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Ryan Wins 2nd Place in Writing Competition Ryan’s short story, Jean Claude Van Damsel in Distress, came 2nd place in Broken Pencil Magazine’s short story competition, Deathmatch. For three weeks, writers from North America and Europe battled in an online arena. Finally, after an exciting final match, Madeeha Hashmi, author of the short story Moulting, emerged as the Champion, followed by Ryan in 2nd place. Follow the link below to read the stories and comment threads. |
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Music
As a multi-instrumentalist and avid traveller, Ryan has collected and learned an arsenal of instruments including guitar, sitar, santoor, baliphone, kalimba, didgeridoo, djembe, darumbuka, bongos, flutes, and various percussive instruments. Currently, Ryan lives on Vancouver Island and performs under the name The Ten Finger Sound Assassin. The Ten Finger Sound Assassin layers exotic melodies, slide guitars, and infectious rhythms over thick bass and heavy beats, fusing sounds from around the world into a high-energy dance party. Sometimes live, sometimes electronic, usually both at the same time, his performances are dynamic and progressive, encompassing myriad genres while bridging the ancient with the modern. |
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Bottomless Dreams Bottomless Dreams is a fearlessly inventive story collection—a philosophical tapestry woven with imagination, wit, and guts. Each story presents a unique world, wildly different from the last. The stories range from the fantastic to the gritty, travelling through the past, present, and future. The writing is fierce yet playful, full of hooks and twists, and always riding the edge. The characters, flawed and human, navigate moments in their lives that alter them forever: an arctic explorer forced to choose between his life and the lives of his crewmates, a boy forced to confront a woman he believes is a witch, a brilliant street musician who grapples with addiction, a couple competing to conceive in an overpopulated future. The stories range in form from flash fiction to novella, and are set in backdrops that span not only the earth, but also the universe. This collection breaks rules, pushes limits, defies genres, spits in the face of social convention, peels away the limiting concepts that inundate our daily life, and dropkicks us down the path of liberation. It is a book that marks our time, but speaks beyond it. It is a book about love, imagination, and the power of the human spirit. ~ Finalist ~ Red City Review Book Awards, 2015 ~ Finalist ~ Eric Hoffer Award, 2016 |
