'd hide in the basement and sleep. if I couldn't go there I'd hide under a bed. When I was sure all the cleaning was done I'd come out and my mom would ask why I had dust caterpillars on my head. That was pretty much all the cleaning I ever did.

10) My friends and I, who were on the high school newspaper, made a two page science fiction magazine called The Wallpaper. We had one run.





I would have nominated Marshall, but he did it so well and irreverently already.

Here are the five people I nominate to post ten unusual things about yourself.

melissajm
alaneer

authoraubrie
seawasp

Car snowhawks

I'm posting a link to my flip video of Marc Garneau's inspirational speech.

I would have posted it sooner but couldn't figure out youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K8p6FusjsQ

I wasn't crying. I got sometin in my eye.



Lately I've been eating romaine salad with olive oil, shredded parmesian, and garlic stuffed green olives. It's really good.

My salad days never end. I will continue to be a fumbling greenhorn forever it seems.

July 4th 2004

Unconditional

by ruth j. burroughs

My little black Zap, Zaspirilla, Zasaphras, Zapula, Zapmeister, hunter, mustard, Troy , New York born mutt

Your mother was a fox hound-looking-thing who got around a lot, the local canine slut

From a litter of eight you came, at least four different fathers, probably strays with no good breeding

I thought you were the runt and you needed feeding and while you nibbled my pony tail I kept reading all those books on how to train your dog

Because you were so cute and sweet I never thought of you as mean and kept you neat and clean

Despite all those books I read on how to train your human, you never were very friendly to those outside your home

I saw the joy in your heart and face when I let you run in the fields, up the creek and down the gorge I let you roam

I miss your shiny black fur and the little flaps on your ears that your siblings chewed when you were the smallest

I remember the day you opened your eyes and the day you lost your first tooth and when you grew to be the tallest

I walked you in the only cemetery in Troy amidst, heron, fox, geese, ducks, rabbits and centuries old trees

You made me go, go, go, go, go---in the hottest day of summer, in the wettest day of spring, in the grayest day of fall, even in the winter’s deepest freeze

You hunted and played in the most haunted cemetery in the United States and chased the river rats around their boxes of pizza and bottles of beer

Like Athena’s virgin warriors you two would tackle each other as we came down the hill from the Brigadier General’s pinnacle and then one day you knocked me flat on my butt in the snow





Then you realized I wasn’t the alpha you thought but just some big human push-over and you high-fived Quepette because you knew you had it made

You peed on the floor and I wouldn’t spank you or yell at you when you looked up at me with those big brown eyes

I wanted to watch TV or read and you wanted to hunt and run forever all day so our daily walk and play and safety run was our happy compromise

I never thought your devotion to me a figment of my imagination, nor mine to you, because we both proved that to each other in the end, you never told me any lies

I remember when your voice changed and you scared the heck out of yourself with the deepest bark for a dog of such average size

You came to like your bark and use it whenever you thought wise

Which was of course often; whenever someone came to the door, walked past the house or if you saw a dog or cat

I liked it when you and Q sat in the bay window howling at the fire truck

I didn’t like it when you wanted to kill the baby raccoon and bark at everyone in sight but I was glad that you protected me and Quepette every day and every night

I didn’t know anything was wrong with you until that awful day when you took ill

I thought it was the cheese pizza and you were a little bound up

So I told you every day that you were going to get better and you tried to tell me you weren’t feeling well

You got dizzy and you started to limp and we put you on that pill

But that awful disease made you seize and I couldn’t get you back from that hell

I brought you home like you asked but I cannot see you run and jump or hear your baritone bark

or laugh when you run from your bath but come running for your ice cream

or dig all the water out of your dish to get at your reflection

I miss you pulling on the leash and smashing me into the rocks at the bottom of the creek so you can rip that muskrat to pieces






I miss cleaning up your pee every week and wondering how I’m going to fix the stinky floor and cleaning up your feces

What about the kennel I was supposed to build you and the little pond or pool

Yes, I know you’ve got me hypnotized and I am the biggest fool

I miss how you growled at Quepette and usurped the bed, and curled up in the crook of my knees

I can’t believe you're gone, I can’t believe you won’t tip-toe up the stairs, I can’t believe you're dead

Killed by some incurable brain disease I cannot understand

I felt like someone punched me in the jaw and beat the crap out of me after I carried your body home

You were my unconditional little pain-in-the-neck who made my books and house a wreck

But I told you my Aegis puppy, my little Zap born on November 2nd 1998, that you were the most beautiful dog in the world

and then you left on June 28th 2004 your life complete your spirit unfurled

I believe Kathleen A Maher bought my niece's Anticipation membership and if she didn't get the link to vote for the Aussiecon4 68th World Science Fiction Con. email for nominating ballot for 2010 Hugo Awards and John W. Campbell Award I'd like to forward it to her.

If anyone knows her let me know. I googled her and I don't believe she is Kathleen L. Maher. Different person.

I know it's a shot in the dark but... can't think of any other way to find her.