Jo Maeder

Author

Mother’s Day without Mama

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This Mother’s Day, 2016, marks the eleventh one without Mama Jo. It’s always been tinged with sadness since her passing, but this one will be particularly hard. I recently completed reading and editing the audiobook of When I Married My Mother. I read it once. Didn’t like the way I did my mother’s parts. Re-read them […]

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Q&A: Daniel De Vise on Andy Griffith, Don Knotts, Mayberry misfits and affairs, and unusual gifts from fans

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On behalf of all of The Andy Griffith Show fans, I’d like to thank Daniel de Visé for writing Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show. It’s extremely well-researched and includes 35 great photographs. Not a surprise given all the awards (including a Pulitzer) de Visé has earned. […]

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Q&A: Candace Bushnell on KILLING MONICA, what Hollywood needs to do, privacy, reinvention, Mom, and more

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                It’s indeed a pleasure to welcome Candace Bushnell to my ongoing author Q&As. Ms. Bushnell, of Sex and the City, Lipstick Jungle and The Carrie Diaries  fame, talked to me about her new novel Killing Monica (Grand Central Publishing, 2015). Killing Monica  is classic Candace Bushnell and yet […]

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Savory Smackdown

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Does it ever seem like the Foodie Nation has gone cuckoo? You know, “Sand-blasted Galician shitake-nuanced gluten-free crostini made from stalactite flour grown on the moon.” What created this multi-layered/cultural obsession with food?, I asked Executive Chef Gregory Rollins, sitting next to me at the high-energy “Got to be NC” Competition Dining Series event we were […]

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Buried words of wisdom

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  I’m going through two trunks of stuff related to a documentary I once tried to make about my aunt, Julie Arden, and her companion Charlotte Brooks. I’m determined to whittle it down to one big box. It should be easy. Just don’t look too closely. Keep the essentials. Toss, toss, toss. I find scraps […]

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Casey Kasem and His End-of-life Family Drama: How Can You Avoid Something Similar?

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In 1997, I was honored to present a prestigious radio industry award to one of my heroes in the business, Casey Kasem. The sordid drama that unfolded around his death made headlines around the world. As author of the national bestseller WHEN I MARRIED MY MOTHER: A Daughter’s Search for What Really Matters – and […]

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A Meeting with Maya Angelou and Unexpected Gifts

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I interviewed Maya Angelou for the Greensboro News & Record’s Go Triad arts section in the fall of 2010. She lived in the next town over, Winston-Salem, NC, and was releasing a cookbook for the holidays. I was nervous meeting an icon whose work I had admired greatly for decades, especially after being instructed to only refer […]

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Q&A with TERESA ENGEBRETSEN, THE SABBATICAL CHEF

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Teresa Engebretsen has been teaching French to middle school students at Durham Academy in Durham, NC, for over 30 years. Often she takes her students on field trips to France. Her blog The Sabbatical Chef began when she took a sabbatical from teaching in 2008, lived in Arles, and worked with a French chef. It’s […]

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Shirley Temple: The girl, the woman, the dolls

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I’ve now been in the doll adoption business about 18 months. If I had to pick the one with the most universal, indestructible appeal, it would be Shirley Temple in all her various sizes and outfits. Barbie is too polarizing. Madame Alexander dolls too prissy. No one dislikes Shirley Temple. She appeals to a goodness and […]

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