Sunday, October 16, 2005

Creative Friends!

I'm pretty busy these days with teaching, planning lessons, grading papers, going to graduate school and doing my homework, but when I get a spare moment, I write poems and stories. (Bizarrely enough, you can even buy newspaper articles I wrote for the Business Record at Amazon.com!) Well, the cool thing is, many of my friends and acquaintances are creative, too! Here are some of their recent accomplishments that you should check out:

Valerie Lee Joplin, one of my very, very best friends, has a lovely blog, Sleeping Late in Seattle and two bands. Despite the fact that she is my best friend, I don't know the names of her bands. Perhaps if she visits this site (as she claims she does) she will leave a comment telling me the band names.

You can see the work of Anthony Lee Richardson and his wife Valerie Lee Joplin at Tony's web site, ALR Studio. (Thanks for reminding me, Vali!)

My former Suitemate Rachael Bossow recently joined the Leavenworth Times as a reporter/photographer. She's an amazing writer, so you should check out that fine publication.

Blake Wilner, a hip Aussie jazz musician I met in NYC in 1999, is living and performing in London. He creates great contemporary jazz with an old-school feel. His latest album, The Reprieve, has been getting positive reviews from Jazz web sites and publications, and he'll be in New York from Nov. 28 to Jan. 4. If you get a chance, go see him perform or buy his music, which is available on his web site or at CD Baby. The folks at CD Baby provide hilarious customer service! Place an order with them and you'll see what I mean.

Stacy Carolan was my college-boyfriend's roomie. We were the best of friends. We were the worst of friends. We acted and sang and climbed trees together. We fought. We made up. Now he and his a cappella group, FourShadow, make brilliant music. They've even been featured on the Today show. Their new album, Four, has been getting good press. From now until Oct. 31, a portion of any of their CDs you buy online will go towards hurricane relief. So go and buy some top-quality a cappella!

Drew Melbourne is...no, was a fellow Teaching Fellow. He is hilarious. His web site includes strange videos and pictures, as well as his whip-smart writing. It's mostly about his comic book, ArchEnemies, which hits the stands April 5th. (ArchEnemies is the story of a superhero and his nemesis who don't realize they are roomates.) You can also read about how and why he left the Teaching Fellows in his Scriptic Studios column, "You can also Quit Your Day Job."

Micah Chaplin and I sort of ran in the same circles at Buena Vista University, and she has written two romance novels called “You’ll Never Know” and “A Promise Worth Breaking.” Give them a try next time you need a good lovey-dovey book.

Support the friends of the Shepherd's Daughter! P.S. If you are a friend of mine and happen to find your way to this site and have an artistic endeavor I don't know about, let me know and I'll post the information.

4 comments:

janXjoplin said...

You're looking slim and lovely. I apologize for my lack of commenting, but I'm here now! I'm actually only in one band now, but I did have a letter published by Savage Love. (Yessss!) It was a web extra so you have to go to villagevoice.com to see it. My letter was a response to SASA, I signed with my pen name initials. See if you can guess which one!

Miss you gorgeous...your blog is way better than mine.

Anonymous said...

Whatever! Your blog is funny, has pretty pictures and has many people who respond to your posts! Any suggestions to improve my site?

What is the name of your one band? Congrats on the Savage Love letter. It was well-written, and made a good, though sad, point.

Thanks for the lovely complements, and I miss you, too.

janXjoplin said...

ahhh, yes the band...we're called Nada, although since 3 out of four us are somewhat anti-social I suggested we call ourselves anti-social and stick the drummer out front.

Your blog is great...I have comments because I hounded my family into commenting for the first two months. If you look closely the only regular commenters after Sept. are you mom, and milf (a friend from Iowa).

Try posting intriguing things on famous blogs. I reccommend Mimi In New York for you. (miminewyork.blogspot.com)

PS You forgot T's lovely creativity at alrstudio.com

Anonymous said...

Erin you forgot the two girls from back home :-P