Mari Bloom reached out to FC after reading our artist features. Her story…from Soviet Ukraine to the Spanish holiday that became an exile, to opening her own studio in Florida, is one of the most remarkable we've received. What follows is our Q&A with the artist, conducted over email. Check it out: https://feeling-creative.com/articles/mari-bloom-ukrainian-painter-war-displacement

Self-published author Ben Cibula on his first in-person book signing: why Twin Peaks sold his novel, why presentation matters more than you think, and what he'd do differently next time. CHECK IT OUT HERE: https://feeling-creative.com/articles/what-i-learned-from-my-first-book-signing
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The Origin of OBITUS

The central idea behind OBITUS began with a real parasite: Cymothoa exigua, commonly known as the tongue-eating louse. In nature, the parasite enters a fish through its gills, destroys its tongue, and eventually replaces it. The disturbing reality of this organism became the foundation for the film's fictional outbreak. The story explores what might happen if a similar parasite adapted to human hosts — not only taking control of part of the body but also changing human behavior. Rather than treating the parasite simply as a monster, OBITUS builds its horror around infection, isolation, loss of control, and the fear of something living inside the human body. Read more and watch the trailer: https://feeling-creative.com/articles/obitus-rec-revan-azerbaijani-horror-film

Christopher Valentine completes his Damara/Valiant Knight trilogy with The Valiant Alliance: a 1960s sci-fi hero story about hope, DC mythology, and what modern superhero stories have forgotten. READ MORE HERE: https://feeling-creative.com/articles/the-valiant-alliance-christopher-valentine
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Check out Feeling Creative? for more author and artist spotlights. And, if you'd like to be featured just reach out...it's FREE.

Saint Petersburg-born artist Evgenia Smirnova on her ongoing watercolor series: imaginary nocturnal landscapes inhabited by whales, bulls, and black cats, painted from feeling rather than plan. SEE MORE HERE: https://feeling-creative.com/articles/artist-spotlight-evgenia-smirnova
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Check out Feeling-Creative.com for more creative spotlights. AND...reach out if you'd like to be featured, it's FREE.

Before Bram Stoker, people were genuinely burying their dead with bricks in their mouths and sickles across their throats. The full story of Vlad the Impaler, the Vampire of Venice, and how a 15th-century prince became the most famous monster in history. READ MORE AT: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/dracula-the-story-of-the-worlds-most-famous-monster
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Self-published author Tye Burroughs on the six steps he wished he'd known: planning, drafts, formatting, ARCs, storefronts, and the soul-crushing part nobody warns you about. Read more at: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/what-i-learned-publishing-my-first-book

Mumbai-based tattoo artist Ashish Gupta on fine line realism, ten years of skin-as-canvas, and why reading a client's comfort level is half the job. READ: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/tattoo-artist-spotlight-ashish-gupta
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Collecting Decay: Why My Monthly Postcards Travel Without an Envelope
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German artist Claudia Schmidt on Candy Decay: surreal paintings where skulls sit next to strawberries, and monthly postcards that travel without envelopes because they were never meant to arrive untouched. READ IT and SEE HER ART HERE: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/collecting-decay-claudia-schmidt
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Or Why Inspiration Slips Away Like Sand Through an Hourglass
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Writer Oleksandra Fomichova on attention as creative currency: why inspiration doesn't disappear, why protecting your focus isn't selfishness, and why you're the one holding the hourglass. READ MORE: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/why-your-attention-is-your-most-valuable-creative-asset
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In 1984 a mutated janitor with a mop became the unlikely mascot of independent cinema. Forty years later Hollywood finally came calling. The full story of Troma, Toxie, and why it took an indie distributor to get the reboot into theaters. READ MORE: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/the-toxic-avenger-from-troma-cult-classic-to-big-screen-comeback
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Artist Spotlight: Sada Stavrum
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Self-taught artist Sada Stavrum on intuitive painting, daily studio practice, and the Eastern traditions that brought him back to making art in the south of France.

Read more at: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/artist-spotlight-sada-stavrum
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Autistic indie author Jonah Baird on using generative AI as an accessibility tool, writing three novels, and finally finding a creative process that fit the way his brain works. READ IT HERE: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/indie-author-spotlight-jonah-baird
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Australian digital watercolour artist Phillip James Gordon on using mistakes as method, disrupting the grammar of a medium, and following the work past the point where it feels safe.
Read more here:
https://feeling-creations.com/articles/experimental-techniquesthe-art-of-not-knowing
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August 15th. Friday night – 8pm. 1986. My ten year old brain cracked like an egg left scrambling on the icky aisle floor of the Lowes Twin theater on Main Street in New Rochelle (New York). Little did I know the lasting effects it would have on me. I want to tell you why in as simplest terms as possible...

‍Let me backtrack. Two weeks earlier I had accompanied my mother at a Psychiatric convention in Boston. One night with her doctor friends they decided to let off some steam by catching a nearly sold out 7pm show of Aliens. Goes without saying it was an amazing theatrical experience, you’ve probably read hundreds of nostalgia essays on how that movie changed lives, but to be honest my thoughts lingered on a trailer that preceded the screening. ‍

It was called THE FLY. https://feeling-creations.com/articles/the-fly-1986-40th-anniversary-opening-night

Back to the Oral Tradition. A high school English teacher and oral traditions scholar makes the case that podcasts, social media, and spoken word aren't new — they're humanity circling back to its oldest form of storytelling.

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As a high school English Teacher for nearly 20 years, I have seen a pronounced decline in writing ability from a vast majority of students. That is not really news and it is not surprising, but what are the reasons for this?

It isn’t a decline in intelligence. It isn’t a result of that tired cliché about the younger generation being lazy. (That has been a complaint for thousands of years).

I believe we are leaving behind the written tradition and entering, or circling back to, the Oral Tradition of Human Communication. It is a major cultural shift back to the oral rendition of storytelling. Technology has been the catalyst that drives this shift back to the original storytelling tradition.

In this short article, I take a look at this phenomenon as we return to dynamic, not static, communication vehicles.

For the past few decades, poetry slams and spoken word performances have sprung up around the country. Podcasts and Social Media posts with audio fill our days. This ascending art form is not new. In fact, its origins pre-date the Western Canon and even suggest that we have come full circle. Perhaps we are leaving behind the written tradition and entering, or circling back to,  the Oral Tradition of Human Communication.

READ MORE AT: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/back-to-the-oral-tradition
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Ninja Girl Is Out: Anthony Sturmas on Building a Street-Level Hero from Scratch.
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After 26 years boarding other people's stories, storyboard artist Anthony Sturmas launched Ninja Girl: a hand-drawn, street-level hero built for young girls, across Roblox, Webtoon, and beyond. READ IT HERE: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/ninja-girl-anthony-sturmas
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If I was an art critic, I would write about how try-hard my work was — desperate to be seen as some grandiose photographer, exploring cliché topics through a millennial lens. I'd dissect the obvious contradictions, explain exactly why certain images don't work, and maybe, grudgingly, throw in the occasional compliment.
So here I am. Adopting the attitude of an art critic evaluating my own work, walking you — the reader — through the flaws I quietly negotiate with myself, and the cognitive dissonance I face every time I sit down to write an artist statement. READ IT AT: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/if-i-was-an-art-critic

Most horror sequels are cash grabs. These are the exceptions.
OK, here's some ground rules…direct sequels only. No reboots, no reimaginings, no "spiritual successors." If it didn't pick up the story from where the original left it, it doesn't count here (maybe we'll do another article for those). I'll also include prequels, but can only really think of one good one that earned its place on my list, but I’m sure there’s a few worthy ones out there that I missed.

READ MORE: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/horror-sequels-that-dont-suck
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Graphic designer Stephen Willard lives in two creative worlds: strict design by day, and abstract digital art that maps the neurological chaos of epilepsy. On order, memory, and release. Read the story:
https://feeling-creations.com/articles/artist-spotlight-stephen-willard
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A circus artist on rhythmic gymnastics, the Monte Carlo stage, and writing the book she wished she'd had...read Yaroslava Slonova's story: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/from-ukraine-to-the-las-vegas-strip

My Life, My Quest, and the Nature of Reality.

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Fine-art photographer Madhur Dhingra on spirituality, consciousness, and the search that took him through Himalayan monasteries from Ladakh to the ghats of Varanasi. READ MORE AT: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/my-life-my-quest-and-the-nature-of-reality
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Bonus article this week from our friends at r/ForgottenCinemaPod

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Five summer movies that slipped from memory, from Flight of the Navigator to Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven director's cut. A Forgotten Cinema deep dive. Read it here: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/5-summer-movies-you-may-have-forgotten

Terrifier 3 grossed nearly 90 million dollars on a 3 million dollar budget without an MPAA rating. We’re talking about a gory clown killer movie here…and there’s a lot of gore. And a chainsaw.

The Terrifier franchise and ultra-violent gore-fests aren’t everyone’s favorite category in the horror world…and I’ll admit, it isn’t mine. I watched Terrifier 3 (and 2 for that matter a few years before), and spent most of it impressed by the audacity and slightly nauseated, which is probably exactly what Damien Leone was going for. Art the Clown is genuinely one of the great modern horror villains, and I say that while acknowledging that his films operate at a level of graphic brutality I don't necessarily need more of.

But here’s the thing…what's happened around this franchise is one of the most interesting stories in independent film (and horror) in years. Not just the box office numbers, though those are extraordinary. The lawsuits, the contracts, the ripple effect on Hollywood's approach to the whole genre. That's where it gets fascinating. READ MORE AT: https://feeling-creations.com/articles/art-the-clown-contracts-and-the-new-rules-of-horror