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.

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 Girl Out of the Country! 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.