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Jo Maeder

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Recent Posts

  • PASSION ALWAYS WINS: How Lenny Horowitz Helped Transform Me and Miami’s South Beach Almost Fifty Years Ago
  • WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE JAPANESE
  • MY TRAIL CAMERA OBSESSION: Tips and Triumphs from Spying on Wildlife
  • SUMO WRESTLING: How I unexpectedly fell in love with an ancient Japanese tradition
  • MASKS FOR LIFE: Wearing a mask is liberating. I’m not saying good-bye for good to mine yet.

Archives

BURIED WORDS OF WISDOM: Love, loss and what I tossed. Or didn’t.

March 23, 2015 by Jo Maeder 8 Comments

  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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Filed Under: Essay, Grief, Love, Relationships

CASEY KASEM: His End-of-life Family Drama and Avoiding Something Similar Yourself

June 16, 2014 by Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

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 has unfolded recently around his death made headlines around the world. As author of a memoir about caring for my mother at the end of her life, I’ve become […]

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Filed Under: Essay, Family, Pop Culture Tagged With: Alison Steele, Casey Kasem, dying with dignity, end-of-life family drama

MAYA ANGELOU: A Meeting and an Unexpected Gift

May 28, 2014 by Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

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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Filed Under: Cooking/recipes, Entertaining, Essay, Maya Angelou Tagged With: cookbook, daughters, Maya Angelou, mothers, recipes

SHIRLEY TEMPLE: The girl, the woman, the dolls

February 19, 2014 by Jo Maeder 2 Comments

I’ve now been in the doll adoption business about 18 months. If I had to pick the one doll 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 […]

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Filed Under: Dolls, Essay, Family, Pop Culture Tagged With: grief, Mama Jo's House of Dolls, Shirley Temple autobiography, Shirley Temple Black, Shirley Temple dolls, The 700-doll question

THE 700-DOLL QUESTION

May 8, 2013 by Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

Just in time for Mother’s Day, here’s my essay on the laughter and tears of selling my mother’s dolls that I wrote for The New York Times. Be sure to check out the slideshow as well as the short video made by the very talented Jacob Rosdail. Mama Jo had several Mother & Child dolls in her collection. Here are two that I […]

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Filed Under: Dolls Tagged With: Dolls, grief, Jacob Rosdail, Magge Head Kane, The 700-doll question, The New York Times, Wake Forest University documentary program

The First Top 10 Forever Home Photo Contest Winners!

April 7, 2013 by Jo Maeder 7 Comments

Photos of me by Mama Jo To commemorate the anniversary of my mother’s heavenly ascent, I’m introducing the Forever Home Photo Contest using photos sent to me by new “moms” and “dads” of her dolls. Mama Jo loved to take photos. Many were of her/our dolls. Whimsy was never in short supply in her world, nor […]

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Filed Under: Contest, Dolls

Q&A with Carol Miller: Rock DJ, Led Zeppelin Expert, Cancer Survivor (Part 2, the Outtakes)

March 22, 2013 by Jo Maeder 2 Comments

Part 1 of my interview with New York legendary rock DJ and Led Zeppelin expert Carol Miller ran in the New York Times. Click here to read it and here to listen to the accompanying podcast. This is what was cut out. Behind Carol’s glamorous life is more than forty years of dealing with familial […]

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Filed Under: Author Q&A

Q&A with Carol Miller: Rock DJ, Led Zeppelin Expert, Cancer Survivor (Part 1)

March 5, 2013 by Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

  I’ve known of Carol Miller since the day she spoke her first word on the New York airwaves in the 1970s. I was an aspiring DJ myself then. There were so few women on the radio that word spread quickly when a new one infiltrated the all boys camp. Seems crazy today, doesn’t it? […]

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Filed Under: Author Q&A Tagged With: Carol Miller DJ, Classic rock, genetic cancer, Led Zeppelin. staying young, Q-104.3FM, rock radio

CALL OF THE WILD: Fine Dining, Traditions and Roadkill

February 25, 2013 by Jo Maeder Leave a Comment

“I hit a fox last night.” I told Rita this as we drove up Lawndale Drive toward Summerfield, just after we’d passed a small carcass on the side of the road. It was late, the streets empty, the air filled with the sweet sadness of a fleeting summer night. “It dashed in front of my […]

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Filed Under: Essay

CUTE OR CREEPY? Mama Jo’s House of Dolls Captivates Media

October 5, 2012 by Jo Maeder 2 Comments

Do you think dolls are cute or creepy? Most people fall in one camp or the other. Yet every culture has dolls. Why? My theory is they go back to when a cave woman made one to amuse her kid while she rubbed two sticks together to make a fire. Or perhaps she lost a […]

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Filed Under: Dolls, Pop Culture

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