Bold One-Woman Business Idea

A photographer I know, Artie Dixon, is offering her beautiful second home in the North Carolina mountains for week-long vacations for girlfriends--with tour guide to the sites of the area. So no maps, planning, or GPS is required.

The art-filled 1939 house in Little Switzerland is called Sky Blue, and its stone patio opens onto wide mountain vistas.

Three upcoming weeks have themes: Mountain Crafts, Greek Cooking (Artie's maiden name was Markatos), and Learning Photography. The area also has much to see and do: Penland School of Crafts, riding, hiking, waterfalls, the very groovy town of Asheville, Blue Ridge Parkway, the nearby mountain village.

The house is available for conventional rentals. But planned themed weeks with guide is a new twist. I like the idea and the enterprise involved.

It reminds me of my businessman father who turned his own outgrown tuxedos into a formal wear rental business that eventually wholesaled throughout the Southeast.

The questions to ask oneself in order to do something similar are:

*what do I have?
*what do I know?
*what can I offer?
*what do I have to offer that others need?

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Win a Sister India and Turn Up the Music

...by supporting the Brussels Chamber Orchestra's visit to North Carolina this summer.

This is one bold project that is being launched from the office next to mine.

First an intro: The BCO is a group of 12 remarkable twenty-something musicians from 6 countries, based in Brussels, Belgium. Playing without a conductor, they are a marvel to watch as well as to listen to. Their first concert during the upcoming Raleigh visit will be on July 2 at Burning Coal Theatre, when they'll perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons

The group gets around; they have toured in Japan, Mexico, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc., and played for royals. Next week they're on in Venice.

Here's the NC connection: my office partner, writer-and-artist Carrie Knowles is the mother of BCO violist Neil Leiter. She raised the money last year for the group's first performance in Raleigh (they were originally coming to this country for the first time to perform in a festival in the Hamptons.) In North Carolina, their concerts were well-attended and well-reviewed.

Carrie is turning the Raleigh event into an international music festival called Cross Currents And she's doing it, slowly but successfully, during this on-the-way-out recession.

To encourage this valuable, large, and bold undertaking, I will send an inscribed (to whomever you wish) copy of my novel Sister India to the first person and the 20th person to send a check of any size to support this project. Make it out to Friends of Brussels Chamber Orchestra. And send it to: Carrie Knowles, Brussels Chamber Orchestra, 410 Morson St., Raleigh, NC 27601. Contributions are tax-deductible

Many thanks!






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