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Emily Frances Algar

Music Journalist and Communications Expert

Atwood Magazine •

Introducing Thelma & James, the Americana Duo Turning Heartache into Harmony & Taking Nashville by Storm - Atwood Magazine

MacKenzie Porter and Jake Etheridge speak with Atwood Magazine about their new band Thelma & James, how writing together saved their creativity, and why making their upcoming debut EP feels like it’s meant to be.

Their debut single as duo Thelma & James, “Happy Ever After You” (released in January via Big Loud Records), came from a night last December when Porter was feeling lost with her own music and career and asked Etheridge if they could write something together because s...
Atwood Magazine •

Laci Kaye Booth Embraces Outlaw Country on “George F****** Strait” - Atwood Magazine

Her songwriting is through the female gaze, which gives it the credibility and vulnerability that are often ignored when you listen to country music. A country artist and songwriter for almost a decade, Booth’s music has a newness and uniqueness to it that this particular genre has been crying out for, for years. There is currently no-one making music like Booth.

Booth began teasing her new song “George F****** Strait” (6 June via Geffen Recor...
Atwood Magazine •

Interview: Falling in Love with Laci Kaye Booth - Atwood Magazine

A country artist for almost a decade, Booth’s music has a newness and uniqueness to it that this particular genre has been crying out for, for years. There is currently no-one like Booth in the industry. In her song “Nightmare,” she wrings out her soul for listener. The song is like a poem set to music. Your innermost confusing, contradictory and self-critical thoughts set to a steady guitar and dreamy strings that are barely audible above Boot...
Medium •

Winnings Hearts and Minds in Cybersecurity

Instead of punishing employees for their cybersecurity mistakes, we protect, support, listen to, and empower them, through strategy, communications and culture change.The strategy of “winning hearts and minds” is mostly closely associated with the Malayan Emergency, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War in 2003. The phrase “hearts and minds” was first used in the context of counter-insurgency warfare by British General Gerald Templer in February 1952. Speaking of the conflict known as the Malayan Eme...
Atwood Magazine •

Interview: Jill Andrews Confronts the Darkness Head-On With ‘Big Feelings’ - Atwood Magazine

Known for her folk and bluegrass sounds from her time as part of The Everybodyfields, Andrews has toured with The Avett Brothers, Willie Nelson, and The Secret Sisters; collaborated with Anderson East on his track, “Say Anything”; and has had her own music featured on Grey’s Anatomy, This Is Us, Wynonna Earp, and many more.

If you’ve heard a sad song on your favourite television show, chances are, it might be Jill Andrews’. She is also part of...
Atwood Magazine •

Interview: Caylee Hammack Tends to Her Heart on ‘Bed of Roses’ - Atwood Magazine

With Bed of Roses (out March 7th via Capitol Records), the Georgia-born country artist leans into the traditional country sounds that first shaped her, crafting a record that feels both deeply personal and timeless.

It’s a marked shift from her glossier debut, whose R&B and pop elements gave it a more ‘modern country’ feel. Bed of Roses, on the other hand, recalls the sounds of Bobby Gentry, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. Hammack even reim...
Atwood Magazine •

Interview: Country Singer Kameron Marlowe Follows the Muse on ’Sad Songs for the Soul’ - Atwood Magazine

Released on February 21st and produced by Ben West, this is the 27-year-old’s third record with Sony Music Nashville. Listening to the album, one can’t help but hear a person wise beyond his years, with a voice that recalls Chris Stapleton, Ryan Beaver, and a young John Legend.

Hailing from Kannapolis, North Carolina, Marlowe got his start singing in church and joined a band in high school. In 2018, a talent scout found one of Marlowe’s songs...
Atwood Magazine •

Atwood Magazine's Weekly Roundup: February 5, 2025

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On Sunday night, Doechii collected the Grammy award for Best Rap Album for her masterful mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal – making history as only the third woman to ever win the category since it was introduced in 1995. While she tearfully accepted her award, her victory lap had already begun.

Immediately after the Grammy Awards, Doechii dropped “Nosebleeds,” an instantly iconic, blatantly arrogant, hype track declaring her place as rap’s q...
Atwood Magazine •

50 Artists to Watch in 2025 – Atwood Magazine

The past twelve months introduced us to a litany of fresh and exciting music makers whose incredible talents, stories, sounds, and voices made them impossible to ignore. Now as 2025 dawns, we look to a year of powerful and promising new music ahead!

Atwood Magazine is proud to present our staff-procured list of Artists to Watch in 2025, in alphabetical order (you can jump directly to an artist by clicking their name above). From buzzy names like Doechii, Mk.gee, and Rebecca Black, to up-and-com...
Medium •

Where does cyber security begin and end?

DDoS, spear-phishing, phishing, ransomware, AI deepfakes, worms, viruses, all these are familiar terms if you work in cyber security. We know what they are, how they work, the consequences of when they are successful, what we can do to best prevent them, and how to clean up the mess afterwards. These lines are clear, but what about when those lines break down and other issues come into play?I’m going to give two examples that sit on those porous lines.The first, in April 2024, a number of Britis...
Medium •

John Paul White — Live at the Omeara, Southwark London, UK

“It’s only going to get sadder”, said John Paul White to the audience at The Omeara as he finished playing the opening song in his set, “I Wish I Could Write You a Song”, from his third record, The Hurting Kind. The Americana artist who was once part of the Grammy Award Winning duo, The Civil Wars.White played an acoustic set as part of his 2024 European Tour, including songs from his critically acclaimed album Beulah, The Hurting Kind and his debut record, The Long Goodbye. Highlights were “I W...
Medium •

A wish list for cyber security in 2025

General Timothy Haugh, a four-star Air Force general who leads the National Security Agency (NSA)and Cyber Command in the United States, told Bloomberg media that he wants to provide a public “hunt guide” so cyber security professionals and companies can search out the hackers and eradicate them from telecommunications networks.Haugh added that the US is reliant on industry to share insights into what happened on their own networks. The same can be said for most countries in the world.In my arti...
Medium •

How to create a successful cyber security awareness environment?

It’s easy to blame an individual rather than asking whether your organisation and its senior leadership team have:a) looked at the security posture of the organisation and what they SHOULD be doing to empower their employeesb) acknowledged that scams are becoming more and more sophisticated and it isn’t just the “gullible” who become victims. In other words, it’s not if but when.The aim should be to move from a shame-based culture to a no-blame culture. Instead of berating someone for clicking o...
Atwood Magazine •

Interview: Nerina Pallot Discusses Her Eighth Album, ‘A Psalm for Emily Salvi’ - Atwood Magazine

I interviewed Pallot seven years ago when her album Stay Lucky was released in 2018. Pallot is a British singer-songwriter-producer-multi-instrumentalist who has been making music since the early 2000s. Her second full-length album Fires, which was self-funded and released independently sent shockwaves through the British music industry with both critical and commercial acclaim. Pallot has since released six full-length records and dozens of EPs. She has also written for Kylie Minogue, Diana Vic...
Medium •

Should there be secrets in cyber security?

Cyber attacks such as data breaches, IT outtages, ransomware are commonplace. No industry is immune to these attacks and they transcend the private and public sectors.Key takeways from each of these cyber attacks has been third party supply chains that are not secure, outdated software that can’t be or has not been patched, and lack of basic security such as two-factor authentication (2FA).My question is, how open should organisations be when they experience a cyber attack? And finally, do they...
Atwood Magazine •

Review: Kelsea Ballerini Breaks With Old Habits on Her Fifth Album, ‘PATTERNS’ - Atwood Magazine

“Sorry, Mom, you know that I had sex before I bought the white dress. I know you’re not impressed with my lack of sticking to the Bible,” sings country superstar Kelsea Ballerini in the second verse off her single, “Sorry Mom.”

You don’t get much more honest and vulnerable than talking about sex, religion and your relationship with your mom less than two minutes into your new song. “Sorry Mom” feels as much Ballerini telling her mom that these traditional values aren’t healthy, as it is her apo...
Atwood Magazine •

Introducing Sydney Quiseng: Echosmith’s Frontwoman on Her New Solo Career - Atwood Magazine

There is a beauty in the lyrics not being too specific, which is something that is perhaps Quiseng’s signature in her songwriting from writing for her band Echosmith.

Quiseng was born and raised in Southern California where she formed the band Echosmith with her brothers and c0wrote the triple-platinum-hit “Cool Kids”, which launched the band into touring the world and writing three albums, the third of which was released last year. Quiseng is now embarking on her own solo career.

Writing and...
Medium •

Why telling stories is important in cyber security: part two

Jen Easterly, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), recently did a keynote speech at the mWISE Conference from Mandiant. The keynote’s address main message was to talk about the Secure By Design initiative, which the US and the UK governments are aiming to embed across those companies making software. Secure By Design means that software products and capabilities have been designed to be foundationally secure.However, what struck me about this keynote, and...
Medium •

Why telling stories is important in cyber security: part one

I love stories, be they books, records, poetry or film.I passionately believe that storytelling, even in a corporate, non-artistic setting, is powerful. Telling stories, particularly real ones, can move people to change their behaviours, their views and even, dare I say it, their aspirations.I said previously you need to give people a reason WHY they should do things differently or make change, storytelling is the most impactful WHY.Good stories and storytelling put the reader in the writers pla...
Atwood Magazine •

Nerina Pallot Reminds Us What It Is to Be Human on “Regrets” - Atwood Magazine

“I got regrets, and so do you,” sings Nerina Pallot as the closing lyric to her brand new single “Regrets” off her upcoming album, A Psalm for Emily Salvi, due out on November 1st. The line brings you back to earth with a crash, because it is true for every human who has ever existed on this sphere we call Earth. We are told that regrets are not a good thing to have and are things to be avoided at all costs, but what if, regrets are an inevitable part of the fabric of being human, just like hear...
Medium •

Cyber Security Tabletop Exercises: How to make your communications successful during a cyber-attack

In my previous role, I sat in on Cyber Security Tabletop Exercises. If you haven’t heard of a Tabletop Exercise, they can take various formats, from very informal to a simulation of a cyber-attack.Tabletop Exercises are usually run by the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and their team and will include senior leaders. Each leader should represent a part of your organisation. This is important as each part will use different systems and have a certain function. You want each part of your...
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