Weekly Roundup: Fall Festivals Across the Country

With Fall season right around the corner, now would be a great time to make some travel plans to attend a Fall festival!

Read up on some of these fun and interesting Fall events around the country, courtesy of AC Contributors:

Free Events at Chicago’s Millennium Park in September 2009 by Anastasia Zoldak

The Yellow Daisy Festival at Stone Mountain Park, Georgia by Gunkee

Fall Foliage Botanical Tours and Festivals in Claremont, California by Cheri Major M.S.

Several Options for German Food, Fun and Culture this Fall in Illinois by Stephanie L. Renken

Vermont Fall Apple Festivals by pam parent

Great Fall Festivals in Western New York by Paula Thompson

Oktoberfest in Palm Beach County by Jennifer Bentley

New England’s Best Fall Festivals, 2009 by Eoin ONeill

Fall Festivities in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains by Kari Wolfe

Who in the World is L. Vincent Poupard?

He’s an author of two books on horror history and symbolism, a freelance political advisor and a prolific Contributor on AC. L. Vincent Poupard is enjoying life on Clout 10 and has been busy publishing over 600 articles since November 2006. An avid fan of “Weird Tales”, L. Vincent Poupard says his goal is to own every issue of the original run of the magazine from the ’20s to the ’50s. He also hopes to share his passion for reading with his daughter when she gets older. I caught up with this busy dad and writer to find out who in the world L. Vincent Poupard really is:

SK: How did you get started with writing for AC?
LP: I was running a blog on MySpace and one of the admins at the time at AC contacted me about writing for money. It looked like an interesting opportunity, so I gave it a try. That was in November of 2006, and here I am almost three years later.

SK: What inspired you to join?
LP: My blog had gained a fairly decent following, so I figured that I could take those fans with me to AC. I quickly came to the realization that it is better to make money doing what you like than doing it for free.

SK: Your favorite category to browse at work is:
LP: I would have to say the news section. I like to read personal accounts of major news stories.

SK: Do you write for other online sites or publications, or do you publish exclusively on AC?
LP: I have written for other online sites in the past, but have not gained the joy that I get for writing for AC. I have two books about horror symbolism that I have rewritten hundreds of times in the past that will be published sometime in the near future.

SK: You most popular/most commented/newsworthy article?
LP: My most popular would be my article that discusses the history of the Ring Around the Rosie song, and it’s connections to the bubonic plague. It should break 30,000 page views in the next month. You can read it here

My most commented on would be my article would my article that gave a preview of Ben Stein’s documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The movie discusses the prejudices that many in the scientific community have against the Intelligent Design theory. I have received over 150 comments (about sixty of which I deleted since they were not PG-13), and close to 300 emails to date on it. You can read it here.

Picking an article that could be rated as my most newsworthy would have to be up to the reader. I have had an article quoted on the Colbert Report, one read on Nancy Grace’s show another quoted on CNN, and others that have been quoted in various publications.

SK: Name one website that you visit at least once per day:

Who in the World is Shelly Barclay?

Born and raised in Massachusetts, this AC Contributor left the nest at the young age of twenty and headed to Washington State…only to return home three years later. Shelly Barclay is an avid hiker, fishing and boating enthusiast, and also enjoys tapping into her nerdy side with Lord of the Rings movies once in a while. (If you meet her, keep an eye out for a tattoo of an elvish script on her upper arm). Shelly’s been publishing on AC since May 2009 and was recently named one of  AC’s Rising Stars. I caught up with this Contributor to find out what she’s reading, writing about and enjoying so far with her publishing career on AC:

SK: How did you get started with writing for AC?

SB: I had been publishing online for a while and reading as many articles as I could find on the topic. I ran across an article about AC and decided to check it out. I’ve really enjoyed it  thusfar, so I have been publishing there regularly ever since.

SK: What inspired you to join?
SB: I was a professional cook for nearly ten years, when I had to take some time off to care for my stepson. I always loved writing and I needed something to do with my down time, so I took up online writing and loved it. AC is one of the more popular writing websites (obviously), so my joining AC was rather inevitable.

SK: Your favorite content category to browse at work is:
SB: Well, if I had to pick one, it would be history. Although, I do browse science and books rather often, as well.

SK: Do you write for other online sites or publications, or do you publish exclusively on AC?
SB: I write for a few other sites, but there are only two or three that I write for regularly. AC is one of them. I find the site to be simple to use and the other writers there have been extremely friendly. You don’t get that from a lot of other sites, so I feel like the more I stick around AC, the more I will learn from the other writers there.

SK: Your most popular/most commented/newsworthy article?
SB: This one sort of makes me laugh. I don’t have a lot of success with article popularity. The bulk of my articles are not exactly newsworthy, I usually just write about what interests me and hope that it will interest someone else. However, I did write an article about the differences between the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie and the novel of the same name. That one was read a lot more than my other articles.

SK: Name one website you visit at least once per day:
SB: All of the sites that I write for get visited by me at least once a day, but aside from them, nationalgeographic.com.

SK: Three Contributors that have inspired you or whose work you enjoy reading regularly: