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Brilliant!
september/october
2006
So
sorry about the lack of a newsletter last month. As mentioned in the
August newsletter, Barbara and I planned to take a much needed break
in September and spend a couple of weeks recuperating on the coast of
northern New South Wales. Well we did, and it was great, thanks for
asking - even if
the unexpected inclement weather was a little restrictive on the proposed
beach activities. In fact, the tides were so big that every
oceanfront property along our long stretch of beach had their beach access
literally washed away!
Upon
our return to the office in mid September, we were faced with some
critical operational deadlines that had to be met in order to achieve our
goal of establishing Bright Light Multimedia as a US corporation, plus several
other ongoing projects that required our focus, plus attending a weekend-long personal
development seminar and, suddenly, September was gone,
so we decided to hold the newsletter over until October.
So,
welcome
to the October and, very importantly, second anniversary edition of "Brilliant!" What a
great milestone! We want to sincerely thank all our subscribers, customers
and contributors for your support and patronage over the past year.
Since we first began the monthly newsletter, shortly after launching our
websites in 2004, both Bright Light
Multimedia and The Bright Light Café have grown dramatically.
Bright
Light Multimedia continues to add to its ever-increasing product suite that offers a range
of entertaining, positive and life-affirming audio CDs, printed
books,
e-Books
and digital audio
downloads. Hot on the heels of the August releases
of the visionary novel, "Letters to Michael" and the digital
download version of the liberating guided visualisations of "The Second
Trigger", we are pleased to announce the addition of the CD version of
"The Second Trigger" to our product line.
When we first
opened the online doors of our free entertainment website, The
Bright Light Café, one of our main aims was to provide new and
emerging talent with a
global stage upon which they could present their most positive and
uplifting creations. Since then, we have received over 425 submissions
from writers and artists all over the world and currently, we showcase over sixty talented contributors who
delight the Bright Light audience with a wonderful range of entertaining,
sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant short stories, poems, articles,
anecdotes,
music, art and photography. At present, The Café offers a menu of
over
450 pages of positive and uplifting entertainment and information
including:
-
37 fascinating
anecdotes, such as how a throng of
angels
convinced the creator of the Far Side comics to take up cartooning, or
the one about Julie
Andrews and a helicopter, or how the term "stealing
my thunder" came into being;
-
39
entertaining, informative and empowering articles,
ranging in length from 167 words to 3,435 words, covering topics such as
breathing
deeply, gender
roles, and having a positive
mindset;
-
19
winners
and highly commended entries from three highly successful writing
competitions, which attracted hundreds of entries from all over the
world;
-
121
poems that are humorous,
loving, and
uplifting;
-
17
pages of wonderful quotes on topics such as
friendship, success, and true love;
-
53
humorous, loving and uplifting short stories
that are also sorted by length, to help you find a story that suits
your available reading time;
-
58
pages of multimedia artworks, including wonderful original still art
and photography from our Bright Light contributors, stunning artwork
from our web affiliates, and some fun animated puzzles and games;
-
140
streaming audio
performances presented by professional voice artists, as well as
some of the contributing authors themselves;
-
13
streaming audio musical
performances;
-
185
rounds of "Applause"
from our online audience to our contributors.
Some
very special talent
At
this point, I would like to personally thank my beautiful wife (of 28
years this month!), business partner, and amazing creative talent, Barbara
Llewellyn, for her consistent and extraordinary insight, wisdom and
sheer breadth of talent. Barbara is the creative force behind
everything we produce at Bright Light Multimedia and I am constantly
inspired by her desire to help make the world a happier place through the
power of positive words and deeds. Thankyou my love, you're the
best.
And
I would also like to acknowledge our four Featured Talent contributors, Denise
Marshall, Shanu
Goyal, Stephen
Pray and Dan
Akinlolu. These four talented people have been a part of the
Bright Light creative family since The Café's early days and we have been
so thrilled to witness the growth in their work over the past 2
years. A Featured Talent is a contributor who has 8 or more creative
items showcased at the Café. When a contributor reaches that level,
they receive their own special pages that include an expanded biography, an
interview, some photos and a complete listing of their showcased
items. We're pleased to say that there are several other
contributors who are very close to achieving this status and we look
forward to receiving more submissions from them as they move toward this
goal.
The
Bright Light Philosophy
Our
business and life philosophy is essentially founded on the positive and
mutually empowering practices of love, truth, honour, respect, compassion,
peace on earth, goodwill to all, and a big dose of happiness.
Always
keeping this philosophy in mind, Bright Light Multimedia is dedicated to
crafting products and services that lift spirits, inspire lives, heal
hearts, promote health, deepen relationships, create understanding,
entertain, validate worth, and grow awareness.
The
major criteria for submissions to The Bright Light Café is a positive
perspective. All submissions must be ultimately heart-warming,
although that doesn't mean sugar coated and unrealistic. Our focus
of entertainment is on the uplifting and empowering. We want people
to feel good, and happily entertained, every time they visit us.
All
submissions are reviewed to ensure they are well written and they broadly
match our philosophy, and as such, not every submission is accepted.
We have received many interesting and well written pieces that we felt
were outside our criteria, and therefore decided to pass on them. We
know there are other outlets for our contributors to place those pieces,
and we always wish them well in their alternative endeavours.
New
Horizons for Bright Light
As
I mentioned earlier, Bright Light Multimedia has just been established as
a Limited Liability Company (LLC) in the US. Initially, we have
setup a remote office in Indianapolis, but plan to relocate to a more
permanent location in Delaware in the next month or so. This enables us
to do business directly with US entities such as online retailers, Amazon
and Barnes and Noble, so we will soon be selling Bright Light product
through these channels.
Looking
for Love (poems and stories)
The other piece of news is that we are
progressing our plans to create our first CD and download release
featuring audio performances of a selection of pieces from The Bright
Light Café. Once we have the legal issues in place, we will be
contacting specific contributors about including their work on this CD,
which is tentatively titled - "Speaking of Love". It will
contain positive, uplifting and humorous poems and short stories about
love, in all its many shapes and sizes. We are still looking for
more pieces to consider for the project, so if you have some material you
think would be perfect for the CD, we'd love to hear from you. You
can get it to us via the usual Bright Light submission
process.
We're
celebrating - and you get the presents!
To
celebrate our second anniversary, we are giving "Brilliant!"
subscribers a brilliant gift. You may choose any one digital
download from our current product range, and we'll send you the .mp3
or .pdf file by email, with our compliments! Yes, you can choose
from one of our seven audio downloads:
Or,
one of our e-book downloads:
To
receive you choice of download, simply send an email to brilliantgift@brightlightmultimedia.com
and tell us which product you'd like, and we will email you the .mp3 or
.pdf file in
24-48 hrs. It's our way of saying thank you for supporting the
Bright Light websites and we hope you thoroughly enjoy your anniversary
present.
Now,
here are the new editions to the menu at The Bright
Light Café this month. For your entertainment and enjoyment, we have:
To
introduce these items and their creators, I'm handing over to my wonderful
partner, and the Creative Director of Bright Light Multimedia, Barbara Llewellyn.
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The
Second Trigger
If
you've ever felt someone's words or actions make you instantly
angry, upset or frightened, you have experienced your emotional
triggers being switched on.
Do
you want other people to keep
"pushing your buttons"?
Or do you want to
take back the power that is rightfully
yours?
When
you want to be in control of your own life, it's time for The
Second Trigger and the Master Switch that will override
all your negative responses.
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Articles
Remember
your 10th birthday? Didn’t it feel wonderful to suddenly be
in the double-digit club, finally old enough to wear two numbers to your
name? Remember when you
turned 20 and the mixed feelings you had about leaving your teens behind
to enter the awesome world of adulthood and growing responsibility.
The thirtieth birthday is a big event too – careers and
families, when you're old enough to know about life and young enough to still feel a bit wild. It seems that
all birthdays ending in zero are anything but a big zero.
They move us into new decades and new life experiences whether
we’re ready or not. Allie
Ochs, relationship expert and Bright Lighter from Canada,
feels that the 40th birthday is downright magical.
She shares her reasons why in this uplifting read.
The
Magic of Turning 40 (578 words)
The countdown begins and soon you will no longer belong to the 30-something group. While some may dread crossing 40 threshold, others may greet the event with anticipation and excitement. Regardless of how you feel, you will probably do what everyone does at this juncture: take stock of your life. What have you done with your life? Are you the person you intended to be and are you living the life you want?
Read more
...
Norma
Jean Kawak, originally from a close-knit English community and now living
in the sunny land of Oz, shared a personal tragedy and opened our hearts
and eyes to the horrors of asbestos in her article “The Deadly
Powder”.
She now opens a window into her childhood and reveals the man who
was an unrecognised protector of youngsters in the “First Five Rows”.
First
Five Rows (911 words)
As
children we don’t always perceive the evil intentions of some, seemingly friendly, adults towards us. But it’s equally true that we don’t always recognize genuine concern for our welfare, especially when it’s bestowed upon us by an authoritarian adult.
We can all remember at least one: Perhaps it was a teacher who insisted on sunhats when they were out the fashion. Or maybe it was an angry driver who sprang from his car to enlighten you about the dangers of playing in the road.
There was one such person in my life many years ago in England. “Grumpy old George” we kids called him. I first became acquainted with old George at the children’s Saturday afternoon matinee at the cinema just a couple of blocks from where I lived. I was nine.
Read more
...
Interviews
To
become a Featured Talent at The Bright Light Café, you need to have at
least eight items showcased throughout our site.
We know it’s not an easy achievement but it’s a very worthwhile
goal. Only four writers have,
so far, achieved this status. We
felt sure you would be as fascinated as we are to find out more about
these special people, so we have introduced an interview section in their
pages. Dan Akinlolu of Africa, and Stephen Pray of America have started the ball rolling, giving
us an intimate understanding of their reading preferences and introducing
us to their personal lives. It’s
amazing to delve into other cultures and talented personalities.
Here’s a little taste.
Stephen
Pray: “I am a very voracious reader and collector.
I have over 4000 books in my collection.
I would be hard pressed to pick just one favourite, but probably
the Tolkien series Lord of the Rings.”
Dan
Akinlolu: “I was born in Ibadan, Nigeria. I actually
grew up in a large African family where we value communal relationship. I
have one “Mum” but many “Mothers” what I mean is that because I
grew up in a large family, lessons about life and what I wish to be in
life came to me from multiple points of view and I think that really gave
me an edge not to see life from one angle.”
Interesting
Links
We
are endeavouring to build a library of fascinating, useful, positive and
uplifting links from around the world.
If you’re interested in Good
News, Writing
Competitions, or Writing Organisations we now
have a collection of web addresses we hope you will find very useful and
absorbing.
Poetry
Bright
Lighter, Carl
Palmer, from the USA has already revealed his cheeky sense of
humour in the poem, “A
Dog Named xxx” and short story “Im
Falschen Fenster". Now
he opens up his heart with two haunting and deeply touching poems.
Thank you, Carl.
Her
New Room
The house was small
where she raised her five children,
but not as small as her new room.
She lived in her house fifty-two years,
but only for a couple of months now
in her new room.
Read
more ...
Her
Candle
I’ve got so many candles that I’ve never
burned,
a marriage candle,
a first communion candle from one of the kids,
a bicentennial candle,
a millennium candle.
So many candles that I’ve never burned.
Read
more ...
Featured
Talent, Stephen
Pray, also from the USA, is well known and loved by us all
(don’t forget to read our new interview with Steve) and he comes up
trumps again with “Autumn with Yulya”, continuing to delight our
senses with his romantic and very visual poetry.
Autumn
for Yulya
Before prickly hoarfrost paints patterns
on window panes and duck ponds -
I hear, on those ice cold little waters,
the hubbub of geese gossiping
about their flight south.
Read
more ...
Only
one item away from becoming a Bright Light Café Featured Talent is Rachelle
Arlin Credo, from the Philippines.
Her latest poem, “A Heaven of Sand and Stones”, will strike a
chord in the minds of many readers. Perhaps
all of us are looking for our own little piece of heaven on earth – a
place that’s safe and calming, where the troubles of the world cannot
find a foothold and peace reigns supreme.
A
Heaven of Sand and Stones
Build me a heaven of sand and stones
A castle out of sprays of sand
Where I may rest at the close of the day
For refuge from a whole day's run
Read More
...
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"Letters
to Michael"
Have
you ever wondered
what happens after you die?
Join Kate and Michael Morrison and find out now in this
insightful, inspiring and gently humorous adventure story of life, death, and what happens
"over there".
Prepare
to laugh and cry and feel good all over as you come face to face with
the power of love and
profound and timeless spiritual truths.
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IT NOW
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As
always we send you our warmest thoughts and our brightest wishes.
“May the saddest day of your future be no worse than the
happiest day of your past and may our hands and hearts be forever joined
in friendship.”
With
our warmest regards,
Barbara
Llewellyn & Rod Kirkham
Publishers
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have received this email because you opted in to our frëe newsletter when
you completed a form on our website or you are a creative contributor to
The Bright Light Café or Bright Light Multimedia.
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