Big week for AGT alumni! This coming Friday, November 3, Season 11 Champion Grace VanderWaal‘s debut album, Just the Beginning, will be released, as well as her new accessory line with Charming Charlie. (Photo from Just Jared Jr.)

“Amercia’s Got Talent: Live!” featuring Season 12 fan favorites Darci Lynne Farmer, Angelica Hale, Light Balance, and Preacher Lawson is happening in Las Vegas this weekend. The two initially planned performances sold out so quickly they added two or three more, and then those went fast as well, so they should get a good turnout. Unfortunately, I won’t be attending (though I did get to see Season 11’s Tape Face do his thing up here in Canada this past Saturday) but I’ll be sure to update with a roundup of social media, pictures, and any other fun stuff from the event next week! (Photo from Darci’s Twitter).

Lastly, I’ve been meaning to cover Mandy Harvey’s book Sensing the Rhythm, which was released about a month ago and is currently available in bookstores and online.

Sensing the Rhythm mostly covers Mandy’s life from around the time she lost her hearing to the present as of when the book was being written (a little less than a year ago from when I’m posting this in October 2017) though there are a few stories from her high school days and before peppered in. The book has an easy-to-follow, feel-good format with each chapter starting with an anecdote from Mandy’s life, followed by the lesson(s) she learned from the experience and advice to readers who may be facing similar challenges and does a great job at translating these takeaways to other situations people may be dealing with. So while the stories mostly focus on her hearing loss and music career, the book overall is about overcoming adversity, and that’s a challenge virtually everyone in the world faces at one point or another.

Since the book was finished before her season of AGT began, there isn’t any juicy behind-the-scenes dirt on her experience competing on the show. However, we do get some interesting and insightful background information on her family and love life (SPOILERS: she’s married, so sorry to crush the dreams of all the people who ship her with certain other AGT contestants :P). These sections of the book are the most personal and raw of all; I was surprised she even opted to discuss some of the things she did, though I think they probably helped paint a more authentic picture of Mandy as a person, and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed Mandy on AGT or are just curious to know more about how she was able to continue composing and performing music after losing her hearing.

That’s about it for now. I’ll be back next week with some AGT Vegas show coverage, so see you then! 😀