On Becoming a Writer

QUICKIE Q&A: KAREN DISNER/JUNE GARDENS/BYE BYE, PIE

May 16, 2012 By Jo Maeder 2 Comments

June Gardens

In the past, I wasn’t much of a blog reader. Like plankton, I drifted in the internet tide, momentarily attaching myself to a social media site then floating wherever Google took me. One day my friend Kit Rodenbough asked me if I read the blog Bye Bye, Pie! “It’s written by a woman in Greensboro,” she said. (That’s in North Carolina. Where I reside.) “Her blog name is June Gardens, but everything is true and she puts her photo up, so isn’t like she’s someone else. She has millions of readers and often gets over a hundred comments a day. I’m hooked.” Millions? Over a hundred comments a day? To put this into perspective, I only received 80 comments when an essay I wrote was on the freakin’ home page of AOL. (Would it be tacky to link to it here? … let me think about that.) And my blog? Maybe five responses have not been spam.

Filed Under: Advice, Author interview, Entertaiining, Pets, Quickie Q&A Tagged With: blogging success stories, Bye Bye Buy!, Bye Bye Pie!, divorce, internet dating, June Gardens, Karen Disner, Smashbox

QUICKIE Q&A: RANDY POE

March 1, 2012 By Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

Randy Poe is a Grammy-nominated record producer who has also produced, compiled, and/or written the liner notes for more than 100 albums. He’s won many awards and authored Squeeze My Lemon: A Collection of Classic Blues Lyrics and Skydog: The Duane Allman Story. Since 1985, he’s been president of the highly successful Leiber and Stoller Music Publishing. Prior to that he was executive director of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. But how he got there is what his latest book Stalking the Red Headed Stranger is about – as well as what came after his first job as a music business executive. Subtitled: Or how to get your songs into the hands of the artists who really matter through show business trickery, underhanded skullduggery, shrewdness, and chicanery as well as various less nefarious methods of song plugging. A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK AND HISTORICAL PORTRAIT.

Filed Under: Author interview, Quickie Q&A Tagged With: creating luck, Leiber and Stoller, Randy Poe, Stalking the Red Headed Stranger, Willie Nelson

QUICKIE Q&A: ELEANOR BROWN

February 24, 2012 By Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

I recently had the pleasure of hearing the vivacious Eleanor Brown speak to her Triad-based fans courtesy of the Bookmarks Book Festival (FYI: They have great literary events year-round, not just when the fest happens in September).

Her present tour to support the paperback release of her bestselling debut novel The Weird Sisters rivals that of a rock star. For anything you could possibly want to know about this delightful, absorbing book go to this page on her site: Author Q&A

I was able to catch up with her for a few breathless minutes to ask her about life after publication.

Filed Under: Author interview, Quickie Q&A Tagged With: Bookmarks Book Festival, e-readers, Eleanor Brown, fear of flying, The Weird Sisters

SURPRISE!

February 22, 2012 By Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

If you’ve ever been invited to a surprise party you know the stress of having to get there by a certain time. If you’ve ever hosted a surprise party you’ve done plenty of nail-biting worrying if guests will arrive before the guest of honor and keep their mouths shut. Plus there’s the danger the ruse to get the person to the party will backfire. Like: “But I don’t want to go out. I want to stay in!” Recently I attended a surprise birthday breakfast at the birthday girl’s home. It was a smashing success. The more I think about it, the more brilliant it strikes me. This concept needs to spread.

Filed Under: Advice, Entertaiining, Essay, Event, Personal Essay

FADED PHOTOGRAPHS

January 15, 2012 By Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

In going through another purge/organization of my home, I found this photo. I have no idea who this woman is. I do know the photo was taken in Kansas City, Missouri, around 1900. I’ve seen her face in a few other pictures but there’s nothing written on the back to identify her. Look at that hat! She would have fit right in at the Royal Wedding.

I’m lamenting the limitations of the digital age. How much of a description can you put in a file name? What happens when technology changes and you can’t access old photos anymore? They’re gone.

Filed Under: Essay, Personal Essay, Uncategorized

MY FUR CHILD

January 8, 2012 By Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

I’m in the midst of working on a new book and won’t be blogging much for awhile. Here’s the photo I see every time I turn on my computer: my beloved, darling Tucker. We found each other in December 2006 at the Guilford County (NC) Animal Shelter. Sometimes when he meows he sounds like a pigeon and when he snores it’s like an elf wheezing. He rarely conks out on my keyboard but when he does I know it’s time to take a break.

Filed Under: Pets, Uncategorized

HOLIDAY REMINISCENCES AND REGRETS

December 6, 2011 By Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

Mama Jo-1940s

An adapted excerpt from the chapter “Watching a Photograph Slowly Fade” from When I Married My Mother

“Are we putting up a Christmas tree this year?” Mama Jo asked when our third Thanksgiving as roommates rolled around.

I groaned and was sorry I did.

Filed Under: Personal Essay, Uncategorized Tagged With: Christmas, Festival of Lights, Mama Jo, When I Married My Mother

I GOT A $EXY BACK (Yea-uh)

October 7, 2011 By Jo Maeder 1 Comment

After viewing an MRI of my lower back, I prayed New York neurosurgeon Dr. Ezriel Kornel wouldn’t utter the dreaded word “surgery.” He said, “You have a cyst in the ligaments around your L4 that has to come out.” I visualized a laparoscopic number with a tiny scar and I’d be back home the same day. Then he said, “I recommend fusing the L4 with spondylolosthesis (slipped vertebra) with the L5 to stabilize the area, remove the disc, replace it with OptiMesh that turns into bone and insert permanent titanium hardware of two screws, a rod and a clamp.”

Filed Under: Advice, Personal Essay Tagged With: Dr. Ezriel Kornel, spinal fusion, spinal fusion recovery

BETWEEN THE COVERS WITH JOHN WATERS

August 27, 2011 By Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

I’ve just finished John Water’s latest funhouse of memories and musings, Role Models. There’s a spray of pink slips of paper sprouting from the top of it now – markers of captivating passages. I know, I know. With an e-reader you can highlight, search for keywords and deodorize a room at the same time. I’d rather run my hand over the nicely textured cover and use pieces of paper, thank you. That is, until someone gives me an e-reader (the one that shows colors, please).

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Baltimore, Cy Twombly, filth, John Waters, Johnny Mathis, Lee Lozano, Little Richard, non-coupling, Rei Kawakubo, Role Models, Tennessee Williams, therapy

QUICKIE Q&A: SONYA SONES

August 25, 2011 By Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

@SonyaSones California

writer, photographer, bicycler, dancer, author of THE HUNCHBACK OF NEIMAN MARCUS and WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN’T KNOW, a Top Ten Most Banned Book of The Decade!

http://www.sonyasones.com

There’s so much to say about Sonya, do check out her site. One of my all time favorite book titles belongs to her: ONE OF THOSE HIDEOUS BOOKS WHERE THE MOTHER DIES. That was before I actually wrote such a book! And I still love it.

Filed Under: Author interview, Book Review Tagged With: empty nest, Hunchback of Neiman Marcus, marital fights, Oreos, Sonya Sones, YA

Jo Maeder

QUICKIE Q&A: KAREN DISNER/JUNE GARDENS/BYE BYE, PIE

QUICKIE Q&A: RANDY POE

QUICKIE Q&A: ELEANOR BROWN

SURPRISE!

FADED PHOTOGRAPHS

MY FUR CHILD

HOLIDAY REMINISCENCES AND REGRETS

I GOT A $EXY BACK (Yea-uh)

BETWEEN THE COVERS WITH JOHN WATERS

QUICKIE Q&A: SONYA SONES

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