As much as I owe to Betsy & Burnell for adopting me, I also owe a debt of gratitude to Furrever Friends for rescuing me from the streets of Camden, NJ and placing me for adoption so that B&B could find me. If you are looking to adopt, please consider them. And if you feel like making a donation, please do so in my name…. They have many wonderful friends who desperately need a loving home.

The poster writes: “I started watching this video and my kitten jumps up on my lap, sits like a person like lounging on my legs and watches the entire video of Nora playing the piano. I thought it was so funny I took a quick video of it on my phone.”

http://www.urlesque.com/2010/08/06/catfight-round-1-new-school-cats/

Dear friends and fans,

I know I have inspired many of you to pursue your musical dreams, but there are so many ways to be sublimely creative. What about poetry? All you need is a pencil and a piece of paper (or your handy laptop computer) to begin your creative journey! So I am hoping you will consider entering my Nora The Piano Cat Poetry Contest. The rules are really quite simple:

1) Write a poem about me or inspired by me. It can be long or short, rhyming or not. It can even be a haiku.

2) Email the poem to me at norapoetry@verizon.net no later than midnight, October 1, 2010. You can enter as often as you like.

3)> Be sure to include your age, name, and a contact email. If you are under eighteen years old, please include the name of your parent or legal guardian, and their contact email (with their permission of course). Email addresses are only used to contact the winners in each age group. You will NOT be placed on any mailing lists and your contact information will not be shared with anyone else, ever, for any reason.

My personal assistants, Betsy and Burnell, and I will read every single glorious poem and choose our absolute top three favorites in the following age categories:

1) Up to 8 years old. (Kids)

2) 9 to 12 years old. (Tweens)

3) 13 to 18 years old. (Teens)

4) 19 and up. (Everyone else)

All twelve winners will receive very special Nora Prizes. We will also give a special prize to the person submitting the best Nora or Nora-inspired haiku.

In addition to the prizes awarded to the winners in each category, the winning poems will also be included in my “Inspired by Nora” 2012 calendar. Winners will each receive a copy.

Submission of a poem signifies your acceptance of the above rules, and allows either me or my personal assistants, Betsy and Burnell, to print, reprint and otherwise distribute the poem for promotional purposes, including the creation of the 2012 “Inspired by Nora” calendar.

Don’t delay. Send your Nora-inspired poems to norapoetry@verizon.net by midnight, October 1, 2010. Winners will be notified by October 31, 2010.

Download the “Purr-etry Contest” flyer in PDF format by clicking HERE. Share it with your friends. Viewing or printing PDFs requires Adobe Reader, which is a free download from Adobe.com

Well, I’m sure you’ve all heard of Moxie & Company. How about Laura Becker? She’s my Licensing & Opportunities agent. Anyway, just this last week was the International Licensing Expo in Las Vegas. I didn’t go, but B & B stopped in and visited for a while. I heard that everybody was there: Disney, Hasbro, Marvel Comics, Star Trek, etc. And right in the middle was me, Nora The Piano Cat. Moxie & Company also represents Nancy Drew and Ziggy, among others. B & B even got to meet Ziggy’s creator, Tom Wilson. That must have been cool!

Sviesa, a publisher of textbooks for school children in Lithuania (remember CATcerto and composer Mindaugas Piecaitis – he’s from Lithuania), is using a photograph of yours truly in an upcoming book on music titled The Labyrinth of Music. It’s intended for students in the 5th form in secondary school. So, I would love to hear from any of my student fans in Lithuania. Let me know when the book is published, and be sure to let me know how you like the photo.

Here I am with B&B’s friend, David Updike. David’s daughter, Dariel, is one of Betsy’s students, and she was playing scales on the other piano when I decided to join in. But that’s not really the big news here. I mean, I join in a lot. It’s what I do. What I don’t do is share my piano bench when I play. But there was just something about David’s smile and friendly demeanor that appealed to me, so I allowed him to share my bench. So much for the myth that I’m a total diva.

By the way, David is quite talented in his own right (for a human) and has just written and directed his first short film. You can view the trailer at www.jacobanddeath.com

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