Unveiling: NEW Author Logo with Update!

First of all, congratulations to all of the 2026 Grads! You did an amazing job, and all the best to you and your future endeavors!

Unveiling: New Author Logo!

Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians. Canada turns 159 this year, meaning we’re about 91 years behind our American counterparts. Happy Fourth of July to our American pals, if you are celebrating this year that is.

Anyway…

Since it is my nation’s birthday, I thought it would be the perfect day to unveil the new, updated author logo with my new author tagline. If you know me, and know my signature colors (as well as my sexuality), you’ll get the color scheme. If not, well, I hope you like the colors!

© 2026 V.J. Allison, Amethyst Rose Productions. All rights reserved. No use without written permission. Downloading is not permitted under any circumstances without my written permission.

I drew the rose myself, on canvas paper and painted it using acrylic markers. This is not generative AI. If you know me, you know I hate that slop and would rather never draw again than go near it. So please, anyone who thinks I can’t draw or I suck at it, can go shove their heads up their wazoos, because I can draw, whether they like it or not.

I went with purple because it’s my favorite color. Purple roses have become my signature as an author and as an artist. Silver, black and white are the other three of my main colors but I’m adding greens to it too, notably two specific shades. Ironically the color scheme is for the asexual flag but I didn’t get that until 2 years ago when I clued in I was ace. I’ve had that color scheme for a few years now and it’s odd how things lined up. The green represents my status as aromantic, demi-romantic to be exact. I don’t have romantic feelings for anyone without a strong bond of friendship first… And well, we all know that asexual means I don’t find anyone sexually attractive. Big “meh” on that too. I know, it’s weird considering I write steamy romance books.

Here’s a couple of photos of the actual process of me drawing the rose and the template I used for it, as well as the final drawing.

All images ©2026 V.J. Allison Amethyst Rose Productions. All rights reserved. No use without written permission. Downloading is not permitted under any circumstances without my written permission. Violators will be prosecuted.

I chose the new tagline “Romancing Nova Scotia” because I’m sick of having a longer one – “Sexy Romance, Nova Scotia Style” doesn’t suit me now, like it did a few years ago, so it was past time to change it. Many thanks to my pal Dawn W. on her input and critique of the art, as well as the final logo itself!

Any books I release as an indie author will have my personal logo on or in them somewhere. This will show it is an official story released by my production company, and that logo will be in the book too.

Now I have to draw a logo for a series I will be writing after His Reasons to Fight is in the final stages of getting ready for publication. I’m unsure if that series will be an indie one or sent to a publishing house. I have to see how things go with everything else first, including Thorns of the Rose.

Upcoming Events:

Pride Week, 2026

I am walking in the Lunenburg County Pride Parade on July 5, 2026 as an independent walker with the Lunenburg County Pride organization. As of today, I’m unsure where we’ll be in the parade itself, but if you are going as a spectator, and want to wave to me, check the Pride site on Instagram or on Facebook for the route. Start time is 3 PM local! I’ll be there wearing my asexual colors and wearing the flag as a cape!

Romancing the Harbour, 2027:

It looks like I may be going to my first author convention as an author next year, if things pan out. Things are just taking off with this new convention, and it is still in the planning stages. Once we get things finalized with it, and if I wind up being a participating author (my first public signing, EEK!), I will gladly share the details once I’m allowed to do so. I’m excited yet nervous. I’m just glad this is over a year away, so far we’re looking at October 2027. I have to get copies of all of my books that are in print, get swag like bags, pens, stickers and more, and figure out how I’m getting there, as well as what to wear and so on. Eek?????? *head desk* Yeah. This is going to be weird. I’m so shy in real life that I hate making eye contact (or is that the autism talking??) and where I have a naturally loud voice I tend to over compensate and whisper instead of talking for fear of being too damn loud. Yeah. This should be ultra “interesting” to say the least… I hope I can get a few pieces of art done too for sale, and show off some of the premades and make a few sales that way too. Plus networking with other local authors is going to be fun. I just hope everyone likes me.

Writing and Other News:

Not much is going on. I had a second iron infusion in June at the local hospital and I don’t know if it took or not. I have to get my blood checked to see if it did improve my ferritin levels or not. When my internal medicine specialist saw the 6 weeks results of my first iron infusion, I was at 45 (April). Still low, normal is around 100. So I was sent for a second round. At the start of June, that number dropped to 16. So it’s a good thing I had another one. I’m now “taking bets” on how low it will be in about 3 weeks, when I get it checked again. I have a bad feeling I’m going to be going for an infusion every few months because my stupid body refuses to keep iron. I am just glad I’m not anemic. The damn brain fog is bad enough as it is. Anemia would only compound things. Yuck!

So far, things are slowly progressing with His Reasons to Fight. I did a face plant into a speed bump with Thorns of the Rose, so I switched back to His Reasons. It’s not moving fast, due to me being on the go so damn much and Hubby’s schedule changing in a split second the last while but it’s slowly picking up momentum. Remember that one word, one sentence, one paragraph is all progress.

At least I’m writing, and trying to get another book out as soon as I can, despite being so sick sometimes… Just saying.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ll update as things move along. Hopefully a lot faster now that I am getting back to my crazy version of normal.

Happy Canada Day, and I hope all of my fellow LGBT+ community members had a great Pride Month in June… Thank you again Marsha and Storme for making it possible for us to have rights now. This “daughter” honors both of you with love.

Since I’ve been on a Def Leppard kick lately, I’m leaving you with the official video for their song “When Love and Hate Collide”. I didn’t know this at the time, but bassist Rick Savage was recovering from Bell’s Palsy at the time of recording, which affects the muscular nerves in your face, and one side of his face is at least partially paralyzed from the condition. He’s one hell of a trooper and one of my favorite musicians of all time. Thanks for the amazing music, Rick!

Enjoy!

Summer Breezes and the Ace of Hearts...

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on here, and a lot has changed over the last six months.

Son and Transition School

Son officially graduated and had his ceremony of achievements on June 19^th, after being at the school for two and a half years. I was fine during the achievements of the other four students who were also leaving, but bawled the entire time Jeff was praising my sweet son, and everything he accomplished while attending the school. Son was always saying he was a Lieutenant Junior Grade, and at his graduation from the transition school, he was promoted to full Lieutenant. That only made me bawl harder. His teachers there are so good with the students, and they understand every nuance, every single quirk and more. To say we’re going to miss all of them next year is an understatement.

This also marks another huge milestone – Son is finally done with the South Shore Regional Education Centre. He had been in the system since he started primary in 2010, and has finally graduated from there too.

He had started attending his work placement program 4 days a week earlier this year, and is happy to be staying there. They are full on Mondays so he’s only attending there Tuesdays to Fridays, which is fine with me. I get three days to sleep in instead of only the weekends. And if there’s a holiday like Canada Day during the week, he gets that off too. Plus any days that it’s a snow day for the SSREC kids it’s one for his crew too. The LL gang (as I call it) does a lot of things, like laundry for various businesses around the county, silk screening, shredding paper, and so much more. These amazing people of all ages (ranging from 18 to elderly) learn a lot of skills at the placement, plus they also go on outings like bowling in Lunenburg, various fairs around the South Shore, museums, visiting horse stables and various farms, selling products that are made in the shop at farm markets and so much more.

They even had their first ever prom for LL participants and full time residents (this is attached to a home for people who cannot live independently who cannot live with family, etc.). Everyone looked so wonderful dressed up, and they had so much fun at the dance. Even Son – who hates any music that’s not classical or heavy metal – loved it and hope they do it again next year.

To say they are awesome is an understatement, and I’m so happy my precious boy is there. They’ve done so much for him, he’s even more independent now, and has matured a lot in the last six months or so.

I’m so proud of him!

Lunenburg Pride’s Third Annual Pride Parade

Another year, another pride celebration in my county! I was going to walk in the parade again this year, after having so much fun last year, but unfortunately, my body decided that it wasn’t going to store iron again, and I’m extremely anemic (no laughing or you’re a horrid piece of shit!). No walking in the parade, doctor’s orders. I was allowed to watch it, as long as I stayed out of the sun, I was sitting down and guzzling water.

It wasn’t as big this year as it had been last year, but it was still tons of fun, with everyone calling “Happy Pride!” and pretty much every part of the LGBT+ community represented.

When we got to Empire Street, we saw someone walking by wearing the lesbian flag, and others wearing the Intersex Progressive Pride Flag, as well as non-binary flags, lots of Canadian flags with the rainbow where the two red panels normally go (I call it the Canadian PRIDE flag), and of course the traditional Rainbow Pride flag (six coloured one) everywhere – and that was just the spectators.

Yours truly went all out in her own flag colours – which are also my signature colours as an author. Black, grey, white, and purple galore, head to toe. Even the sneakers matched, they’re black, white, grey and lavender. Perfect for me! I did wear my PRIDE hat with the word in rainbow colours, and my rainbow bracelet, but that was it. I wore my asexual flag as a cape too. Hubby said I looked awesome and he was so proud to see me having fun and cheering on my fellow LGBT+ community members. I even saw a few people I had made friends with last year… It was so much fun and so amazing.

I hope I’m well enough to walk in it next year, as an author and representative of the asexual community in the area. If not, I’m happy to sit on the sidelines and cheer on my fellow queers again!

Writing Update

Now that the glucose is dropping a mile (almost back to normal!) and I’m losing that brain fog, I am determined to get Thorns of the Rose completed and get on with the other stories in the queue, from His Reasons to Fight to the crime drama Xek and I are working on, and so many more…

With Son gone four days a week, and Hubby working a lot of daytimes at his store (he works for a major Canadian grocery store chain), I’m getting at least two to three work days a week. I’m not always getting 5K days but I’m getting 1 to 3 K days and that’s better than nothing. You can’t edit a blank page, after all… And I’m filling mine up, faster than I thought I would be at this point. Thorns of the Rose is now over 40 thousand words, and I’m not even up to the halfway point yet.

This story will also have a bit more steam/spice in it than most of my other stories do, because I’m publishing this as an Indie published book under my own publishing company – whose name will be revealed in time, when I’m ready. I’m already researching registering it with the province and possibly with Ottawa, so it will be a legit company for my own books, and for selling art, and so much more.

I’m determined to finish draft 1 of Thorns of the Rose as soon as possible. That way I can finally finish the crime drama with Xek and the two of us can get it cleaned up, beta read and either done Indie or by one of the publishing houses we are looking at. It will not be done via Extasy Books due to them not putting many books out (I don’t want to overwhelm everyone!) and it won’t be out via Decadent because they focus on romance, and this one has no romance in it. Xek has one or two she’d like to try, and I have a couple in mind as well. Although I’m with her on her first choice, it’s my second choice, so we’ll probably submit there first.

And no, I won’t be saying when it goes out. That’s between us and the publishing house who receives it. The last thing we need is upsetting anyone else if we get a rejection. And I’m betting on at least one or two rejections before finding the right home for it.

As for His Reasons to Fight, I’ll be plugging away on that in the future. I know, I should get it finished ASAP due to Could Have Been ending on a cliffhanger… but I assure all of you out there, it will be more than worth the wait to see how Joshua and Lauren get their happy ever after. I promise!

Art

I’ve been drawing and painting again, this time using watercolors and watercolor pencils. Watercolor pencils are the bomb! I love how easy they are to use, notably for shading right and more. My only gripe is that they need a LOT of water to dissolve the pigments, especially if you layer tons of colors for shading and more. Otherwise, I love them a lot and I’m hoping to get a huge set sometime when we hit Michaels Crafts.

I just need more white multimedia paper though. I’m almost out and the Dollarama no longer carries it. Good grief.

No, I don't show my art publicly, due to companies like Google and others using it to "train" their generative AI slop without my permission. Plus I know a few people who would love to download it, print it out and use it as toilet paper, just out of spite. If you want to see my art, either check out my Discord (you have to have an invite for it) or certain places online that are not visible to the public eye.

Otherwise, everything is running smoothly and I’m doing my best not to gnaw on the monitor those days that I’m not writing.

Happy International Non-Binary Peoples Day! It’s celebrated every July 14^th, and celebrates everyone under the non-binary (enby or NBi) umbrella. I love enby people! They are so sweet, kind and down to earth. You don’t have to present a certain way to be enby either, just be yourself!

On a final note, due to recent circumstances, Generative AI is completely banned in my writing group, on my pages, on this blog and more. Any author who wants to participate in a takeover in my group must state if they used generative AI in either their writing, their covers or both. If they did, it'll be an immediate access denied and banned from the group.

Writing is not prompting.

It's hard work that takes time. You pound it out word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page until the story is finished. Period. No fucking shortcuts. At all.

If you use generative AI to "ghost write" and then revise it, you are a fraud and not a real author. You are an editor and proofer. Nothing more.

It's a legal form of plagiarism, and I hope it soon becomes illegal.

Besides, you cannot copyright anything "written" or "drawn" using generative AI. 

Period. 

So sick of entitled, selfish pieces of shit who think they're an "author" by typing prompts into generative AI and using what it barfs out as "a story" that they "wrote"...

I have worked my ass off to get where I am as an author and an artist today. I'm not perfect by any means, but there's a reason why two of my books have won awards... And it's not because they were written using stuff stolen from other people's original work. 

To wrap it up, I leave you with a song that’s been running through my head the last while… “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by local classic metal band, Whom Gods Destroy. Enjoy!

Everything is Coming Up "Aces" - The Second Annual Lunenburg County Pride Parade

Facebook cover I use for my profile. It's the Demisexual Flag. More on that later on.

Today marked the official start to the second annual Pride Week in Lunenburg County, although people from Queens and Shelburne counties were there, as well as Halifax.

We had a lot of fun last year as spectators. I saw a lot of great people I knew, and met a lot I hadn’t.

This year was a bit different. Instead of sitting with my husband and son, watching the parade, I decided to participate as an independent walker, showing off my pen name and how I was a part of the community – more on that later! 

Before I describe the day, I want to send a huge THANK YOU to Lunenburg PRIDE – Lunenburg Co. for hosting and organizing this week’s long list of fun events for all ages!

South Shore Public Libraries hosted a “make your pride sign” in the parking lot for Gow’s Home Hardware, which is on High Street, and across from the Lunenburg Campus of the Nova Scotia Community College – where the floats for the parade were being lined up and more. I made a sign using my still rusty drawing skills (no one cared about how pretty the art was, as long as we had fun!) with my pen name on it, with a rainbow, and a lot more. It hung around my neck while I walked, so people could see it. It didn’t always show but it was still fun to wear it and show my pride of being me.

A huge THANK YOU to the Bridgewater Police Department for looking out for all of us today. All of my fellow walkers and the officers know what I’m talking about.

One person from the library was really kind to me, talking to me and asking me if I was published yet, and if she could find my books online. MARILYN – THANK YOU! It was really nice to be included and make a new friend, one who accepts all of us in the community and more unconditionally. She and I walked together, chatting and having fun with the rest of the walkers. I loved it!

Of course, my son and husband were watching from the sidelines and my son was so excited to see me. He was yelling and laughing so loudly that others were smiling and clapping at him. It was awesome.

Once we left the “sensory free zone” (no music or loud noises for people with auditory sensitivities and younger children), the Bookmobile (our mobile library) started cranking out the tunes – mostly queer artists like Elton John, Queen, and Lady Gaga. Every time we had to pause for a few minutes – like the gent from the local Lion’s Club’s mini tractor stalling at least once – we’d dance in place, talk with the spectators, wave our pride flags and so much more.

The trek itself started on High Street, went down Empire Street toward the LaHave River, and turned right on King Street to end at the bottom of Dufferin Hill, just past Wonderland Milkshake & Smoothie Bar.

How appropriate that “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga was played at one point… You do not have to listen to dance music to appreciate just how talented Lady Gaga truly is, and appreciate that particular song. It is one that resonates deeply with me, for several reasons… I’m Indigenous. I was born that way, and I’m proud to be an Indigenous Canadian woman… I’m proud to be neurodivergent. I’m also proud of how far I’ve come as a person, a mom, a wife, and an author, as well as an ultra-rusty artist.

That said…

Today wasn’t just our second annual Pride Parade and my first ever public appearance as V.J. Allison at any event in our area…

It was my official public coming out as Asexual, notably Demisexual.

I proudly wore my asexual flag as a cape and it flittered around me as I walked the parade route.

Asexual flag with the caption of "HAPPY PRIDE!"

It was such a freeing feeling to do that, to show the world I am Proudly Asexual!

Definition of Asexual from Healthline (https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-asexual)

“Someone who is asexual experiences little to no sexual attraction.

Sexual attraction, in basic terms, means you find a specific person sexually appealing and want to have sex with them.

Asexual people, who might use the term “ace” or “aces” for short, typically don’t experience sexual attraction or want to pursue sexual relationships with other people.

That said, being asexual means different things to different people.

Some people might only experience sexual attraction in very limited circumstances. For example, someone who is demisexual — which some say falls under the asexual umbrella — experiences sexual attraction only when they experience a deep connection.

To put it another way, they might only feel sexually attracted to people in the context of a loving romantic relationship.

Some people might not experience any sexual attraction and still choose to have a sexual relationship.

To put it simply, everyone has a different experience with being asexual, and there’s no single way to be asexual.”

We aces weren’t really included with anyone because a lot of people do not understand how someone doesn’t experience attraction toward another person of the gender(s) they prefer. So being accepted by the rest of the LGBT+ community is a huge thing for us. It seems that our fellow queers love and appreciate us, just like we love and appreciate them and their support.

I honestly didn’t realize I’m ace until recently, and when I clued in, it was a relief. Yes, I think there are beautiful people out there, lots of them, but I am not attracted to celebrities or want to have “relations” with them like others do. I’m perfectly happy not experiencing anything like others do, and happily romantic with the spouse.

I was born this way and dammit, I love being me.

I also love knowing I’ve helped other people in the community somehow, somewhere along the lines.

On King Street, a group of teens asked me if my flag was the asexual one, and they got excited when they realized they had met a cis woman who was asexual – like they are. We chatted for a bit and walked across the Old Bridge together, toward the mall. It was so wonderful to meet them, and I hope to see them again in the future. Maybe at next year’s parade or another event. (Much love to all of you, thanks for walking with me after the parade!)

I’m exhausted, burned to a crisp (I do not tan, I fry in the sun!), and ready to crash but all in all, it was an almost perfect day. The only thing that could have ruined it was more rain… Or the sun coming out. It was hot walking the route, temperatures were over 25 C and with the humidex/heat index, it felt closer to 30 C. I felt so bad for the one person walking in their full costume, a really sweet person who I had the luck to say hi to and walk with during the parade. I was hot just wearing jeans, a t-shirt and my flag. Thank heavens the organizers were handing out tons of water, and I had some with me from home!

Sunburned, and it's only getting redder!

A huge thank you to the following groups for making our second annual Pride Parade a success, and tons of fun!

 

South Shore Public Libraries

Bridgewater Town Police

Bridgewater Fire Department

Municipality of the District of Lunenburg

Halifax Pride

Town of Bridgewater

Wonderland Milkshake & Smoothie Bar

And so many more!!!

 

And a huge thank you to Lunenburg PRIDE – Lunenburg CO. for organizing and hosting this fun and amazing event!

I can’t wait until next year!

I leave all of you with a song that always resonated loudly with me… Born This Way by the great Lady Gaga – who is also LGBT+ and a fellow chronic pain warrior!

Happy Pride Week, Lunenburg County!