Trumpet Fiction: Jill Vegas, Jenny Hollowell, and Jonathan Smit

Jill Vegas
When Jill and her husband sold their New York City Apartment, she wasn’t thinking about starting a new career. But the property sold for way more than they thought possible — all because of how she had styled it. The broker told her she should think about making over homes as a career.The broker wanted Jill’s help with another apartment. When it sold in a day for over the asking price, the calls started coming in. That’s how the whole business started in 2004. Jill infuses the real estate industry with a glittery sense of style. Her sense of humor, practical ideas, and outstanding service is exactly what stressed-out home owners crave to give their property the edge. Jill has worked on award-winning advertising,marketing and brand campaigns for clients such as Target, Macy’s andEstée Lauder. Her work has been featured on NBC’s Open House NY, Oprah, HGTV, Fine Living, New York Daily News, National Public Radio, New York Post, the Real Deal, Forbes.com, Talk of the Town in the The New Yorker, and New York Times. She writes a monthly staging column in the ResidentialMann Report. Jill has staged over $175M in real estate, with many of the properties selling for more money. In 2008 The Mann Foundation is honoring Jill with the New York City Residential Real Estate Award in Staging. Stay tuned for Jill’s upcoming book, Speed Decorating, which is loaded with ideas on how everyone can transform their home, fast.

Jenny Hollowell
Jenny Hollowell has worked in film production and advertising for ten years. Her fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Scheherezade, and was recently anthologized in New Sudden Fiction: Short-Short Stories from America and Beyond. One of her stories was a Distinguished Story in Best American Short Stories 2005. She received an MFA from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns fellow in Fiction and recipient ofthe Balch Short Story Award. She lives in Brooklyn.

Jonathan Smit
Jonathan Smit splits his time between Brooklyn, New York and Austin,Texas. He has also lived in San Francisco and, of the three cities,believes the coffee is by far better in San Francisco. He hung out with The Wooster Group in the mid-eighties, which led him to acting, which led himto playwriting, which led him to fiction writing. He reads his works inprogress frequently at the Naked Angels reading series Tuesdays@nine. He has written two full-length plays and has two more in the pipeline. He is also currently working on a collection of short stories.

Trumpet Fiction is ducts’ live reading series held the second Saturday of the month in New York City hosted by our Editor-in-Chief, Jonathan Kravetz.