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Interview with Cynthia Fridsma,
webmaster of www.heathernova.us
By Gerard Reniers on July 3, 2003.
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Cynthia lives in a condominium in Amsterdam North, which
was not to be expected because her site is dedicated to
the United States. The view from the 17th floor is very
impressing and I love the scenery, as you can see on
the picture. The sunsets are great to see from the balcony
or the front windows of her place.

Cynthia has a big dark brown coloured desk in
her living WHICH is also her “Gateway” to the Internet.

Cynthia explains:
“Most of the time, especially nowadays with Heather’s tour to Europe,
I sit here behind my desk and communicate with the rest of the world
via my Internet server. The server itself is always on air and that’s
why I call it a ‘Gateway to the Internet’”

Gerard
“Why is your server always on air?”

Cynthia looks at me, smiles for a second and then said: “The server is
always on air because I also provide free access to third parties for their
own homepages on the net.”

Gerard
“Third parties?”

Cynthia
“I will explain it a little bit: some people actually run a small homepage
via my web server. In the past I offered free space via
www.refrisoftware.com but nowadays I don’t do that anymore.
First off all : the server is to slow to run all those sites
and second reason is that there was not much of a respond. The server is
now only on air for my business site and for the few
third parties that use the free homepage because I didn’t cancel
their account on my server. That’s why its always on air.”

Gerard
“That explains why, but this HAS nothing to do with Heather, does it?”

Cynthia
“No it HAS NOT, the server for the site is located in the UK and I
started the Nova site in the year 2001 because of a dream in which
I saw Heather reach out to the air with eyes that cries for some help.
When I woke up, I realised that I had to do something in return for
Heather and that I have to support her on the only way that
I can think off, to start the Nova site.”

Gerard
“Can you tell me something more about your dream?”

Cynthia
“Sure I can, but there is not much to tell. In the dream I looked down
to her and I saw her reaching out to the sky with a face full of
hope and just like she was asking for help.”

Gerard
“That’s all?” I was a bit surprised because I thought that Cynthia would
tell me a juicy story about the dream.

Cynthia
“Yes. Nothing more, nothing less. I just saw her in a
flash of perhaps one minute, I think. I nearly woke up right away after the flash.”

Gerard
“I understand, but just a while ago you also mentioned that you had
to do something in return for Heather and that you had to support her.
Can you tell me more about this. Why did you had to do something in return?”

Cynthia
“That’s not too hard to explain. In 1997 my first friend, Hielke, committed suicide and I felt like I was dying with him. During that dark period off my life I hardly felt that I was alive actually. I used to listen to Heather’s music. "Glowstar" and the "Oyster" album and her songs comforted me and helped me through that tough period of my life TOGETHER with some
help of my family and my mother who stayed for two weeks in my apartment.”

Gerard
“Now I get the picture and because off the dream you wanted to do her a favor.”

Cynthia nods her hand and smiled for a while.

Gerard
“And that was in 2001”

Cynthia
“Indeed it was. I first did a small research on the net, found some nice sites but I thought that it would be nice to combine them together and create a big site with all the links
joined together as an huge database. I send an email about this to Several webmasters asking them if I could use some pictures. Heinz Lamers, webmaster at www.line1.de, told me that it was okay. I also send an email to Massimo from www.heathernova.org to use some contents of their site.He gave me permission but he also wondered why I should start a site. His comment was that there were already so many sites about Heather, which he found beautiful, but they were just copying the contents of each other. There was nothing new to it.
I agreed with him and that’s when the HN project was born.”

Gerard
“The HN Project?”

Cynthia
“Yes, the HN project. A Heather Nova project to promote her and to set up an online community which no one had ever seen before and that was international orientated in various languages and in co-operation with different webmasters. So I send out an email
to various sites, first to webmasters and later to sites like women.com, rollingstone.com, slant magazine etc.”

Gerard
“Did you get any reactions?”

Cynthia
“From third parties, no. From webmasters, just one. It came from Moonkara and she wanted to co-operate with me but there was not a real plan and I haven’t heard from her since.”

Gerard
“What went wrong?”

Cynthia
“I don’t know. I posted a few articles on the mailing list from www.heathernova.org as well but then I received them undelivered back to my own email address. I had the feeling that the project became a ‘threat’ to them and I didn’t understood why. I send out various messages to them but zero replies.”

Gerard
“I heard about that”

Cynthia
“Yes, I know and I feel a shame about it. It all was a mistake and I wish that I didn’t send out messages about it to various people, including poor Heather because I was to frustrated at that time. In 2002,a day after the Crossing Border festival Massimo explained it to me that the mailing list didn’t work because there where some problems of technological nature. Later I offered my apologies to him by email and explained it on the HN site To the rest of the world. Massimo accepted my apologies and I was very relieved and had
a smile on my face after his email.”

Gerard
“But now you changed the look and feel from your Heather Nova site
again and you even registered a .UK name as well .”

Cynthia
“Yes I did. I started with the US site and won a Golden Web award 2002/2003. But than again, I decided to give it a more professional look and feel so that it would be easier to support Heather. I registered the UK domain earlier this year because I found out that the UK domain became available.”

Gerard
“What are your future plans and how do you think that you can promote Heather and most off all: why do you think that you can do it better than her management?”

Cynthia
“I think that I know enough about web promotion to be successful. I also think that I have the skills to support her all the way. I don’t ask anything in return. I am not on Heather’s pay-list and I do it in my spare time. I know that lot’s off fans in the US wants to see Heather on stage and I know that Heather wants it but I also know that she doesn’t have the resources to do so. Heather’s is not a very rich lady and not ‘well known’ in the States. I hope that this will change in the future so that she can tour easy when she wants and where she wants, even in the states and if the nova site at www.heathernova.us can help, than
it would be great!”