The Creative Goods

Revolutionary Road – Quick Review

Holly — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:36:17 +0000

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Beautiful, heartbreaking and stunning right to the last page. Filled with amazing descriptions, truths, and painfully tragic characters. My only beef was that it was seriously depressing (hence the four stars instead of five).

View all my reviews.

Broad Street by Christine Weiser

Holly — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:59:46 +0000

Broad Street by Christine Weiser

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was so much fun to read. Weiser creates this fabulous world of chick rockers, booze, men with a skillfully written dose of uncertainty, wit and truth.

View all my reviews.

Philadelphia Stories Spring Issue

Holly — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:31:54 +0000

Check it out! www.philadelphiastories.org

Happy reading!

Spring Note Cards

Holly — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:13:41 +0000

Spring is finally here and I decided to make a few little note cards to send to family and friends. Stamps, glitter, markers and colored pencils. Doesn’t get easier than that.

Happy Spring!

Joe’s cd project

Holly — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:30:50 +0000

In our tiny little apartment, my husband had tried to shove about a thousand or more cds in closets, under the desk, on top of the desk, on shelves. Music is his life. He eats, sleeps and breathes it. After three years of searching for random cds we thought had gone to the junkyard with Joe’s old car (“didn’t we have a bootleg of that concert…”), Joe finally purchased several second-hand IKEA cd towers. While they’re a little crowded in our family room, they do the trick. He alphabetized and categorized and now all we have to do is go to the shelves and pluck whatever tickles our musical fancy.

Boo supervised.

The finished product.

Cheers to Joe and Boo.

Sweet and cozy…

Holly — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:22:06 +0000

So many of my friends are either parents or parents-to-be and I love seeing what they do to the nursery. My friend Mary (since 7th grade!) created this beautiful nursery for her first child, James Lee, with the help of her handy husband, Mike. Check out their blog at: http://michaelmaryandjames.blogspot.com. I love the giant wall sticker!

Cheers to the Kerwins!

A must-read!

Holly — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 19:20:25 +0000

JC Miller’s story, The Strangers, has been published by Thieves Jargon. Believe me, you’ll be sucked right in from the first sentence.

http://www.thievesjargon.com/workview.php?work=1324

Happy reading!

Handmade Calendar Notebooks

Holly — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:39:48 +0000

Inspired by a Martha craft I saw a while ago, my ever-increasing need to re-use and recycle, and my recent lack of work (and lack of money to buy an actual dayplanner), I decided to make a calendar notebook out of the leftover blank calendar sheets from my outdated dayplanner. I used the blank side of sheets of printed paper, cardstock and decorative paper. For instructions, click here. I modified by using calendar sheets. You can even print a calendar from a website or create on through iCal (if you have a MAC) or through Word (if you have a PC – I’m sure there are other calendar features, I’m just not sure of what they are!)

Happy crafting!

Please vote!

Holly — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:52:11 +0000

Fellow Rosemonster MFA, Sarah Rose, has had her story, The Koala Tide, published online by Bartleby Snopes. She is currently in the running for February’s Story of the Month and if she wins, her story will be published in the magazine version. So, please take a few seconds out and vote for her!

http://www.bartlebysnopes.com/stories.htm

Cheers to Sarah!

Where to begin?

Holly — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:58:24 +0000

Because my writing has been on a serious hiatus, and now that I’m ready to delve back in with full force, I have no idea where to begin. I’m taking a workshop in Philadelphia with Aimee LaBrie (award-winning author of Wonderful Girl) and I’m so overwhelmed with assignments, writing prompts, reading suggestions and, alas, submitting my own work. The first session went extremely well and the group is comprised of 12 writers with vastly different backgrounds. I was surprised at how my workshop know-how kicked right in and I left feeling exhilarated and ready to pound out thousands of words this week.

I’ve begun by flipping through old notebooks from grad school, re-reading some of my old work and making marginal notes and studying those go-to short stories that I’ve read a million times. It feels good, and now that I have all this time on my hands, I’m hoping this time, I won’t let such a long stretch of time go by without a single word written. All those stories and ideas up in my head have to find a home at some point, right?

Here’s to ass in chair, losing track of the hours, a sore neck and the tap-tap-tapping of my keyboard.

Cheers.