CAROLYN’S BIO

Welcome to Carolyn’s Online Magazine (COMe and its predecessor, CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS.

My name is Carolyn Cornell Holland. I live in a small Southwestern Pennsylvania community where the letters of its name, Laurel Mountain Borough, are almost as plentiful as its population count!

In my current life, I’m a writographer—writer/photographer. Although I began writing at Kensington High School in Buffalo, New York (as my press card attests to: ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3802227961/), my writing was only an ancillary and supporting aspect of my “real” work (medical lab technician, human service worker—adoption, domestic violence), craft business, and family day care proprietor.

My photography began when I was a teenager and evolved into having a trigger-finger on the camera’s snap button.

Currently my writography focuses on a historical romance novel based on real-life characters unearthed through genealogical research. Its settings include Revolutionary France; Alexandria, Virginia; British Guiana, and the New England coast—particularly, Lamoine, Maine. Its time frame is 1785-1845. The historical background involves the Scioto (Ohio) Land Grant, a sub-grant of the Ohio Land Grant, and land grants in Maine. Posts relating to this work-in-progress are located at www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com in the category HISTORIC NOVEL. Additional posts concerning this article are in the categories 1790s BACKGROUND, 2008 NEW ENGLAND, and NEW ENGLAND. In the spring of 2010 I created a blog specifically related to the novel: www.intertwinedlove.wordpress.com, which contains posts pertinent to the novel background, the novel characters, and the novel writing.

My paid writing credits extend back to 1990. I’ve been a freelance photojournalist at the Greenville Record-Argus; the Meadville Tribune; the Greensburg Tribune-Review (the Fay-West, Ligonier-Latrobe and Focus Magazine sections); the Ligonier Echo and the Latrobe Bulletin. At this time, because of the novel, this aspect of my writing is on the so-called back-burner.

The September 2014 issue of the Westmoreland County Historical Society magazine published my article on “Flight of Valor”, Flight 93 and Westmoreland County.

I am published in the Westmoreland County Historical Society magazine; Penned from the Heart, Vols. 9 & 10; Entourage; Farm Show; the Lincoln Highway Journal; Devo’zine; the Loyalhanna Review, and Virtue Magazine.

During my first year of working with blogs I managed the former Beanery Writers Group site. The site was sold, and its new owner changed it so drastically that I felt it could no longer meet the needs for the Beanery Online Literary Magazine. However, that site ended its first year with 48,000 hits. An additional 7,000 hits was accrued at my personal writing site with the same host.

 

It took time to reestablish these two sites, CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS & the Beanery Online Literary Magazine ( http://www.beanerywriters.wordpress.com/ ), with the new host,  WordPress.com., but again, readership again grew steadily and strongly.

By January 2015 CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS was about to outgrow the WordPress space limitation. Thus, it moved to a new WordPress site, Carolyn’s Online Magazine (COMe).

The posts on this site are primarily written by me. Recently I acquired permission from enough siblings that I can post my late mother’s writings on my site, in the category NANCY Briskay Cornell Lipsius. My husband has also contributed posts. 

I invite visitors to comment on the posts on both sites, and to submit writing to the Beanery Online Literary Magazine (through email to beanerywriters@yahoo.com with “SUBMISSIONS” in the subject line). Email for Carolyn’s Compositions can be sent to cchcreations@yahoo.com .

Photo illustrations for my current posts are in the articles themseves, and in earlier posts are located at http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland .