Writer and former flight attendant Hollis Gillespie is a syndicated columnist and top-selling author. Her column “Moodswing” appears in the alternative weekly Creative Loafing ( WEBSITE ). She is the travel columnist at Paste Magazine and writes a humorous financial column for BeE WOMAN magazine.
Hollis has appeared on the cover of numerous publications including Atlanta magazine, Creative Loafing and Tampa’s Weekly Planet. She has been profiled in Marie Claire, Bust, Writer’s Digest and Entertainment Weekly.
Her television appearances include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, TBS Storyline, Monica Kaufman’s Closeups, Good Day Atlanta, and an upcoming appearance on TV Land. Her radio commentaries appear regularly on National Public Radio (NPR) and Georgia Public Broadcasting.
In 2004, Writer’s Digest named Hollis Gillespie a “Breakout Author of the Year.” Other accolades include “Best Columnist” (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007) and “Best Local Author” (2004, 2005, 2006) honors in the Creative Loafing Best of Atlanta Readers Survey. Atlanta magazine awarded her “Best ‘Tell-All’” in 2006.
The film rights to her first book, Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood, are currently under option with a major Hollywood studio.
HERE WE GO…….
Clint: Good Morning Hollis, thanks for doing our little interview how are you today?
Hollis: Today I have a bad case of hammertoe.
Clint: So your third book “Trailer Trashed” is coming out can you give us a little insight on the details? Is it a collection of stories like your last 2 books, do the stories focus around any certain theme?
Hollis: Yes, the theme is my dubious attempts at upward mobility. There are some setabacks, some set-forwards, people fall in and out of love, I think I save the world, and in the end we land a film deal. Plus there is a monkey and a missile scientist. And that’s not even mentioning the ax killer.
Clint: So there is a big book launching shin dig at Paris on Ponce, wanna tell us about that, and also if we can’t make it there where we can find you signing books around town?
Hollis: The launch party, on August 5 at Paris on Ponce from 7–10, is going to be a major throw down. KingSized ( WEBSITE ) is playing, plus Daniel ( WEBSITE ), Grant ( ARTICLE ) ( WEBSITE ) and Lary are threatening to make an appearance, and you know that can only mean trouble, especially if there is free alcohol involved, not to mention pig feet. For more info on the launch party and other signings, you can go to MY CALENDAR
Clint: Deep down in your Heart of Hearts ( def ), does it still sting a little bit when Grant calls you a Bitch? Is that why his artwork is not the cover of your third book like it was on the first two?
Hollis: HELL no. “Bitch” is a compliment. I call him “He-Bitch.” He could have done the artwork on the third book if he wanted, but Sister Louisa is about to launch her own book. We can’t have competing covers.
Clint: You and Grant do a course called Hollis Gillespie’s Shocking Real-Life Writing Academy, will you tell us about that and how to enroll. Honestly in my head its just hours of watching you two bicker with Grant in the background heckling, but there seem to be lots of success stories on your website so what should we expect if we sign up?
Hollis: I host the “Shocking Real-Life Memoir Publishing Seminar,” which is devoted to helping people publish their memoirs. It’s a ton of fun, and I promise there is a lot of inappropriate conversation, but make no mistake that this is a serious course that gets serious results. The point is to land book deals, not to sit around and bloviate about how hard it is to get published. If you’re serious about getting published, go to My WEBSITE
Clint: What’s next for Hollis? Are you already on your forth book? Can you give us an update on the fabulous LA projects that we hear hints about here and there in your writings? Do you believe in the Secret and if so what is up on your dream wall? What are you putting out in the universe and claiming?
Hollis: Now that the writer’s strike is resolved, the TV project is back on track. I can’t wait for the day Grant goes in to audition to play himself and he gets TURNED DOWN FOR THE PART. Hahaha.
Clint: I am sure there is something you would like to say that i didn’t ask, If we had been in a recorded interview you would probably be asking me the questions by now, so shoot!
Hollis: Contrary to popular rumor, I was never a teenage prostitute to the stars.
1.
This phrase is used by southerners to describe a deep down feeling that may be masked or covered up by emotional walls.
Sen.
Darling I know that on the outside I’m a tough rugged man, but when “I Will Always Love You†by Dolly Parton comes on the radio I feel it in my Heart Of Hearts.
“I Wanna go Dancin!†I have found that I say this quite often, and what I mean by this is I want to go to MJQ ( WEBSITE ) or where ever DJ Brian Paris is spinning. This particular evening I was on the phone with Ansleyonce ( Ansley Whipple )(her nick name because of her undying love for Beyonce) when I said it. And to my surprise she was up for it. So we got together around 11:00 and went to MJQ. Well… instead of the usual $5 cover it was $15 because it was Sloppy Seconds ( ARTICLE ), which I’m sure is a fun party, but a little too pretentious for me an Ans on a “I Wanna go Dancing†night. By the way, spending $400 and countless hours looking for the perfect limited edition Nike hightop to go with your limited edition zip up hoodie makes you just as pretentious as the woman you sneer at who buys Manolos to go with her cocktail dress.
Anywho… luckily Jordan, the lead singer of Snowden ( WEBSITE ), was hanging outside MJQ in front of the Bodega Nights Kissatlanta Ice Cream Truck ( ARTICLE ).
Me and Ans told him that they should sell tacos or hotdogs instead of ice cream but Jordan said they didn’t have the permit (secretly in my head I thought this would make a great Snowden song ‘I wanna give you my hotdog but I don’t have the permit’)….
Pictures of Snowden ( HERE ) in Concert at the Earl ( WEBSITE ) :
So Jordan had made a batch of sangria, which he was going to take to the drive-in, but nobody responded to his Myspace post. And he invited us to The Mayor of Ponce’s ( MYSPACE ) ( ARTICLES ) house for a birthday party.
So we drove Jordan’s Sangria over to the Mayor’s house. Jordan’s Sangria taste’s super yummy, it reminded me of when you were a kid and ate Kool-Aid powder straight from the bag.
We left the Mayor’s party shortly after arriving to go hang out with the Summer Scouts ( members include the blogger for Pecanne Log ) at their headquarters and sing Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson at the top of our lungs for no apparent reason.
I didn’t get to dance, but we had a blast anyway.
Brooke is coming play at the 5 Spot ( WEBSITE ) on August 12th. See you there, I’m expecting a crowd of hipster Christians from 722 ( WEBSITE )… Here is the youtube video for her single Shadowfeet….
Pecan Pie Couture’s ( WEBSITE ) Spring 2009 line LEGENDARY is inspired by the lengends and folklore of the deep south. Here is the LEGEND of Lorenzo Dow’s Curse on the town of Jacksonborough.
When I was a child I remember touring the Dell-Goodall House and hearing the LEGEND of how it remained standing after Lorenzo Dow’s Curse. Once a Year the DAR puts on a festival at the house in which a tour is offered and people dress in period garments. The story here is taken from a couple of different websites that recount the tale. The Moonlit Road ( WEBSITE ) & This ( WEBSITE )
The story of the “curse” of Lorenzo Dow on the citizens of Jacksonboro, Georgia is one of the state’s most enduring legends. Odds are that the town was destroyed by earthly causes, and not the curse of a traveling preacher. But this story is not the only wild legend that has grown from the life of Lorenzo Dow.
Around 1820, an evangelist named Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834) came to Jacksonborough, and his overnight visit there has grown into one of Georgia’s most enduring legends. Born in Coventry, Connecticut, he felt the call to preach at the age of 18. Dow was an eccentric character in look and chosen method of evangalism. The tall, slightly humpbacked, preacher had long hair and a beard. Early in his ministry, he walked from town to town passing out handbills in the day and preaching that night, usually staying no more than a night or two in a single town. He referred to himself as “Crazy Dow,” and records in his own writings that he was often an object of scorn and abuse in the towns he traveled to. By the early 1800’s however, Dow gained a reputation as one of the country’s leading evangelists. He preached to the Georgia General Assembly in the then capital of Louisville and to a gathering of five thousand elsewhere in Georgia. In Jacksonborough, the town’s reception was not so inviting.
At that time, Jacksonborough was a rough place known for the hard drinking and fighting of many of its residents. The oft repeated saying from George White’s 1849 book Statistics of the State of Georgia was, “The place had formerly a very bad character. It was reported, that in the mornings after drunken frolics and fights, you could see children picking up eyeballs in tea saucers.”
Dow’s fire and brimstone sermon at the Methodist Church that night was interrupted by a group that had gathered to harass the evangelist. The service was broken up by the group of “rowdies.” Undaunted, Dow followed the group that harassed him as they went into a whiskey store. He was covered with the stink of rotten eggs, but unbowed. Tradition has it that the fiery preacher snatched up an iron tool and broke open a barrel of whiskey, dumping its contents across the floor. The crowd would have seriously injured or killed Dow if fellow Methodist and Mason Seaborn Goodall had not rescued him, taking Dow home for the night.
The crowd was not appeased and a mob gathered at the Goodall home the following day with a supply of eggs and tomatoes. Dow walked out of town under a barrage of fruit and eggs, stopping at the Beaver Dam Creek Bridge. Dow quite literally shook the dust of Jacksonborough off his feet as the disciples of Jesus were instructed to do in the New Testament. As he did so he cursed all of Jacksonborough save the Goodall home.
The good people of the town relocated the town and renamed the town Sylvania (which is my home town) it is said that they crossed two bodies of water to resettle as evil can not cross water and they wanted to make sure to leave the evil ways of Jacksonborough behind them.
Thirty years later, all that was left of Jacksonborough was the Goodall’s home and the story of the curse. The Goodall home had fallen into disrepair by the mid-1960s when the Brier Creek Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution took possession of the house. The group raised $40,000 and renovated the house. Today the old Goodall home still stands in good repair along an otherwise abandoned dirt road while all other signs of the once bustling town are long gone.
In a world where Dallas Austin ( WEBSITE ) starts up a clothing line that is a muddy composition of two or three hip hop styles (can you mix kanye preppy with the oversized white thug shirt?) Rowdy ( WEBSITE ), and then asks Paris Hilton and Sean Combs to pose for a photo, its hard to know whether fashion can come from “the Streets†or if “the Streets†even exist any more.
Thank God for Chilly-O ( WEBSITE ). Its so refreshing to see a brand rise up from actual graphic talent and an understanding of brand placement, than one trickle down from musical talent, or worse yet a hip hop moguls girlfriend or footballer wife. Kimora Lee Simmons ( WEBSITE ) makes me a little sick in my mouth. Unfortunately when people should be looking to fashion talent like Chilly-O to fill in and inform what the hip hop community and street styles are and should be, we will instead be watching Bravo’s new Real Housewives of Atlanta and listening to how Sheree Whitfield ex-wife of retired Atlanta Falcons player Bob Whitfield, is starting her own clothing line “She by Sheree”. This is after a failed attempt by Sheree to run a boutique called Bela Azul (which incidentally was beside one of the best coffee places in town Octane ( WEBSITE ) ).
Chilly-O designs are upfront and in your face, but are uplifting. No skulls and crosses. No guns. Not cocky, Just Confident! Thanks Chilly-O you have renewed my faith in the abundance of real talent and inspiration to be found in the streets.
Bio from Website:
WTF is Chilly-O?
Chilly-O, Inc. was initially born as a legal means for generating wealth and other opportunities by raising the standard. Generating wealth (not riches) can be a difficult task in the heart of low socio-economic communities due to lack of financial awareness, supporting institutions, economic and political force. The challenges faced are difficult, and striving to create a 360 degree wealthy way of thinking was something we wanted to convey not only to our friends and family but to the streets in general as well.
Since then. . .
Our tenure has spoken for itself giving us major respect and support from the streets, even in the face of adversity. We’ve maintained a fashion forward label and lifestyle that has made a solid impact on a community known for its avant-garde attitudes about art, fashion, and music. Our clothing represents creative forms of expression and the integrity needed to sustain in the ever-evolving world of fashion. Above all we’ve remained true to our promise: to Keep It Exclusive.
The people made our brand.
Bona-fide personal style doesn’t begin with a cutting-edge magazine or mainstream music video. It begins in the streets and wears the voice of its dwellers. In the beginning we only sold product to people who we wanted to wear it; people with a complete understanding of the term “individual”. At one point the only way you could get Chilly-O was through us. We chose not to saturate various markets by staying true to the heart of ingenuity and the people that dig it. This selective process carried us through the critical period that most new businesses are expected to fail. The people made our brand what it is today, which is why we are proud to call ourselves an authentic label, lifestyle and brand.
So my friend Donna called up her bank and they told her she was dead. She got it worked out, but it reminded me of a song by one of my favorite singers Nellie McKay ( WEBSITE ) called Identity Theft .
Any who…. I was looking up Nellie on the nifty internet to see what she had been up to, and found out she had done a segment for TED conference 2008 ( TED WEBSITE ). Here is a great little dity about feminism called Mother of Pearl. We love TED and Nellie, but… Nobody Can Be Donna But Donna!
