Travel

Australia has updated its travel advisory for India following recent severe weather conditions in Uttarakhand.

North Adams, MA -- Bluegrass Music is rich in tradition, including a storied history of flat-picking contests, fiddlers' conventions, and other participatory events that bring together musicians in spirited competition. The FreshGrass Award, new to this year's FreshGrass Festival at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts, seeks to add new octane to the competition circuit, with $10,000 in cash prizes, a Compass Records recording session in Nashville, mentoring with veteran musicians, and a performance spot at next year's FreshGrass festival. FreshGrass rewards fresh takes on bluegrass with cash, recording session & mentoring. Returning FreshGrass performer Alison Brown fondly recalls that for many in her generation, it was often the contest circuit that fueled their work. Contests encourage new songs, more travel, and the honing of skills. She says, "Back when I was learning to play, the contest scene was a great way to hone your skills and get experience playing under pressure, and the contest circuit created a great community," continues Brown. "While there are still a handful of active contests around the country, there just aren't as many as there were 20 years ago. So I think the FreshGrass folks are really on to something in revitalizing this important vehicle for young players to polish their craft. I'm delighted and proud to be a part of it." FreshGrass will focus on songwriting in its inaugural competition. "Excellent chops and good knowledge of bluegrass traditions will be among the criteria for our award," says FreshGrass producer Chris Wadsworth. "But our main emphasis will be on original approaches to songwriting - new slants in composition, musical arrangements, and lyrics that we hope become a distinguishing feature of this contest." Bands apply for the award by posting a performance video of a traditional and an original composition. Details can be found at www.FreshGrass.com. Six finalists, selected by a jury comprised of Alison Brown and two other national musicians, will be invited to perform live, before the jury, during this year's FreshGrass festival. Finalists must appear in person to be eligible for awards. The centerpiece grand prize for the FreshGrass Award is $5,000, plus a recording session with Compass Records in Nashville, with mentoring by Alison Brown. The winner of the 2013 Freshgrass Award will also be invited to perform on stage during FreshGrass 2014. The runner- up will receive a cash prize of $2,000. All non-award-winning semifinalists will receive a $250 honorarium. Submissions for the contest are being accepted through August 1; six finalists will be announced on August 15. "The folks at FreshGrass recognize that some of the most vibrant and culturally important new music being made right now is happening around the fringes of bluegrass, and they're supporting it in a big way. The FreshGrass band contest is a great example - honoring the tradition as well as the spirit of innovation - with cash prizes big enough to make any picker sit up and take notice," continues Alison Brown. FreshGrass is a wonderland of bluegrass and roots music, rich in both traditional and cutting-edge bluegrass, and presented in a wide array of venues tucked appropriately into a 19th-century-factory-turned-21st-century-museum in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. FreshGrass is also one of the best values in the festival world. Early-bird festival passes are available for $68 for adults and $58 for students. After the early-bird tickets have sold out, general admission pricing will be $78 for adults, $68 for students, $38 for kids 6-16, and free for children 5 and under. Museum members receive a 10% discount on the regular prices, but membership discounts do not apply on the early-bird prices. Day passes will be available closer to the event. Tickets are available through freshgrass.com and massmoca.org or by call

I'm excited today to have author Deborah Valentine stop by the blog to talk to us a little bit about love and her new historical time travel fantasy, The Knightmare. Welcome to Supernatural Snark Deborah!LOVE BY MANY NAMES“The name of wife may seem more sacred or more binding, but sweeter for me will always be the word mistress, or, if you will permit me, that of concubine...”Now there’s the way to decline a marriage proposal! Incredibly, this is a quote from the 12th century from the brilliant scholar and eventual Abbess of the Paraclete Convent, Heloise. Could 20th century bra-burners have done it more eloquently – or elegantly? Heloise was a master (or rather, mistress) of words. Her affair with her tutor, the great philosopher Peter Abelard, was the stuff of legend, though it was indeed a true story. How far ahead of her time was this charmingly independent Heloise? Or perhaps it isn’t that she was ahead of her time, but that across millenniums many women have thought as she did and some are just better advertised.So why do I bring this up? Because, as a writer, we all have read stories that have touched us, inspired us, made us look at the world differently and have served as a jumping off point for our own imaginations. For me, Abelard and Heloise is one such story, lurking round the corners of my mind for many years. I read their collected letters as a teenager and they stuck with me becoming an – I hate to use to the word ‘obsessive’ – let’s just say an intense and much loved area of research. Finally, it became a pivotal point for my book, The Knightmare.As the saying goes, it is love that makes the world go round; and love is nothing if it doesn’t encounter an obstacle or two, or more. And what is great about writing is that you don’t have to be literal, one story breeds another. The Knightmare came about because I imagined what might have happened to their son, because they did indeed have one who has disappeared from history. What would he be like? What choices would he make in life when his parents’ love affair had such tragic consequences? For they were tragic. To cut a convoluted story short, Heloise’s guardian had Abelard hideously mutilated and he became an abbot while Heloise was forced into a convent (where she excelled, by the way, as a brilliant administrator).And so a character was born, my Knight Templar, trying to avoid love, a medieval workaholic falling headlong into his own series of unfortunate decisions while trying desperately not to repeat what he saw as his parents’ mistakes. Many of us have done the same, ergo no matter how fantastical the story what the writer hits on is a universal truth about the way human beings behave. The idea of using a genuine historical figure and naming them as such – putting words in a real person’s mouth or purporting to know what they thought as if I’d witnessed events personally – gives me the heebie-jeebies.I’ve changed many things – the names, played with the time frame, juggled things round, lied as writers do. I’m sure the real son of Abelard and Heloise didn’t become a Knight Templar, fall in love with a ‘witch’ (although I do hope he found someone equally unsuitable), participate in sword fights or the Albigensian Crusade, or assisted an alchemist in pagan rituals, or has been reincarnated as an career-focused Formula One driver. But I still hope I’ve done the lad justice and given him an adventure, even if it is fiction. In its own way, it is a homage to real people I admire greatly. As I said before, this is a great joy of writing, you don’t have to be literal. In fact, it’s better if you’re not.As a postscript to Abelard and Heloise, after ten years of separation they started working together as abbot and abbess. A different kind of relationship, a different kind of love. Perhaps not so tragic after all, just not the conventional happy ending. Perhaps even, one day, a whole other story.• • • • • • • • • • DEBORAH VALENTINEDeborah Valentine is a British au

I just finished my last and it finally hit me that I am leaving Australia in 4 days and I haven39t started packing so hasn39t fully hit me but once I start packing it39s gonna hit me and I39m not sure how I39ll react. Will post about The Great Barrier Reef later

I made it I am finally in Boston Today it took me 12 hours to go from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania to Boston Massachusetts. I drove 4 through states today Pennsylvania New York Connecticut and Massachusetts

I am loving being here. It felt like coming home... only better.I arrived I Guatemala City and collect the boxes of donated materials from baggage and sailed through customs in 10 minutes with only one box opened and a welcome to Guatemala. Rolling the boxes outside I was met by two women from UPAVIM who treated me like a princess. They took me by the bank to get my money changed and stopped to g

The flight to Brisbane was full but we were away on time. They have a really easy and speedy automated check in at the Sydney Domestic terminal. We flew up the east coast in glorious clear skies with the surf breaking on the beaches almost uninterrupted all the way to Brisbane. However we had to circle for 12 an hour due to air traffic issues. Temperatures in the low 2039s on arrival and loc

Today I drove to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. It took me 10 hours to get here and it was 650 miles. I drove through 6 states today Missouri Illinois Indiana Ohio West Virginia and Pennsylvania. These states are smaller then the other ones I drove through that39s why I drove through so many today.Tomorrow night I will be in Boston I39m very excited driving so much is tiring

They've announced that Questions of Travel (by Michelle de Kretser) has won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, probably the leading Australian literary award, and worth A$60,000. Questions of Travel is not under review at the complete review, but you can get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

Cyclist’s guide to travel via @neomammalian