As Valentine's Day is coming up soon, we have a special Mary Black Valentine's Day contest. In this contest, you can win one of several packages of prizes not for yourself but for your Valentine. To participate, you had select one of the prize packages you would like to win for your Valentine (of some package we give away more so chances of winning those are higher). In the entry you had to include:

1. Your name
2. The name of the person you'd like to win the prize(s) for
3. The e-mail address of the person you'd like to win the prize(s) for (so we can send them and you an e-mail if you win on Valentine's Day)
4. The prize package you'd like to win for you Valentine

The prize packages you could choose from are:

• Package 1 (1x): A Mary Black 25-Years black t-shirt (size M or L), Saw You Running CD single, Marguerite and the Gambler Promo CD single
• Package 2 (1x): The Moon and St. Christopher CD single, No Frontiers CD single, Marguerite and the Gambler Promo CD single
• Package 3 (1x): The Thorn Upon The Rose CD single, One and Only CD single, Marguerite and the Gambler Promo CD Single
• Package 4 (2x): Adam at the Window CD Single, Marguerite and the Gambler Promo CD single
• Package 5 (5x): Marguerite and the Gambler Promo CD single

All entries and e-mail addresses gathered in the contest were deleted after the contest and have not been used for anything else then this contest.

The winners of our Valentine's Day contest are:

• Prize package 1: Annette McKenna
• Prize package 2: Dawn Norris
• Prize package 3: Jodi Hammerstrom
• Prize package 4: Chris Strutt and Christine Verstraete
• Prize package 5: Nancy Brown, Kimberly Denby and Lisa Doyle

An update of the free Mary Black App for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) is now available in the App Store. If you already have the app installed, simply go tot he App Store on your device and select the Update tab.

The main enhancement in this update is that the app now contains a free full song. We intent to periodically change the freely available song. This song can be listened to only from within the app. Previews of almost all Mary Black's songs are of course still available in the app, just as the possibility to link the songs in the app to the music library on your iOS device.

We are happy to announce Mary Black's US November 2012 Tour.

Here are the dates that have been confirmed:

• Tuesday, November 6, 2012 - New York (NY) - City Winery
• Thursday, November 8, 2012 - Brownfield (ME) - Stone Mountain Art Centre
• Friday, November 9, 2012 - Rockland (ME) - Strand Theatre
• Saturday, November 10, 2012 - Boston (MA) - Berklee Performance Center
• Sunday, November 11, 2012 - Saint Paul (MN) - Fitzgerald Theater
• Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - Ann Arbor (MI) - The Ark
• Wednesday, November 14, 2012 - Middletown (OH) - Middletown Campus of Miami University
• Thursday, November 15, 2012 - Chicago (IL) - Chicago City Winery
• Friday, November 16, 2012 - Sebastopol (CA) - Sebastopol Community Cultural Center
• Sunday, November 18, 2012 - Berkeley (CA) - Freight and Salvage
• Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - Tucson (AZ) - Fox Theatre

When ticket information becomes available, we'll add links to the concerts page on this site. There, you'll also find upcoming Mary Black concerts in other countries.

Mary will be a guest in the TV show Vrije Geluiden which will be broadcast on Sunday 14 October starting at 10:30 on Dutch Television Nederland 1.

Mary will be a guest on Dutch Radio in the program Schiffers FM (Radio 2) around 10:30 this coming Sunday 7 October.

Mary Black participates in the Song for Lily-Mae initiative. Four year old Lily-Mae Morrison from Claregalway is suffering from Stage 4 Neuroblastoma, a rare and extremely aggressive childhood cancer of the nervous system. She is the daughter of professional ballet dancers, Judith Sibley and Leighton Morrison. When she grows up, she wants to be a ballet dancer like her Mummy and Daddy but Neuroblastoma is not playing nicely, it wants to kill her.

We want to create as much noise as possible for Lily-Mae by getting Tiny Dancer to the Christmas Number One spot, thereby raising awareness of the disease and funds to help with Lily-Mae's care and with Neuroblastoma research. To help do this, we have come together as one voice, over 300 of us, drawn, in the most part, from AIMS musical societies from all over the island of Ireland, to sing with a galaxy of Irish stars including...

Paddy Casey, Declan O'Rourke, Gari Deegan, Mary Black, The Reverse, Rob Vickers, Shane O'Reilly (Bipolar Empire), Mal Touhy (The Riptide Movement), Mundy, Matthew Devereux & Shane Wearan (The Pale), John Spillane, Brian Hogan (Kila & Preacher's Son), Mickey Joe Harte, Naymedici, Tom Dunne (Something Happens), Paddy McKenna & Lindsey Hogan (Storyfold), Conor Quinn, Gavin James, Arrow in the Sky, Aoife Scott, Laura Sheeran (Nanu Nanu), Camille O'Sullivan, Richie Hayes, Adela Meally & Ros O'Meara (Adela and the Meanits), Sandra Dolan (Strange Frootz), Monica & Anne Brennan, Lucia Evans, Louise Colohan, Emily Macken, Ashley Tubridy, Alan Greaney, Stephen Macken, Cian McSweeney, Monica Fitzgerald, Brian Flanagan, Frank Naughton, Robb Murphy, Declan & Noel O'Farrell, Schira & Mimi Lane, Megan Walsh, and a very special guest singer, Lily-Mae's father, Leighton Morrison.

We really need your help and support to make this a success; we need you to be Lily-Mae's champion; to help us make all this noise; to make Neuroblastoma a cancer that people don't have to google; to make it so that people know that they need to target their giving to support research into a disease that is incredibly effective at killing those with the most life to lose, our children.

Watch the video of Tiny Dancer by the Song for Lily-Mae initiative on YouTube.

Buy the song on iTunes to support this cause

To find out more, please go to www.facebook.com/asongforlilymae or contact the producer of the project, Stephen Macken, at asongforlilymae@gmail.com.

Thank you for taking the time to read this message.